Vickie's Ramblings: New Buffalo

I am in New Buffalo Mich for the week, staying in a house with some of my biking friends from the Underground Railroad and norther tier bike rides, two from Nebraska, one from New York, and one from Ohio. This house is truly huge: we each have our own bedroom and bathroom, there's a big screened-in porch, kitchen, two patios with grill and firepit, at least three indoor fireplaces, large living rooms both upstairs and down, I don't know how many big screen tvs (none of which we've turned on). The shower in my bathroom has 10, count 'em, 10 nozzles: a "normal" one and 4 variously pointing waist-level ones on each side. It's like a stand-up hot tub / steam room, quite wonderful. There's another one of these shower in another bathroom, and two of the bathrooms have 2-person jacuzzi tubs.

I've finally gotten rained on. We started out for a bike ride this morning but only made it about a half mile before Lynn and I decided we'd had enough. I brought a raincoat but that's all-- no long pants, no full gloves, no shoe covers, no helmet cover. That added to the fact that I'm riding in sandals just seemed to make for a bit more damp and chilly than I would enjoy. Christine, Debbie, and Rebecca, intrepid souls that they are, rode on while Lynn and I retired to the local espresso shop.

And why, you might ask, am I riding in sandals? Because I forgot my dang bike shoes! Luckily Rebecca brought an extra bike with non-clipless pedals (It seems like that should make them clipped pedals, doesn't it? ) I had to go begging for help at the local auto parts store, where they kindly loaned me one of their wrenches and he-men to remove the pedals so I could put them on my bike.

So, yesterday we had a beautiful 37 mile ride in sunshine, and tomorrow promises more of the same. We visited Warren Dunes State Park, had a gourmet lunch in downtown Sawyer, and then toured the bicycle museum in Three Oaks, where we found the mother lode of bike route information for Michigan.

We spent some time talking to the museum proprietor, Who started the museum and the Three Oaks Spokes bike club in 1974 . They currently have about 60 members, and their own clubhouse attached to the museum. the club puts on a ride called the Apple Cider Century every September, limited to 6000 people. In their clubhouse they have an impressive display of Apple Cider Century tshirts going back to at least 1982.