Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
15
The Wet Guy
Monday, September 26, South Haven, Michigan
T
Three thousand miles into my trans-America bicycle journey—my odometer clicked
over Saturday, just north of Holland—I've finally been stymied by the weather. I had an
exceedingly pleasant (and guilt-free—take that, Terence) passage across Lake Michigan
on the high-speed ferry from Milwaukee to Muskegon, during which I made occasional
forays on deck to stand up to a cold and assertive wind that seemed capable of slinging
me overboard. But since then I've been pinned by that same wind to the eastern shore of
the lake, heading south.
It has also been raining, so my last two days in the saddle have been relatively short
and very damp.
Well, a day and a half, actually. Saturday morning it drizzled off and on, but I stayed
mostly dry on the ride south from Muskegon on Lakeshore Drive—which does run along
the lake though you're really riding through wooded residential areas—and I even had
some company. A local bike club was out for a ride, and a couple of their more leisurely
minded members escorted me to Holland. There I followed Ottawa Beach Road along a
peninsula to the state park, a vast sandy expanse that was almost deserted on a chilly,
threatening day, with a striking, bright red lighthouse (known locally as Big Red) stand-
ing sentry at the end of a strait separating Lake Michigan from Macatawa, an inland bay.
It got a little chilly out there, so I rode downtown for lunch in a fancy diner frequented,
evidently, by students from Hope College when their parents are visiting.
The weather was looking a little sketchy, and I could have stayed in Holland, prob-
ably should have, but I pushed on another twenty miles or so to the town of Saugatuck,
an upscale quaint village (that's a bit of an oxymoron, but you know what I mean) spe-
cializing in art galleries and harborside restaurants. I didn't see much of it because I rode
