Brian Richardson

We’re in Petoskey, MI, taking our double break day with our friend Alex from scouts. The Broz family was kind enough to let a couple of smelly bikers post up at their home for three whole nights, and for that we are very grateful.

Our day began with the usual break day maintenance: washing the bikes, tightening cables, cleaning and lubing chains, etc. We’ve put about 2700 in this trip, and now is the time when our bikes could start to have problems if we don’t take good care of them.

In the afternoon, we went to the Lake Michigan beach in Petoskey State Park. We swam, lounged on the beach, and took turns tubing out on the water. In a previous blog post, I talked about having ‘type 2 fun,’ which is miserable while it’s happening, but fun in retrospect. Our day at the beach was type 1 fun, which means it was just plain enjoyable.

Throughout the day, Alex smoked a beef brisket that we had for dinner, along with a delicious array of home cooked foods made by his family. Afterwards, we walked into downtown Petoskey to watch the 4th of July parade and see Alex’s cousin play drums with the famous Petoskey High School marching band. To top it off, we had ice cream at Murdick’s and walked down to the breakwall to jump into Little Traverse Bay.

The sun doesn’t go down until 9:30, so it’s not likely that I’ll be awake for the fireworks tonight. With all that we did today, I feel as tired as I would after an 80 mile day. But that’s okay because we have another zero day tomorrow!