Weekend Wandering

 Saturday May 15, 2021 - 22.3 miles (feels like another rest day)

Life is short.  Never pass up an opportunity for ice cream

 Saturday finds us riding to Bay City State Park.  We woke up super early and didn't even make our normal oatmeal breakfast.  We just wanted to get out on the road.   We left the county park at 7:30 am and made it all the way to Bay City by sometime around 10:30am.  I guess it was a pretty easy ride.  This part of Michigan is so FLAT!  The bike trail we took was great and we even stopped for scones and coffee at Petit 4 Pastry in Essexville.  

Bay City State Park is packed with families .  There must be 150 children under the age of 8 all riding bicycles and scooters or roller skating around the park roads.  Our site is located in a very small and quiet loop but when we take a walk around we see that the rest of the campground is just one big family reunion.

There is a nice nature trail through a wetlands and a vast sandy beach.  We decide to take a ride on the dune trail boardwalk and explore the Tobico Beach nature area.  

  Sunday, May 16, 2021 - 42.6 miles Bay City State Park to Au Gres City Park Campground

Au Gres is a beautiful town.  I wish we had our kayaks here.  The town marina is nice and the water is so calm.

The most exciting thing that happened on this day is that Tom caught this enormous bass right in the river that flows in front of our campsite.  It is the biggest bass either of us have ever seen.  It is spawning season and the game laws for Michigan say that we cannot keep bass.   

Tom responsibly returns him to the river and he dives right down and swims swiftly away.  Because he is only carrying a pack rod with 8 pound test and no landing net, Tom has to lay down on his stomach and lift that bass up out of the river by its mouth.  It is very exciting!

I am glad I had a camera for this moment!

This area was flooded last year when the lake was high.

We do some laundry in the laundomat and eat some miscellaneous leftover food.  Tomorrow we will go to Tawas Point where I am hoping we will see lots of migrating birds.  Hopefully, some warblers will be going through and who knows what else.  We have been hearing yellow warblers as we ride along but we rarely see them at the rate we are going.    Tomorrow  is a pretty short day again and part way along we should be able to take some bike path and get off busy Route 23.