Into the smoke from the Canadian fires

Sunrise in a smokey haze

We have made our way across most of Michigan, but with a couple of days of severe smokey haze from the Canadian fires north of here.  At one point I saw the air quality index was as high as 535 on a scale of 600 being the worst.  Luckily we had some rain last night and some strong winds today to get rid of some of the smoke, but it is already building up again as we will leave the area just north of Detroit and ride into Canada tomorrow.

The sun is just an orange ball in the sky

With the extremely bad air quality predicted for the next week, the tour company has agreed to let us stay in hotels for the next several days.  This has made a lot of us happy since the weather is also hot and humid for camping.  The hotels are at our own expense since we were supposed to be camping for  9 straight days, but nobody is complaining.  We are are all sharing rooms since we have become a pretty tight knit group.  I am rooming with Chuck for the next 4 days.

Me, Jocelyn, Glenn and Myles at the Glenside Cafe

We had another really good time at a local cafe in Muskegon after our ferry ride from Milwaukee.  A few of us stopped at the Glenside Cafe for dinner before heading to the hotel.  We were talking with the waitress about our trip across the country who then talked to the manager who couldn't believe what we were doing.  She gave all T-shirts and took our picture to put on their Facebook page.  

That is the second time in a week that we made Facebook.  We had stopped in a coffee shop in Jefferson, Wisconsin at the Tan-a-Latte where the same thing happened.  We had stopped there because nobody had heard of a coffee shop - tanning salon combo before.  It turned out to be the favorite local coffee shop and we talked to several of the locals who all thought we were nuts!

Route as of July 18 in Rochester Hills, MI

Current Stats:

  Location:  Rochester Hills, MI

  Miles Ridden:  3039 miles

  Feet Climbed:  112,460 Ft