Day 10 - Grand Rapids?

Day 10 - Next Stop Grand Rapids

Can someone please explain to me the purpose of calling a city Grand Rapids when there are no rapids???

It's a nice place, a bit of a college town is how Paul described it, but there really is nothing much here unless you include a zoo, a beach (on a lake!), a museum or three, or maybe some sculptures... Of course there is the soon to be complete man-made rapids - we could go look at that?!

I have no idea what this is, but it glittered in the dark...

The hotel was great! Andy and I found a great bar - it had a rhino head mounted on the wall??
I didn't take a photo of that for some reason, but this one of Andy and me is better any way :-)

And how did we come to be stopping here anyway?

Well it's simple really. We decided that we weren't going to stop at Detroit. Too many people had said to us that it's nothing to bother with. It's just a city that's been abandon and is in a state of rebuild. So.... This means we have a spare day up our sleeves... and so we decide that we could bring Chicago forward a day; except for one small issue... Chicago is booked out and we can't move our accommodation date or hotel... The city is full!!

What to do? The decision is made to scrap Chicago, and Milwaukee too, and instead spend some more time in the south starting at Grand Rapids, go to Indianapolis, Lexington (Kentucky Bourbon region), and then over to Memphis and Nashville, before heading back to the Smokey Mountains for a couple of days riding through the mountains.

If there was one thing we learnt, doing the miles we are doing most days is best done on the Interstates if you want to reach there at a time that allows you to see stuff. Doing the back roads are OK, but take a lot of time. Having said that, since leaving Niagara, there isn't much in the way of mountains to ride anyway, so we are just sticking to the Interstates until tomorrow...

We did end up hitting the outskirts of Chicago as it was (we were within 20miles), so I waved and kept going.

Our new, intended route from here is:  http://goo.gl/tJ7Sp5

Other points of note: We all saw some wild turkey on the side of the road, except Paul, who never saw one...

Lesson learnt... When parking all the bikes together (with panniers still attached), make sure you leave yourself enough room to get out... (Paul)