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I woke up multiple times during the night thinking I heard something trying to get at the food. I even got up one time to check. The hanging food was safe. Dana forgot about the PB in her pannier and when we got up, we found the racoon(s) had opened all our bags and got into many of them. Stuff was strewn around the campsite. They even tried to eat at my tool bag and bag of oil and rags. They did get away with one of the PB jars which apparently satisfied them enough to not look for the second one. The bags were coated inside and out with sand and racoon prints. Fortunately, they know how to open the buckles, so no damage to the bags themselves.
With that start to our last day on the road, we retrieved our food from the untouched hanging bag, made our coffee and breakfast, and readied to get on the road for the 58 miles to Goshen. The ride was on quiet back roads for the early part. At least until we got to Buchanan, where Dana made a stop to visit the dispensary — all legal in MI. From there to Elkhart, the roads weren’t so friendly.
While still in Michigan, there were still shoulders, but that advantage was gone once we crossed into Indiana. Worse drivers, too. Forcing people off the other side of the road rather than waiting 10 seconds to safely pass. Before that, however, we had to seek shelter between Niles and the MI border, as it had started raining. I somehow spotted a small shelter on a trail that was off of the main road and yelled to Dana to get there quickly. We got under it just as the skies opened up and we waited out the storm mostly dry. It was over in about a half hour and the sun came out as if nothing had happened. We continued on to Elkhart, dodging the Friday-afternoon-before-labor-day-pickup-the-kids-at-school traffic.
Once we got into Elkhart, we got on the Mapleheart trail which would take us right to Goshen. We did get off of it for a while to go to a store to pick up a gift and card for Sarah’s & Curtis’ son Elam. It was his birthday and they would be out celebrating when we arrived and then having a few of Elam’s friends over for a sleepover. We got back on the trail, got to Goshen, had a celebratory end-of-the-tour beer, took showers, then unloaded the bikes and headed to downtown Goshen for their First Friday happening.
First Friday was quite an affair. Four city blocks in a “+” configuration were blocked off for the evening. We locked up the bikes and I walked the fest and went to listen to the Beer Choir while Dana took care of some emails and texts. We rejoined and walked the fest again and Dana resisted buying a jacket from a vendor, though it appeared to be a very hard choice. 😉 We ended the evening at an Indian Restaurant for their buffet — not Indian Pavilion quality, but we filled up right well enough. We rode back to Sarah’s and spent time with her and Curtis while the boys were playing various games (including the old standard, hide & seek, which was refreshing to see win out over e-games!).
Since we expected the boys would be up late and they were also using the spare bedrooms (we knew this before deciding to come on Friday), we set up “camp” in the car as rain was expected and I was unofficially “off duty” from tent setup. I did use the tent to jerry rig a car-camp to keep the mosquitoes at bay and it worked well until the thunderstorm started, at which point we balled up the tent onto the bike hitch and pulled the hatch down. Because of the rain, the bugs were kept at bay and we were able to get back to sleep, another tour in the books!
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