Day 7 - Grand Haven to Alto
Woke around 8:00am and had the best breakfast on this trip eggs, bacon, potatoes and orange juice, thanks Kathy for making all that happen.
Got on the road around 9:30am and headed south toward Holland. 11:00am the headwinds and heat started to build up, heat does not bother me too much, but I will never get used to headwinds. Today was an uneventful day, I stopped at a Subway around 2:00pm somewhere southwest of Grand Rapids and people pretty much kept to themselves, or maybe I made myself unapproachable not too sure what it was. So it was one of those days of just ride and keep on riding to get to your end point for the day. As I started heading east I had tailwinds which improved my avg for the day, but had some rolling hills to deal with.
Around 3:30pm I arrive at my destination at the Tyler Creek County Club and campground. Park my bike in front of the clubhouse all hot and sweaty, I see people in suites and well dressed people walking around and I thought wow a real nice county club with a campground, I hope they will let a smelly sweater biker in their club house, I walk in and the help was frantically running around doing things where I stood at the check-in desk for a few minutes, but no one was helping me and trying to get someone's attention. My gut was that I'm right, who wants to help this sweaty old dude that looks like a homeless guy off the street wearing spandex bicycle shorts. I may need to go somewhere else, but then someone stopped and ask me if I needed any help. I ask if any sites are available and is they have a rustic site (don't need electricity) and it was $25, normally its $20, but it was a holiday weekend even though its July 7th, holiday rates were still in effect. I pay the $25 and get a site next to a stream. Setup camp, take a shower and decide that I will eat at the country club grill.
The skies start to open up and it downpours just as I was arriving at the club. As I was running to the Club House I see that a large crowd congregating at the back of the clubhouse under a tent and then I see limos. When I first arrived at the county club, it was the parents of the groom and bride who were inside making everyone run around when I walked in and that Mr. Homeless was very low priority on their list. I sit down order a beer and I looked at the menu which was on a chalkboard behind the bar, I proceeded to order a burger and fries from the bartender, She replied we cannot make any burgers or fries because all of the grills and deep-fryers are being utilized for the Wedding. I then asked if you can sell me 2 Hotdogs and I can cook them over a campfire or on my camping stove. She refused to sell me raw hotdogs and I explained to her that all hotdogs are already fully cooked and they are not raw. The only thing that was available for consumption were bags of Chips, Doritos and Pretzels. I order another Labatt's Blue started to walk around and took a look at the back of the clubhouse to see what was happening at the wedding party, and low an behold rest of the people attending the wedding and are not as well dressed. I thought only if I could dress it up one more notch, I could crash this thing, but I opted out of that plan. I needed a minimal of dress slacks, but I had a golf shirt with me. Back to survival mode, not exactly survival mode because having Labatt's Blue beers @ $2 each and chips and pretzels is not technically survival mode. So I eat Pretzels, Barbecue potato chips, Doritos, more pretzels a total 4 bags in all, if I only had a bag Pork Rinds this would have topped everything off. The rain finally stopped after finishing off my 4th beer, I then order 2 more to go and buy a cigar for $7 at the Golf shop where my total tab was $19. Get back to my camp site and make some pasta, olive oil with hot sauce. I checked over my bicycle and noticed I broke another spoke and replace it. I get my fishing pole do some fishing in the stream get a few nibbles, smoke a cigar and drink the rest of the beers, it was a relaxing end of day.
No comments:
Post a Comment