Ready for a rest day

Only 30 + miles today.

I am sitting in the great B&B we will be staying at for two nights listening to thunder roar, watching lightning flash, and not worrying at all. We rode very gently into Michigan, our seventh state, we stopped for a quick lunch in Crystal Falls and headed a few miles north. Jim came out to meet us in the car. He told us we were headed for a gravel road, and assured us it would not be cheating to accept a ride - we are about eight miles off the official route and will just be riding back to resume our journey on Monday- and besides, he was at a loose end. Poor Aline twisted her ankle on their walk this morning & was resting. We weren't hard to persuade. We hopped in, came to this very nice place, took long baths and are looking forward to doing very, very little for a whole day.

I am sitting in the great room surrounded by stuffed animals. Not the toy store variety. There is a raccoon climbing the support post of the staircase. A bobcat stares down from the rock chimney. A moose head graces the wall above the back door. A black bear reaches hopefully for a mud-based hive hanging from one of the interior logs of this log building. So who cares if it's raining? The wildlife viewing is great right here. For the more domestic of us, there are a couple of (not stuffed! very active) dogs and a cat. The perfect setting for a very welcome quiet day.

Another random observation: signs showing family names outside their houses - usually out by the mailbox. The trouble is, a distressingly high proportion of the people producing the signs have declared war on Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots and Leaves. If she were to come here with her apostrophe removal kit, she would have one big job ahead of her. The thing is, they all want to call themselves the Brown's, or the Miller's. Maybe I should be more charitable in my assumptions. Maybe the woods are full of single, possessive people. Maybe that's not much more charitable?

Miles today: 34
Total miles so far: 2662