PALM XXIX

2009 Ride

PALM started on Saturday with a bang. I got soaked standing in line to put my bike on the truck and the bus we were on took a wrong turn: toward Detroit instead of Lansing. But we were still the first bus to Lexington. Registration was hectic with lots of riders taking over for riders that cancelled. And it was hot: portents of things to come. The week of PALM was the first hot week of summer.

Sunday we did the optional ride to Grant and were rewarded with lots of great views of Lake Michigan. We started later than most (9:00AM after working registration.) The ride was thru a vacation area of lakes and forests. (We went by Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp.) It started with a few small rolling hills and ended with a few larger rolling hills. We skipped lunch which was a mistake because of the heat but drank lots of water. The SAGs made sure that there was always plenty of water (and licorice) available.

The Monday ride to Stanton flattened out. Here the forests and lakes were replaced by farms. They grew a different variety of crops than we usually see: potatoes, carrots, onions, and grains. The corn here was pretty small. We saw a lot of horses, a lot more horses than cows, and stopped for a second breakfast by Sand Lake. There we talked to a triathelete who takes a bike path 30 miles to work.

Tuesday was pretty much a straight shot to St. Charles. Literally. We were on the same long flat road the whole way, with corn or soy beans all the way to the horizon in each direction. The only thing that changed was the name of the road at the county line. We forgot how to turn our handlebars or make turn signals. However it was downhill with a tailwind the whole way. We took a six mile loop in the middle to go around Crystal Lake to break up the route. It was hot (again) but I did a lot better drinking water. We stopped at a Mennonite bakery in Ithaca for lunch and at a roadside stand for strawberries. It was laundry day for us at St. Charles. I managed to split the end of a tent pole, but Tom and Dave of DK Bikes fixed me up.

Wednesday was the hottest day yet, reaching well into the 90s. Still farms, so there was not a lot of shade. A new crop today though: sugar beets. The route went thru Frankenmuth, one of Michigan's top tourist attractions, so there was a lot to do. We ate lunch in an air conditioned (!!) restaurant, but pizza, not chicken. I didn't know there was anything but chicken in Frankenmuth. We encountered our first railroad tracks of the tour. The evening's entertainment was the Pickle Band, a commuity based big band. They really loved to play and their performance showed it.

Thursday it finally cooled down a bit: 83. We were supposed to have rain overnight, thunderstorms by 10:00AM, and rain throughout the afternoon. All wrong. It did rain after dinner but only lightly and for 30 minutes. We got the earliest start of this year's PALM (7:30AM) to beat the weather. We finished before 1:00 PM and got to help unload the baggage trucks for the first time this PALM. The route through the Thumb was beautiful. The rolling terrain and the variety of crops on each farm gave the landscape more interest. The farmhouses were old, well maintained, and very impressive. (Amish country) We visited a cyber cafe in Caro for brownies and cappuccino. There was a flyover by a fighter jet from Selfridge at the watermelon stop. We met a PALM rider who was rescuing a large turtle from the road and transporting it to a suitable wetland. We met a SAG whose daughters were carrying a life sized picture of a friend who couldn't be on this year's PALM. (She was doing an internship in Alaska.) They were including this picture in all their snapshots to persuade their friend that she was in fact on this year's PALM.

Friday was a half day ride to Lexington, followed by a parade and a box lunch. Everyone wore this year's PALM tshirt which was orange. It was inspiring to look ahead to see a ribbon of orange on the right of the road for as far as you could see. We stopped in Croswell to see the swinging bridge and to have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. If you add enough sugar even I can eat rhubarb pie. The magnificent view of Lake Huron from the public beach helped relieve the disappointment of the end of PALM for this year. Now it's back home to pay bills and weed the garden.

Pictures from PALM 2009

This is a link to all of Dotties 426 official PALM photos. You can view them using the thumbnails or view them as a slideshow. Enjoy.

Ellie Knesper sent us this link to her PALM 2009 photos. She is the one who answers all your PALM questions, either by phone or by email. She broke her pelvis in February but was able to ride her 27th PALM.

Ken Kaye sent us a picture diary of his first time PALM with his six year old son Daniel. It captures exactly what PALM means to us and what we want everyone to experience.

Cate Dofer sent us this link to a neat picture/video diary of PALM 2009. She also sent us links to blogs she did on PALM 2008 and for PALM 2007, Part 1 and Part 2.

Kathy Supplee sent us this link to her and her daughter's experiences on PALM this year.

If you have memories, highlights, pictures, blogs, comments etc. that you would like to share, please send them to me and I'll add them to the web site.