Hitting Lake Michigan, the temperatures dropped significantly, but the winds thankfully remained at our backs, giving us just enough of a push that makes pedaling feel so easy. The difference between the wind at our back verses in our faces makes such a difference and we can cover a great deal more miles when it is in our favor. We flew through the days, often taking multiple 1-2 hour breaks, and still managed to average over 70 miles/day.
Western Michigan changed from the farmlands, open fields, and birch trees of Wisconsin to old growth forests that lined the roads. Logging machines busily worked behind these tree lines, just far enough back from the road to create a barrier and an image that trees were not being cut down just feet away. It did make for a nice Christmasy smell, but breaks my heart seeing all of the loggers and the massive piles of logs.
More small towns with lone gas stations/convenient stores. Food is sometimes slim pickings and especially on this one particular day. Although hoping for a breakfast plate of pancakes and eggs, the closest restaurant was 10 miles in the wrong direction, so we opted for our next best choice, our first "pastie". I am assuming you now have the mental imagine of a mostly naked woman with few articles of clothing. We too made this mistake and have called them the same until this morning. It is past-ees, not paste-es. A pastie is thick dough shaped like a calzone and stuffed with potato, onion and a bit of meat. This was a speciality for the coal miners when food was scarce during the Great Depression. They would hold the crust end of the pastie with their soot covered fingers, eat the middle and throw the crust away when finished. In our opinion, the crust was the best part. The middle, not so much.
A small breakfast of splitting a pastie, we luckily came across a restaurant 2 hours later that advertised Swedish Pancakes. With food always on our minds, why yes, I think we will. We ordered one plate to share, which came with three extremely large, very thin pancake/crepes, served with hot local blackberry maple syrup. Yum. Yum. Yum. We ordered a second plate and probably could have eaten a third. The place is also a bed and breakfast and is in the "town" of Mill Valley. There really is not a reason to visit this town, but this small restaurant of 8 tables is definitely worth a stop. The little places we find along our ride are the hidden gems in our opinions. We love meeting the small town locals. Sitting back and hearing their conversations is such a treat.
Western Michigan changed from the farmlands, open fields, and birch trees of Wisconsin to old growth forests that lined the roads. Logging machines busily worked behind these tree lines, just far enough back from the road to create a barrier and an image that trees were not being cut down just feet away. It did make for a nice Christmasy smell, but breaks my heart seeing all of the loggers and the massive piles of logs.
More small towns with lone gas stations/convenient stores. Food is sometimes slim pickings and especially on this one particular day. Although hoping for a breakfast plate of pancakes and eggs, the closest restaurant was 10 miles in the wrong direction, so we opted for our next best choice, our first "pastie". I am assuming you now have the mental imagine of a mostly naked woman with few articles of clothing. We too made this mistake and have called them the same until this morning. It is past-ees, not paste-es. A pastie is thick dough shaped like a calzone and stuffed with potato, onion and a bit of meat. This was a speciality for the coal miners when food was scarce during the Great Depression. They would hold the crust end of the pastie with their soot covered fingers, eat the middle and throw the crust away when finished. In our opinion, the crust was the best part. The middle, not so much.
A small breakfast of splitting a pastie, we luckily came across a restaurant 2 hours later that advertised Swedish Pancakes. With food always on our minds, why yes, I think we will. We ordered one plate to share, which came with three extremely large, very thin pancake/crepes, served with hot local blackberry maple syrup. Yum. Yum. Yum. We ordered a second plate and probably could have eaten a third. The place is also a bed and breakfast and is in the "town" of Mill Valley. There really is not a reason to visit this town, but this small restaurant of 8 tables is definitely worth a stop. The little places we find along our ride are the hidden gems in our opinions. We love meeting the small town locals. Sitting back and hearing their conversations is such a treat.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am so happy to see you got to try pasties! They make me very nostalgic for the upper peninsula, some places make them better than others, so it sounds like you got a bid of a dud unfortunately...a place by my mom's house even sells vegan and gluten free pasties (which some people think of as an abomination, but I was quite impressed)!
ReplyDeleteP.S. I love the blog! =)
Pasties were great! We loved hearing why they were originally created.....to give the miners an easy way to eat lunch with dirty fingers. They would hold one corber of the crust with their fingers, eat the inside and toss the crust away. Which honestly was mind boggling because the crust was delicious!
Delete