I am writing this post from Luddington, Michigan, a beach town on the shores of Lake Michigan.  I am now two-thirds of way through the trip!

This morning I was in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.  I needed to pedal 57 miles before 1 pm in order to get to the ferry that would take me across the lake.

At home I try to cram as many things into each day as possible and don’t leave much slack in my schedule.  On this bike trip lots of unexpected things have happened so I decided that I needed to leave extra early in case something unforeseen occurred.

I left the window shapes in my motel open so that the rising sun would get me up.  During the night I was treated to a spectacular lightening and thunderstorm that lasted a long time. With the storm came a torrential rain.  I was quite glad the storm was happening while I was safe in the motel.

I was on the road at 6:30 am.  My goal was to be at the ferry by 11 am, which would give me two hours in case anything went wrong.

Fond Du Lac has a large number of bike trails.  The streets had puddles but the bike trails  were dry.  I was pedaling along nicely, making good time on a trail when Google maps told me I needed to get off the bike trail and turn right.  The bike trail ended, however, with a left hand turn.

I decided to peddle along the sidewalk for a few feet and take the first driveway on the right.  There was a puddle at the end of the driveway but I was more concerned with looking for cars driving down the road I was merging onto than splashing through a puddle.

The puddle, however, was not what I expected.  It was actually a huge pothole.  My front tire went into the pothole and I ended up on the ground.  Wow!  That was unexpected.  Luckily, I was going very slowly.

Another bicyclist was there within one minute, asking if I was okay.  I checked the bike.  It looked fine.  I checked myself. I felt okay.  So there was only one thing to do.  Get back on the bike and continue pedaling to the ferry.

I spent a lot of time thinking about why I didn’t have a bike crash for the past 30 years and then crashed twice this trip.  My conclusion is that I am not getting enough rest and pushing myself each day to my physical limit.  Being over-tired and sore is making me sloppy.

The rest of the ride to the ferry was uneventful.  I went past numerous dairy farms, many proudly advertising that they provide milk for “Land o’Lakes” products.

I pulled into the ferry terminal at 11 am, which was two hours before when I needed to be there.  The boat had very nice lounge chairs on the bow.  I took one and then had a long nap in the sun.  The boat ride across Lake Michigan was uneventful.  The lake was calm and peaceful.

Luddington, Michigan seems like a nice town, but I will not have a long time to explore it since tomorrow I am back on the road to complete the last third of the journey.