Travel On a Bicycle Built for Two: Day Sixty Nine - Midland, Michigan to Frankenmuth, Michigan

Day 69

July 24th

Friday

54 Miles

Midland, Michigan to Frankenmuth, Michigan

The H Hotel was very comfortable so it was a little hard to leave this morning. Leaving on the bike route through Midland gave us a good tour of the city. We enjoyed our time there and it seems like a pleasant place to live. The people were very nice and cars gave us plenty of room on the roads.

We rode to Bay City on flat back roads through farm land. In Bay City they have a bike path to take you through and around the city. It starts out good but this was by far the worst bike path we have been on. Much of it is on narrow sidewalk and not signed making it very difficult to follow. It took us longer to get through Bay City than we felt it could have.

Once out of Bay City we were again on flat back roads through farm land with a few trees. Four miles of this part of the route was on bike path close to Frankenmuth. This bicycle path was smooth and most of it lined with trees and shrubs filled with birds. We saw a woodpecker with a red head & black and white body. The closer we got to Frankenmuth the old farm houses took on a distinct style we have not seen before today. We looked it up on Wikipedia to find out this was Franconian-style architecture that can be found in most areas of Frankenmuth. The city's name is a combination of two words. "Franken" represents the Province of Franconia in the Kingdom of Bavaria, home of the Franks, where the original settlers were from. The German word "Mut" means courage; thus, the name Frankenmuth means "courage of the Franconians." The area was settled and named in 1845 by conservative Lutheran immigrants.

We camped at Yogi Bear's Jelly Stone Park in Frankenmuth. It is the only camp ground in the area. Since we were on a bicycle they gave us a discount. This is a nice park with grass, shade, and clean facilities. Definitely the perfect setting for families with young children. Kids were having a great time.

The campground had a free shuttle to downtown Frankenmuth so we took advantage of the service. We ate a burger at the Frankenmuth Brewery and enjoyed an ice cold Root Beer made by the brewery. There was an arts festival, dancers, groups singing, and old fire trucks cruising around. This weekend is the annual Fire Truck Festival to be kicked off with a parade Saturday morning.