This morning we woke up in our tent baking in the sun. As I up zipped the tent door to see our surroundings considering we set up in the dark once I realize that we have set our tent up on the side of the road in a residential area. We thought we were in the national forest.. oops.

We pack up and head to the trail head suggested by the local bike shop. It is in the Sealy section of the park and the terrain was very similar to Kettle Moraine. The first section was super flowy fun. Very similar to the Hydro loop at Raystown, but 5.1 miles long. The entire trail system has over 200 miles of linked single and double track. The other secitons of single track were pretty technical, off camber with roots. No jagger bushes or real elevation changes which was nice. Very green and lush. The trail surface was a packed soil with sections of a sandy mixed soil. There were signs that advised 'no skidding' to help keep the trials from erroding on the small hills that did exsist. We saw a wolf bolt across the trail here. Very Cool. In the Sealy section every intersection had a map and a 'you are here' sticker which made navigation pretty easy. That is until we rode up into the 'cable section' of the single track where there were only numbers at the intersection.

The problem is we didn't have a map that corresponded to those numbers. Our 15-20 mile ride turned into a 36.5 mile ride. Somewhere between mile 28-30 we both had a moment of bush flashing dilirium. I have visions of picking up my bike an throwing it over a hill side. MB went to conquor the trail by peeing on it, but was so sweaty and sticky she couldn't pull her shorts back up. We laughed until we were able to coax ourselves to put our monkey butts back in the saddle and pedal out of there.

The other problem with this ride is the bugs. Everytime we stopped you were swarmed with mosquitos, inch worms and ticks. After we finally found our way back to the car aching, hungary, dehydrated, and tired. As we picked up our bikes, and started getting changed MB started to do an 'insect induced jig' across the parking lot. I pulled 6 ticks off of her. I did not have one except for the ones crawling off of the ground from rescuing her. We proceeded to find ticks in the car for the next week.

This was an experience that truly tested our ability as both friends and travel parners. It was agreed that if we could get through that as a team, the rest of this trip was going to be outstanding.

We drove an hour north to Red Cliff on lake Superior where we camped at a Chippewa casino called Legendary waters right off the edge of Lake Superior. They had great facilities and we took our much needed showers.

It was great to actually set up the tent in the light of day. This was our first relaxing moment of the trip. Campfires, beers, tequilla, and great conversation. I definitly picked the right travel companion for this adventure.