Mile after mile rolled under my tires. I felt at times that I was on some sort of physical endurance test. The hills undulated relentlessly along this shoreline roadway. Wooded areas followed by sandy, grass covered meadows and then a creek would flow under the road with cattails and water lilies growing everywhere in the small ponds. Moving, even slowly limited my view of animal life but I almost nailed a groundhog I think with my front tire. Maybe it was a beaver but I didn't get a look at any flat tail. (It wasn't a platypus though, that's for sure. I didn't get that far off course.) A small unnamed town of closely nestled cottages sent me through it's streets twisting and turning to avoid huge trees, rocks and deep gorges with the buildings set amongst them as if pieces of an intricate puzzle. When it comes to the lake shore people can certainly become ingenious and tolerant just to be close to that jewel of nature. Picturesque doesn't even come close to this little town. But, I never saw a name. I plan on looking it up one of these days when I reminisce. Onward once again and the undulating hills returned along with more intense curves but the road itself was very smooth with only the occasional pothole. The fruitless orchards I passed between were a sad legacy of this unpredictable unusually hot spring, cold snap, and then the hot and dry summer. Not what we usually see: Branches bent with the sweet abundance of this area and the stands on the roadside touting boxes overflowing with dark mouth watering cherries. Nope, not this year. Somehow we'll make it. We always have. A long steady dropping turn to the left and I came across the bridge into Pentwater. Two guys leaning over the railing, cheering loudly and hauling in a huge fish from the channel. Might have been a cat, might have been any of a dozen other species. Huge will do in this case. Civilization came at me with the speed of light. More Later..........Joe