Category: Biking

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Biking Michigan

Taking Star Line Ferry to Bike Mackinac Island and Loving the Library

 

We don’t often do “touristy” things, but when we do we make sure they are going to be epic! Our trip to Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) Island was no exception. Despite the many souvenir & fudge shops, gear rental and horse-drawn carriage tours all pulling for us to spend money, we managed to make our visit very #likeacurren and include quite a bit of wandering.

When We Visited: Sept 23, 2015

Ages of Kids: 10, 8, & 5

How We Got There: Star Line Mackinac Island Ferry

The Star Line Ferry runs from either Mackinaw City or St. Ignace out to Mackinac Island many times a day. You can see the rates and download the schedule here on their website. We chose to go over early so we’d have most of the day to spend there and still be able to drive an hour or so away when we got back.

Star Line also offer free parking and we had no problems parking both our trailer and truck in their back lot. After we parked we headed over to the ferry dock on our bikes.

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Check in was super easy! We got yellow tags to put on our bikes and then we stacked them to be loaded. After that we got in line and waited to board.

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The kids chose to ride on top and it was super windy! We had all brought jackets anyway (which was a good thing) and we quickly put them on. The wind drove Rachel a little crazy with her hair whipping all around, but we had fun!

Star Line Ferry boasts a “Fast, Frequent, Fun, and Friendly” Hydro-Jet Ferry with the signature water jet rooster tail. The boat was definitely fast and fairly smooth!

Depending on your ferry time, the boat also takes you out under the Mackinac Bridge which we loved.

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Mackinac Island is particularly special because there are no cars allowed on the island! Everyone gets around by bikes or horse draw carriages.

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More than 80% of the island is part of Mackinac Island State Park, and there are numerous bikes paths and trails. If you go through the island its pretty hilly, but we chose to do the 8.2 mile M-185 that goes around the entire island. It was flat and the kids did great!

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There were plenty of stops along the way to keep us entertained. We climbed the stairs to Arch Rock, walked the nature trail, and enjoyed reading a little history at the British landing.

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It was about lunch time when we got back downtown and we had heard from our friends over at Take That Exit that Island Slice Pizzeria was amazing – and it truly was! We got a BBQ pizza Detroit style and it was probably the BEST pizza I’ve ever eaten.

We also wandered around, watched one guy make fudge, and found some yummy ice cream.
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Our last stop, however, was the public library! We have a habit of finding local libraries and the kids have various books they grab and sit down and read for a bit.

Most amazing was the back porch with Adirondack chairs and an amazing view of the lake! I think we could’ve stayed there all day!

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We took the afternoon ferry back to Mackinaw City, except this time we opted to sit below out of the wind!

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We had an absolutely fabulous time over on Mackinac Island, and definitely recommend going. There are plenty of places to spend money, but the island is also a peaceful, out of the way retreat if you know where to look!

Sponsorship disclosure – We partnered with Star Line Ferry. In exchange for ferry tickets to Mackinaw Island we agreed to share our honest experience and review with our readers. All photos, opinions and content are ours. 

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Backpacking Biking Hiking Rock Climbing

The Truth About Our Outdoor, Adventure-Focused Family

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During our recent trip to Utah we had a surprising conversation with my family when I mentioned I was past ready to go on a hike but my kids weren’t going to like it.

“They aren’t going to like it?” my dad asked.

“Oh no,” I said. “They are going to whine and complain.”

I received looks of skepticism from all the adults in the room. After seeing picture after picture of our outdoor adventures, my family had apparently reached the conclusion that our kids never resisted our activities.

Let me clear this up: Our kids whine ALL the time about going outside to hike or bike or just even a walk. “Mom! This is NOT a short walk”, or “I’m tired” and even “I don’t want to go” are very common phrases in our household. Many days the kids would rather stay inside reading books (Rachel and Andrew), playing Lego’s (Cara), or sitting in front of a device playing Minecraft (all three).

The thing that makes the difference is that we go anyway, even when it’s hard. 90% of the difficulty is getting out the door and not giving up when ten things go wrong in the five minutes before you turn on the car and drive away. We’ve tested this theory over and over again throughout the last two years and every single time we all come home in a better mood. Every. Single. Time. With that kind of a track record, how can we not go?

I admitted in a past blog post that we are cheaters. Suburbia IS hard to get away from. Outdoor sports are less conveniently located, and its difficult to find wilderness (or even something resembling wilderness) in many places. In that sense, we have it easy because often just the act of getting OUT of the trailer is enough. There’s usually a bike path, or trails, or something in every state park we’ve stayed at so proximity is not the problem. We just have to overcome our mental laziness, which can sometimes be extremely difficult to do.

Just yesterday, our experience proved true yet again. After hearing complaints from ALL three children, we all went mountain biking as a family. It was chilly, difficult, and long. Cara even fell off her bike three times during the ride. It was very dark when we finished, and everyone was tired. But we were happy. We had accomplished something difficult together and all three children had smiles on their faces.

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Biking Minnesota

Sometimes You Just Gotta Mountain Bike Solo – Ironton, Minnesota

Mountain Biking in Ironton Minnesota

While we were mountain biking at Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Minneapolis, we started chatting with a woman who was there with her niece and nephew. She is an avid mountain biker and gave us a few other places in the state that had good trails. On our trek north, we ended up doing some service for natural disaster clean up near Brainerd, which put us darn close to the Cuyuna County State Recreation Area she had mentioned.

We took a chance that the campground was decent (and had an open spot) and drove over in the late afternoon. While the campground wasn’t much to look at (and Sam warned me to definitely NOT look in the bathrooms) it was smack dab in the middle of a trail system. This is great because we have become extremely lazy and prefer to ride right from camp rather than driving someplace and then unloading the bikes.

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We tested out a small section of trail with the kids our first evening, and even though they whined a bit, Rachel actually rode it again with Sam after we switched bikes (it was a much better ride on the 29er over the cyclo cross). The following day they weren’t interested in riding at all, so I snuck away in the afternoon to test out ALL the rest of the trails. Okay, I didn’t expect to ride them ALL but I was sure going to try.

11355114_1616909808598781_1271556149_nThe trails were awesome. The system consists of a series of networked trails that create quite a few loops. Some with pretty significant climbs, rollings hills or speedy downhill runs. I rode about 12 miles in just over two hours and when I texted Sam and asked how things were going and if I could do one more loop, he immediately responded with, “Go get ’em!”

I seriously love my husband.

While riding solo is definitely not ideal in case something drastic happens, its better than not riding at all. While at our sticks and bricks house, I would often not do an activity because I had no one to go with. It just didn’t seem fun or feasible. Now, however, I’ve learned that some alone time on the trails is not necessarily a bad thing jump at the chance to get out. Traveling has created more opportunities to get out and enjoy the sports I love!

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Biking Daily Life Michigan Mommy Diaries

At Least There Was a Caterpillar

SAM_4477-EditLife is always harder when Sam is gone. This was true back in our sticks and bricks, and even more so on the road. He always gives me my second wind around 5pm when I’m about to crash, and I love sharing responsibilities, fun, and chores (those pesky things) with my best friend.

Occasionally he still has business trips that take him away from home, and I try and keep everyone still breathing and functional on my own. I am two days into his current 3 day business trip and remarkably today went better than yesterday.

We are camped in a State Park that has a network of mountain biking trails and after getting out on my own yesterday (don’t worry, the kids were fine) I was determined to take them out today on what the locals assured me was an easier trail.

First off, you have to be a special kind of crazy to take three kids mountain biking by yourself especially when one of them is 5 years old and frequently interchanges her “tired” voice with her “whiny” voice. Both sound the same to me.

Fortunately the trail started out pretty level & smooth, but we gradually had sand, tree roots, and even a few climbs that included sand and tree roots.There was definitely more walking the bikes than riding them on the last half of the trail. When Endomondo called out our lap pace and indicated the last mile took us 33 minutes I just had to laugh.

The bright side of walking your bike up the trail is that you see things that otherwise would have been a blur. As I waited at the top of the hill I watched Andrew bend down and then exclaim, “Mom! This is a really cool caterpillar!”

And it was. I dropped my bike and trekked back down to see it. The little guy was fuzzy, white, and had black spots running down his back and was arguably one of the most interesting caterpillars we’ve seen. After we saved his life by moving him off the trail with a small twig, the kids continued pushing their bikes up the hill.

This time though there was a little more spring in their steps. Even if the trail was frustrating, slow, and a discouraging, at least there was a caterpillar.

Categories
Biking Minnesota

Mountain Biking (Off Road Cycling) in Minneapolis, MN

Urban Mountain Biking in Minneapolis was surprisingly awesome. The scoop on the parks we checked out and what we loved!Let’s start this post by saying we were aware of the love affair Minnesotans have for road cycling. They often plow the bike paths before the roads and ride (commute to work) all winter long. Minneapolis has some of the best (and arguably the most – sorry Portland!) bike paths we’ve ever seen.

What we didn’t know was that this love affair extended to off road cycling as well. I was amazed to visit two different areas around Minneapolis that had some really great mountain bike parks for all levels. We took our kids and had a blast!

Rachel and Andrew generally ride ahead with one parent while the parent on the cyclocross bike hangs back with Cara who is much, much slower. Sam and I will trade off who does which, but its definitely more a ride for the kids than for us and that’s fine. Instilling a love a mountain biking in my kids while they are young will pay out later when they are older I’m sure.

Lebanon Hills Regional Park (pdf of the trails)
Rachel Lebanon HillsLebanon Hills Regional Park is located in Dakota County on the south side of downtown Minneapolis. We camped across the road in the campground and Sam and I were both able to bike over to the trails. Since we wanted the kids to conserve their energy we opted to drive over when we took them.

Cara is still a pretty novice mountain biker and hates anything with “bumps” or rocks. The beginner trails are pretty smooth but she still threw a tantrum and refused to ride any farther. I’m pretty sure the whole park heard her yell how mean of I mom I was. I talked her through it and once she got going she didn’t want to leave opting to ride another small loop when given the choice. See? Being “mean” pays off sometimes.

Lebanon Hills also has a fun skills park in a small area where people can practice going over or down different obstacles (logs, bridges, bumps and rollers, etc). Our kids had a lot of fun doing laps around the skills park both before and after we rode the trails.

The only downside we found to this park is that the return path for some of the more advanced trails is the beginner loop. On a busier Saturday, Cara was frustrated at having to frequently pull over at let more advanced riders pass her.

Website for just the mountain biking park.

Elm Creek Park Reserve (pdf of the trails)

Cara Elm Creek

Elm Creek Park Reserve is on the northwest side of the Twin Cities area. We tried this trail twice and loved it both times. The first was a quick spin around one of the loops on the day of the great bike fiasco. The second time was after we had left Minneapolis only to return for a family event and a meet up with some other Airstream families a few weeks later. We were camped at the KOA only 15 minutes away from Elm Creek and I desperately wanted to get back over here before we left. I’m so glad we did!

We took the kids on the beginner loop and they did great! Smooth, easy trails and even though Rachel ended up with a bee sting mid-ride she toughed it out and even did another lap.

The following morning I snuck over for a longer ride on one of the intermediate routes. The trail wound through a lot of trees – some of them so close I thought I was going to clip a handlebar. For all the technical sections, there was an easier path around and I ended up clocking a little over 8 miles.

It was good, but I think for more advanced riders the trails at Lebanon were more fun. Elm Creek definitely has the easier of the two parks for beginners and it was definitely less crowded.

With how much Minnesotans love their bikes, I’m sure there are more trails in the area we’ll have to discover next time through. Both parks were well marked with trail maps, difficult levels and direction arrows so it was obvious which direction you should be riding on the one-way trails.

I’m grateful we were able to get some great biking in a place where I was sure there would be nothing and a total bonus for the kids who had a ton of fun and gained more confidence every time we rode!