Zoo-de-Mack!!

We couldn't have had more fun this weekend except for the accident on Saturday night!! Everything is alright now but we'll get to that...

We got on the road Friday afternoon, light traffic, beautiful weather and big blue full of bikes and an excited crew!!

We checked into our hotel, had a fabulous dinner in downtown Petosky looking over the water and then we headed over to the Boyne Highlands Resort for the Friday night festivities!















They had a live band, lots of alcohol (not sure if they were trying to deter us from actually riding Saturday morning or not) and fun activities! There was a charity race on big wheels, girls vs. girls & boys vs. boys!

We actually made a wise choice and headed back to the hotel fairly early, I believe we were in bed by 11:00!

We headed out by 9:00 am the next morning! We had a great crew to ride with and a beautiful day to ride!

Andrew, Ben, Valerie, Brian, me & Megan

About 15 or so miles in! Lake MI way in the background!

The entire race was 51 miles long, starting at Boyne Highlands, Zoo Bar (hence 'ZOO'-de-Mack) breaking for lunch at the Leggs Inn and finishing in Mackinaw City! With several stops for water, Gatorade and restrooms in between.

The first half of the race goes through a section of the West side called 'the tunnel of trees' and that was exactly what it was, about 15 miles of Lake MI to your left, some beautiful homes and the pure beauty of MI, it was gorgeous!!!

We had a quick lunch, 10-30 minutes or so at a very popular restaurant, and headed back out!

I was feeling pretty good when we got back on our bikes and had a lot of confidence in myself that I could do the entire way but about 5 miles in my legs started to burn! The second half was much more difficult then the first because of my body not because of the terrain, the first half had a lot of big uphills but we also had some good downhills but the second half was much more flat so it never gave you much of a break.

Brian riding through the dunes and Lake MI!

When I hit the last 5 miles of the race I got a second wind! I was flying past everyone (well, maybe not everyone!) and really trying to pick up some time I felt like I lost in the last 10 miles. We ended at 3 hours & 36 minutes, averaging 13.5 mph which I felt was a really good time! We were thinking it was going to be closer to 5 hours. As I was riding up to the finish line I got a tear in my eye, I was so proud of myself and everyone else! It may not seem much to some but this was a really big accomplishment for me!!

Way to go gang, now let's get this 'Spring Break' party started!!

Cheers!

Saturday night proved that we all had not grown up yet!! We had a nice dinner at the Pink Pony and ended up on the patio after. The Pink Pony is right on the water and seems to be the biggest party bar in town! It also has a ginormous hot tub that before we invaded was quite calm! It started with Andrew & Megan...

Moved onto me getting thrown in...

And ended with every single one of us swimming with our clothes on...

And, this is when the weekend seemed to fall apart! Once we got back to the hotel to shower and change to go hang out at the fire pits our hotel had out front overlooking the lake Brian realized he lost his wallet! He decided to head back up to the Pink Pony to look for it and I told Andrew to join him. After he walked out the door we heard him fall down the stairs and I kind of joked about it because he is so clumsy but once we got out to see the damage it was really scary! He fell most of the way down and hit his head badly at the bottom and knocked himself out! We called 911, I panicked and Ben & Brian held him to help stop the bleeding. The paramedics came, checked him out, deemed him alright and left. Now looking back at the entire situation they should have taken him in, stapled his head up and monitored him through the night. But they didn't so I monitored him through the night, we kept ice and a towel on his head and he woke up the next morning realizing he needed to go to the dr. So after a long day of traveling back home and making sure our boys were ok we headed off to the urgent care! We spent about 1 1/2 hours there (of torturous pain for Andrew) for the Dr. to tell us to go to the ER, he wanted a head scan done to make sure there was no internal bleeding and for his wound to get cleaned up more. Over to the ER we went and there they chose to staple him up (7 staples) even though it was after the 12 hour time period, the PA said it was too deep of a gash not to and they scanned him and everything looked good! We finally got home after 14 hours of traveling that day, needless to say we were exhausted!!

Oh, and Brian did find his wallet and not a dime was taken from it, there are still good people in the world!!

What a fun-filled, fabulous weekend we all had! I can't wait to do it again!

GROSS PIC BELOW, DON'T SCROLL DOWN IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE IT!