Riding the Kal-Haven Trail

In this area, and maybe in other areas of the country too, there has been an effort to give new life to old, unused railroad tracks.  It's called "rails to trails" and it takes an old railroad track and converts it to a bike path.  They are usually pretty nice paths to ride -- flat, smooth, crushed gravel surfaces that go for miles, taking you from one small town to another.

In this area of Michigan, there is a trail that goes from Kalamazoo to South Haven, and it's called the Kal-Haven Trail.

It just so happens that the trail runs just north of the campground we're at, so today after the boys were finished with their schoolwork, we decided that it would be a good day for a bike ride.  Temps were cooler today (mid-60s), but it was sunny and the wind had died down considerably -- excellent!  We used the campground's nature trail through the woods to get to the county road that runs along the east edge of the property, and just a few minutes later we were at the Kal-Haven Trail.

We headed west and rode towards South Haven.  We rode along the river,

over a bridge,

and under the freeway.  There were benches for resting every 200 feet, porta-potties, and even a campsite!

It was a fun and easy drive, and we all enjoyed the exercise and scenery!

Arriving in downtown South Haven, we determined that we had ridden about 3.5 miles on the trail, and probably another 1.5 miles getting from the campground to the trail and from the trail to downtown.  It was 2:30pm by then, and we were all hungry, so we decided to get a some lunch at the mexican restaurant that was too busy the other night.

Su Casa

We had a delicious lunch, and then walked off some of it with some window-shopping.  We found some cool chairs at this one shop -- for the golfer,

the snow-skier,

or the water-skier!

Hey Donnie, these might go over big at the lake!!  Only $350!! 

After we got our fill of the shops, we hopped back on our bikes for the ride back to the campground.  Just outside the campground, we saw these old Model A "Doodle-Bugs" pulling into the party store.

There's an antique tractor show in town that starts Thursday, and these guys will all be on display.  I'm sure we'll be checking it out!

Since we had a late lunch, we decided that we wouldn't need dinner, and decided to go for a swim in the pool (& hot tub, since it was a little chilly) when we got back.  We had the whole pool to ourselves, and it was very refreshing after 10 miles of bike riding!

Tonight we had a campfire, and spent some time getting to know our neighbor, Georgia.  She and her husband are new full-timers from Texas, and are enjoying their first trip to Michigan.  We had a really nice time visiting with her until about 10:30pm, and then we all retreated to the warmth of our RVs!