Tawas Ain't Tiny No More
July 14: Miles 284-305
Michigan US 23 is a good and easy ride. There's a wide shoulder
and very close access to Lake Huron ,which is glittering in the morning light.
However, the temperature is climbing. We are happy the Iron Bellel trail veers off
the hot highway. Soon we are following a
lovely winding bike trail that takes us to the relics and remains of the town
of Alabaster, where there were big gypsum mining works and even now serves as a
source for wallboard.
For the first time on this trip, we become aware of the
tourist trade. As we go north on the
trail, we encounter groups of 4 to 8 adults riding identical E-bikes. Most of
them look like they haven't been on bikes very often in the last few years. But
hey, you could say the same thing about us.
We stop for lunch (leftovers from Lonesome Dove) at a trailside
table. Here comes a group we saw not
long ago, having taken their rented bikes on a nice there-and-back 20 mile ride.
At Tawas, we are amazed at how much it has grown since our
last visit here more than 20 years ago. It is now a full-on tourist town. The
sleepy pretty port town we remember (perhaps incorrectly) is long gone. The beach now sports big block hotels, next to
tiny cabins and mom and pop shops from another era.
It is hot-hot hot! We
spot a laundromat and pull in to de-stinkify our limited selection of clothes.
Everything Wes has brought needs cleaned, so he ends up wrapping his skinny
self in a scarf I am carrying. The two local women-- a small woman with steel gray
hair pulled back into a plastic headband and her blonde much bigger daughter? compatriot?
giggle when they see him.
The detergent vending machine steals my money, so I ask the
women, if there's another option. Sweetly, they offer their own jug of
detergent, “Help yourself.”
I, foolishly I now realize, have not made arrangements for
lodging. I call multiple locations --no answer or no vacancy. After laundry, we
see a cute motel where someone, the owners as it turns out, is cleaning the
rooms. They do have availability for that night, but the cost for the dog would
be $75—nearly doubling the cost of the room. No thanks.
I try location after location, even calling a lovely fancy
pants bed and breakfast. This is a sign
of how desperate I am getting. These
types of establishments almost never accept dogs. And as expected, they don't. Before I say
goodbye, I ask, “Can you recommend a place.”
“Yes,” she says, “Call
Tawas Bay Beach Resort and tell them Brenda sent you.”
I call. They do have a room. I ask about the dog. They don't
accept dogs except service dogs.
I explain that Heidi is a service dog. This is sort of true.
Heidi, although she is a momma's dog, is hyper attuned to Wes's
difficulties with balance and vertigo. Although
no one ever taught her, she butts up against him whenever he goes wobbly, alerting
him to connect with his center of gravity and to align his vision with the
horizon. She has kept him from falling
several times.
We think we are going to Tawas Bay Resort, which is little
cabins on the Bay, but no. This is a big sprawling tourist megaplex in what is
now called east Tawas. We don't remember East Tawas existing when we were here
last. Now it is district full of cute
and trendy shops and pricey charming places to eat. Was all this built since the 1990s?
In the hotel, two middle women emerge from the back office
to join the desk clerk. They want to
inspect us and see what kind of trick Brenda is pulling on them. They clearly think we are strange beings to
be a) biking and b)biking with a dog of Heidi's size. They ask all kinds of
questions. Taking a dog on a bike trip
especially seems unfathomable to them, but it does lend credence to our
assertion that Heidi is service dog.
They end up giving us a discount on a room with a view of
the Bikini Bar, instead of the sandy beaches and blue waters of Lake Huron.
It's fine with us. I have a zoom meeting to do. Wes finds the people watching at this quasi-tiki bar is endlessly entertaining.
We watch young teens flirt and play volleyball
until they are exhausted and endless parades of tourists in resort wear drinking
high-priced watered down drinks from plastic cups. (Soon, we are some of them, sans resort wear.)
Out on the lake people stand in the water. A few swim. Some
just lurk in the white plastic chaises provided by the resort.
In a protected and fenced off area just to the left of the
beach, there are numerous waterfowl-- not just the usual clattering seagulls. I spot nests of three or four species of ducks,
numerous Canadian honkers, sandpipers---and is that a scurrying bird a piping plover? Maybe that’s why it is fenced off.
In the distance, we can see the white tower of the Tawas
lighthouse which stood at the end of the point until the 1980s when the point
grew by a mile, rendering the lighthouse a beautiful but dysfunctional relic.
There are lots of boats, especially sailboats, even double
and triple mast schooners. We attempt to
walk to the State Harbor concert and street dance that night but wear out long
before we get there.
Back in our cool room, we watch the parade at the Bikini Bar for a little while longer, then fall asleep in our big comfortable beds.
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July 15: A Wasted Day
Mile 305 and holding
We are up early the next day and start to pack---and I just
don’t feel like moving. I want to swim
in Lake Huron, and just be a tourist. Are
we not bicycle tourists? Wes,
though somewhat reluctant, agrees.
I try to renew our “obstructed view” room—but no luck. We have to check out, then wait until another
room is ready. We end up waiting in the
lobby for several hours because there is no place to put our luggage. (I don’t understand this, nor do I understand
why we didn’t just put it back on our bikes.)
grrr.
We get a room down the hall for more money. Grrr again.
I go for a wade in the beautiful warm water. We go for walks and note for the umpteenth
time references to Sasquatch. We visit
the Bikini Bar.
But mostly, we’re bored and mad at ourselves for not moving
on.
Oh well.
