What is Happening to Harrisville?

July 16, 2025  

Mile 305-337   32 miles

After the long stay in Tawas, we hit the road in the pre-dawn.  The fishfly hatch which started yesterday is in full bore.   We exit our hotel into a tumult of gulls, feeding on the thick black pile of fish flies attracted by the hotel’s outdoor lights.  The gulls curse us they swoop away: “How dare you interrupt our delicious snack?”

The ride takes us to Oscoda, which still looks beat, years after the closing of the Wurtsmith Airbase.  There are lots of closed storefronts and nothing pulls us in to stop.  Our maps tell us to take side road just to the west of 23, but it’s easy going with wide shoulders and lots of views of Lake Huron, so we trundle on.

We do not turn west at AuSable as directed by the Iron Belle Trail map.  For one thing, there is no Iron Belle trail at this point, just the dreaded dotted red line indicating where there might be a trail someday. 

There are hardly any towns either--and even fewer places to stay.  This looks like trouble—long distances with limited cell service and no place to stay.   We will stay on the coast, where there are sure to be services.  We will cut over the actual trail when it’s a solid red line, further north.

But we have left the touristy vibe of Tawas.  Hotels are few and far between north of Saginaw Bay and Tawas.   In earlier rides, we carried camping gear—and could have camped on this stretch, as there are lots of state parks lining the shores of Huron.

We are glad to not carry the extra weight, but finding lodging continues to be one of the biggest challenges of this ride.  The task would be easier if we could go further between stops.  But we can’t.  So there’s that.

We ride 32 miles to our next stop in Harrisville, which has exactly one place to stay, a not promising motel named “Big Joe’s State Park Motel.”

I get there before Wes and find a set of rooms which might have been built in the 1940’s, but has been "upgraded" with the addition of vinyl siding.  I find the office around back,where I see a young man obsessively smoking a cigarette over a stuffed ashtray on a dirty round glass table.

I introduce myself, and he yells, “Woody! Someone here for a room!”  Woody appears.  He is mid-sixties, long grey hair pulled into a ponytail.  He is barefoot, wearing shorts, and a ratty t-shirt.  He takes me into small disheveled office, where I step on some decidedly mushy rotten floorboards.  He pulls out a big pad, the size of desktop calendar, and writes in a crabbed hand that we are checking into Room 4.  He has the smoky raspy voice of a heavy smoker.

Just at that moment a tabby cat saunters through the door and rubs against Woody’s ankles.  Woody humblebrags, “He’s my neighbor’s cat, but thinks he lives here.” He hands me the hard metal keys to the room.

Which is completely uninspiring.  The whole space is probably 8’x10’  It houses a 4’x4’ space for the toilet and shower.  The fourth wall is taken up by a formica counter over open shelves which house a kitchen sink, an ancient and tiny microwave, and a dorm fridge.  The bed, supposedly a queen, is covered with a black shag coverlet.  There is a well-used Barcalounger in the corner facing a computer screen masquerading as a television on a rickety wire stand.  Well, we’ve stayed in worse—but not often.

(I guess this place stays in business because it is just outside the gates of the Harrisville State Park.  I imagine campers fleeing bugs or rain or each other, glad to have a roof over their head.) 

I wait for Wes while I peruse our options.  The only restaurant in town no longer serves dinners.  There is no grocery store.  There’s pizza take-out.  A bar has recently re-opened.  There’s a coffee shop which won’t open before we leave in the morning.  There’s a Dollar General.

After Wes arrives, we decide to risk another Dollar General dinner.  It qualifies as food, but just barely.  There is a short cloudburst.  It looks to clear off, so I ride the mile to the Dollar General, and get packaged, pre-cooked chicken and cardboard chicken fried rice.  On the spur of the moment, I pick up a package of crackers and chive cream cheese.

After the stop at the dollar store, I cruise the town.  Down the main street, I pass a big, recently closed grocery store with a sign that says, “Thanks for 40 years.”

The approach to Lake Huron is enticing and puts me in mind of our lifechanging first encounter with Lake Michigan in New Buffalo. I am still astonished by this view (any view) of lake as horizon.  

After leaving the port, I take the first left, assuming it will provide a right that will take me back to highway 23.  I go several blocks beside lovely well-kept early 20^th century homes, most with vibrant flower gardens.

The rain is starting again when I encounter two boys about age 7, completely soaked, pumping furiously on their small BMX bicycles.  One hollers, “You better watch out for the thunderstorm!”

The road dead-ends at the Harrisville State Park, just as the sky starts rumbling.  I go back the way I came, wondering why there are no services for such a well-established and seemingly upper-middle class neighborhood.

Back on 23, I ride past a well-kept Victorian mansion, which seems in good order, but the stairs leading to the wide porch are completely overgrown with weeds.  Across the street, there’s a solid brick building with some sort of metal plaque next to the door, and a silver telescope poking above the roof.

In our room, we eat… The rain pours in a steady beat.  There is one other customer in the motel.  The room is claustrophobic.

A few hours later, giving in to cabin fever, we make our way to the bar.  Banners proclaim, “New Ownership!”  “You can come back now!”

The bar is a happening place.  Folks play pool, there are many full tables.  We get beers and talk to our waitress, who, when she finds out we are originally from Wyoming, tells us a long story about how disappointed she was not to move to Torrington, WY when she was 11.  Instead, she’s “been stuck here ever since.”

I ask why there are so many closed buildings.  She says, “ I don’t know.  I hope stuff starts coming back.”

On the way back, I stop to look at the plaque on the building with the telescope.  It says “Harrisville Institute of Culture Learning, dedicated 1998.”  It has been a long while since anyone was here.  The bushes are overgrown, and the shades have fallen in the windows.

Back in our room, the rain lets loose.  Heidi sleeps in the shower.  I look out the window and see the tabby cat huddled on the doorstep of the office.

Though the rain beats on,
I cannot sleep.  The bed is miserable, the pillows the worst kind of foam rubber lumps.  Wes, resilient as ever, is conked out and snoring away.  3 am comes and goes, and I am still awake.