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 20th 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.
