T+109: Pet Cars, Lawn Fetishes, and Muer Fish Dinners

Mile 3883, NORTH CREEK, NY:  We are on the shores of the Hudson River, and hope to pass into Vermont tomorrow.  The round of bad weather has lifted; we have been traveling through the beautiful and nearly empty Adirondacks.  We have been re-building our mountain legs, and will need them as we go through Vermont and New Hampshire over the next few days.  The days are getting shorter, as are the miles we need to cover to get to Portland, Maine.

 

When we leave Imlay City, we travel on a back road to the small town of Capac, where we plan to cross I-69 and enter Southeast Michigan.  As we are cycling along, we begin to be passed by a large number of gleaming cars of all ages.  Not only are there restored Model T’s, there are also coupes from the 1930’s which have been turned into hot rods.  One is painted brilliant orange and decorated with purple flames.  There are woody station wagons from the late 40’s.  There are WWII Willy’s Jeeps, 1967 Impalas, 1965 Mustangs and hot pink Thunderbirds. There are Ramblers, and 57 Chevy sedans and Edsels. There is a 1975 Ford truck just like the one we owned when we moved to Detroit.  There are antique firetrucks and American cars and trucks of every conceivable year and make.  About 75 percent are lovingly and historically restored.  The rest are customized in some fashion.

We cycle through the town and there is an army of men directing traffic and closing streets.  Even though the car show had not yet begun, we saw many hundreds of vehicles parked and moving through town.   The drivers were nearly as diverse as their cars.  Certainly many were middle-aged and older white males, but there were also young men and women, people of color, couples, and families.   The cars were almost exclusively American made.  We did see one brave young hipster driving an early 60’s Mercedes-Benz.  Every single car was gleaming and polished.  Where they were parked, they often had their hoods lifted to show spotless, often chrome enhanced engines.   We are biking through a sea of pet cars, and stick out like sore thumbs.  These are not cars as a tool of transportation, but cars as objects of love and creativity.  These are hobbies and obsessions.  I puzzle about the dedication it takes to bring a 1937 Packard back to life.  Just finding the replacement parts must take hours and hours and tons of resources.  Even as we leave town via a back road, we still pass cars making their way to this event.   I later read that this little town of 2000 hosted 1500 cars at this event.

As we move across the landscape, we see a land use we have seen only rarely in this journey.  All throughout Southeast Michigan, we see houses with gigantic lawns, sometimes of many acres.  It is not unusual to see a house surrounded by a sea of featureless grass.  Very often, there are not even trees or ornamental plantings.  Because we are traveling on a Sunday, we see lots of people out tending these lawns with their riding lawnmowers.   We wonder, “What is the appeal of these very man-made, labor intensive mono-cultures?”   My guess is that these lawns are the anti-farm.  They prove that the owners do not have to depend on the land to provide them a living.  Also, lawn doesn’t just happen: it requires constant intervention and specialized tools.   Lawns are a metaphor for the dominance of the earth…and access to discretionary funds…and social isolation.   Because giant lawns are not productive, they are fetishes, imbued with power and meaning which makes their high costs seem worthy expenses. 

We follow the Belle River down to its meeting with the St. Clair River.  This is a landscape of large weeping willows and cottonwoods, interspersed with marshes.  Many of these marshes are inundated with phragmites, the invasive reed that can grow to 8 feet tall.  Where the water is further from the surface, there are big stands of oaks and hickories.  We cross the Old Gratiot road and feel positively sentimental.  We wind in and out of little towns and are tickled when we enter Macomb County.   We have wandered these environs quite a bit; they are a source of storytelling and reminiscence. (Remember that giant hill at Wahlberg’s Corners where we missed the turn to the Blue Water Bridge?  Remember the time we went walking in Algonac and all the canals were frozen?)

A cycling club from Mount Clemens, mostly on tandems, comes rolling by.  One pair slows down immensely to talk to us.  In mere seconds, the rest of the group is out of sight.  They are young-looking and fit 40-somethings.  They were surprised that we had come all the way across the country, but asked, “How did you find the time?”  Wes hollers, “I’m retired!”  The man says, “I guess we have a long wait ahead of us then.”  They wish us luck, wave good-bye and are gone in an instant.

Not for the first time, Wes and I wonder about the equipment we are riding.  A good road bike, equipped for touring, but not overloaded, can easily manage an average speed of about 12-15 miles an hour.  An excellent road bike without a load zips along at 18 miles an hour.  A tandem is faster yet.  Here we are, plugging along on heavy, slow bikes.  Now that we are pretty fit, we average 10-11 miles an hour.  Throw in challenging terrain, and our average rate goes down to 8 miles an hour.  Throw in our rotten state of fitness when we began and it is easy to see why we are still in Michigan on September 22.

When we talk to other cyclists, riding 70 miles a day is pretty standard.  We manage about 50.  There are some who ride 100 miles a day, though that strikes me as over the top.  Wes’ steel frame mountain bike Raleigh from the 1980’s is a relic.  My late 90’s mixte Trek is somewhat better.  I run the math in my head: how much further along would we be if we could average just 2 miles more an hour.  We are on the bikes a minimum of six hours daily, sometimes more.  Two more miles an hour would means that we could be 800 miles further along.   I tell Wes I am going to buy a fast road bike when I get off this trip.  He says, “Me too.”   About 30 minutes later, we ride past the bike club again.  They are in the parking lot to the St. Clair High School, off their bikes and getting ready to disperse.  We wave as we go by, and hope they notice that we may be slow, but we get there just the same.

We are excited to go into Canada and have looked for a motel near the Marine City ferry.  The closest bed and breakfast refers us up the road to the Blue Water Inn, which has an address in St. Clair, but is actually four miles up the river.  We are cranky when we get there, but our irritation soon turns to joy.  The room are newly renovated.  Unlike the kitsch filled bed and breakfasts or the generic plastic motels that have been our standard fare, these rooms are modern and urban and elegant.  We are the very end of the hotel and have a fantastic view of the river, though constant noise from the fans from the restaurant below. 

We have a delicious fish dinner at a River Crab, a Chuck Muer restaurant, watching the big ships move up and down the shipping channels of the St. Clair river.  We had hoped some friends could join us at this “pretty close to Detroit” moment, but we couldn’t give enough advance notice, so dined alone.   However, we have discovered a wonderful getaway just 50 miles from home which we will love to share with loved ones upon our return.

The next morning, we are ebullient as we make our way down the river path (another wonderful Michigan trail) to Marine City.  We have time to stop for lattes before we are one of two customers on the 10 minute ride across the river to Canada.   It has been fun and funny to be tourists in our own backyard, but we are anxious to see what other surprises await us as we enter that not-so-far, but still quite foreign, north shore of Lake Erie.

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Posted from North Creek, NY

T+106: Thumb-ities

Mile 3757, Rome NY.  The rain has us holed up in the motel with me catching up on the blog while Wes watches football on the television.

Bay City is a very short distance from Midland, Michigan—at least by car.  However, if you travel by Adventure Cycling map and Wes and Shaun’s remarkable way-losing skills, this twenty mile auto trip can take more than 4 hours and leave you exhausted and frustrated. 

Getting out of town was the first challenge.  The mapmakers hate main streets and direct paths.  Wes and I think we know more than we really do, so try to create work-arounds to avoid the zigging and zagging of the prescribed path.  Very often, we add miles, times, and turns to already long paths.   We finally get out of town on the prescribed path which takes us just downwind of the landfill. 

We cross into the country, where we see even more of the mysterious greens plant.  The route is flat, the traffic moderate, the wind high.  We make reasonable time and are excited when we cross Interstate 75.  This is our neighborhood freeway in Detroit, and a marker of our eastern progress.   Wes and I know Bay City and Saginaw Bay rather well, having visited both quite a few times.  Bay City was one of the queen cities of the lumber boom.  Its main street has a remarkable collection of Victorian mansions.  Its downtown, once derelict, is reviving and artsy.  It has a nice waterfront.  The Bay has numerous wetlands and wildlife refuges.  Does the Adventure Cycling trail go by any of these?  No.

After our foolishness of the morning, we thought we should follow the path as prescribed.  Mistake.  For reasons unknown, it crossed to the far northeast of the town, then circled through its most industrial bits on the western side, then wandered in down-trodden neighborhoods until it exited on a beat up farm road on the southeast.  The best thing about the route was the section that travelled on the Saginaw River, where the town has created a bike path around and over the river and amongst its marshes.  We ended up eating at a worn out workers’ bar on the tracks where the bar food matched the ugliness of the surroundings and the surliness of the customers.

The wind is blowing and we are travelling in farm country.  Along the way, we spot a pumpkin farm setting up for its first Halloween Hayride.  It is the 20^th of September, but we’re thirsty and curious, so stop in for apple cider and cinnamon donuts (one of the essential tastes of Michigan). I end up visiting with the enormously fat dwarf goats.  They are very pleased to be fed fresh grass from outside their pen, instead of the handfuls of grain pellets little children pay $.50 to feed them.  I’m trying to communicate with the chickens, when Wes comes to remind me that we still have miles to go this late afternoon.

The path takes an odd rails to trails conversion, which is barely marked and runs a short distance in the midst of fields.  It is not far from the tourist haven of Frankenmuth.  Maybe it is the first stage of a longer project.  It is in the midst of this trail, surrounded by corn and the greens plant, when Wes suddenly shouts, “Sugar beets!  Those are sugar beets!”  Of course they are.  Haven’t we been to the Sugar Beet Festival in Sebawaing just a few miles from Bay City?  Doesn’t Pioneer Sugar appear on every Made in Michigan shelf?  Smart as whips, we are.

I have made arrangements for us to stay in the North Bed and Breakfast in Vassar.  It was listed as one of two choices on our map, but I couldn’t find any other information.  When I called, the proprietor answered my question about available accommodations with a question, “Are you allergic to cats?”  I said no.  She said, “Good, because there are cats on the premises.”  I said I thought that was an advantage.  She laughed, and said, “I can see we are going to get along.”  This was a foretaste of things to come.

Vassar is pretty river town in the north central part of the Thumb, about 12 miles northwest of Frankenmuth.  Its 19^th century brick downtown is intact and moderately healthy. Its 1920’s movie house is still operating.  We make our way to the B & B, following the numbers.  We come to big mansion on the tallest point in town (maybe for miles), with ancient white pines and stolid oaks guarding the grounds.  We enter up an almost hidden drive and are immediately astonished.  This is a BIG house, built in 1880’s, elaborate and well maintained. 

When our landlady answers the door, two cats run out.  She tells us where we can store our bikes and takes us indoors, where we are confronted with a big cat smell.  There are eight cats living on the premises.  They have the run of the place and she gives us elaborate instructions for dealing with them.   She warns us to keep our doors closed unless we want cats in our bed.  She shows us around the mansion which was built by Townsend North, a nephew of the founders of the famous college, the local lumber baron, and co-founder of the village.  The house has not been much updated; its woodwork is a testament to the riches of the local forest.  However, there is only one outlet in our bedroom and it is in the middle of the wall above the sagging, plush sitting couch.

Just as we are getting ready to leave, her other guests arrive.  They look intriguing.  They are in their mid-thirties.  He has a shaved head, numerous tattoos, and big hipster glasses over bulging blue eyes.  She is exceptionally pretty, if fifty pounds overweight, with long curly hair, and an infectious laugh.  She has golden brown skin and some sort of African ancestry.  They tell the landlady that they plan to see the movie, “The Butler” at the local movie house before going to their conference tomorrow.   That captures our imagination, as well.  As we head out, the landlady calls out, “Will you please look for a pink sparkly cat collar when you are going down the stairs?  I’ve looked everywhere in the house.”

The next morning, after enjoying the movie and particularly Forrest Whittaker’s performance, we were looking forward to talking about it with the other guests.  That conversation lasted about 2 minutes, because we soon found out little you can tell about people based on first impressions.  They were fairly newly-wed.  She was highly educated and world travelled, the daughter of an Air Force officer.  A strange set of circumstances had her move to Fort Wayne, Indiana where she met her husband at church.  She said, “I was originally dating his roommate, but…” He interrupts, “He was no good.  I wanted to protect you from him….”  She starts to say something; they stare at each other and let it drop.  He was recently hired at a factory that makes hard plastic parts for cars after years of looking for work and “taking any kind of anything I could get.”   He is actually rather shy and tongue-tied for all of his hard edge looks.  He stares at his wife admiringly when she explains something he can’t. She homeschools their son, who is twelve.  She says, “We are doing everything we can to protect him from the evils of the world.   When he sees a woman who is wearing provocative clothes like shorts, we tell him God wants him to put his eyes down and not look.”  As they talk on, it is clear that they are members of a super-conservative evangelical church.  They were attending a conference on religious home schooling. 

Back on the road, we wind through small towns where families are out watching their children play soccer or full pads pee-wee football.  The path takes us to another rails to trails conversion, where once again we see lots of Baby-boomers on Bikes.  It’s nice but a bit wet and muddy.  The route leaves the trail, to turn a bit east and wander towards the lower Thumb and Port Huron.  We take our lunch in the tiny town of Clifford, where we have a raucous conversation.  Two are older women, with beauty parlor hairdos lacquered to their heads; they are joined by a pink faced young looking 40 year old.  It is obvious they know each other and this place very well.  All of us tell stories of life in Michigan, especially the way the weather has changed over the years.  We had just gotten into the more sensitive topic of politics and the economy.  (They were shocked at the deterioration of Michigan’s commitment to its people and towns)  The conversation veered over to the public accommodations smoking ban. 

A young man, accompanying his young daughter and son, had recently come to the café and announced to all ears that “They had just come from two soccer games after going hunting this morning and they needed some food.”  The father jumped into the conversation.  “I plumb don’t agree with the smoking ban. If it’s my business and I’m paying the bills, I have the right to do what I want in my business.”   Wes comments, “If we go in your restaurant, and you’re smoking, it affects us.” He almost shouts, “Then you can just leave.  You don’t have to be any place you don’t like.”  Both the pink faced fellow and I ask him about employees in that situation.  He doesn’t answer.   Pink face points out, “If you smoke in your business and it’s against the law, and your employee get sick from it, you know you would be liable.”  The dad shouts, “I don’t care! I just think there is too much government.  If I’m paying the bills, I should get to call the shots.”

This effectively ends the conversation.  Very shortly thereafter, the 70 year old women and we take our leave.

I have been trying to find a place to stay on the trail for most of the morning. So far I have not had any luck.  We have to go off the route.  We end up riding down a crazy busy Michigan 57 (Van Dyke Road) on a Saturday night.  Wes is full of nostalgia because his school is just off Van Dyke 70 miles down the road.  We spend the night in a totally plastic freeway motel on Interstate 69.  We eat at a “bad food and plenty of it” restaurant nearby, where nearly every patron is very overweight.   Both Wes and I note that we have seen very few overweight men on the trip thus far.  We have seen a lot since we entered the (formerly) industrial environs of eastern Michigan.

The next day, we head for the ferry at Marine City.  This is the closest we will come to Detroit.  Several friends have asked us why we don’t go closer.   We know if we get too close, we will be tempted to stop.  Even now, traveling through a part of Michigan we know well, it is still just strange enough to feel like exploration.   We keep our minds on the oddities of the Thumb and don’t let the comforts of home entice us.

T+106: Pere Michigan

Mile 3757: Rome, NY

We are waiting out the rain this morning, hoping to make our passage into the Adirondacks today.  It is really clear that fall is closing in.  As the crow flies, it is 350 miles to the Portland, Maine.  The question looming: should we make a run for the coast and forgo the mountains, or hope for another round of good weather?

 

The Pere Marquette trail in central Michigan has received multiple awards, and rightfully so.  The track from Evart to Clare, Michigan passes in and out of forests, alongside marshes, rivers, and lakes.  It is well marked and well maintained.  Because it is rather far from highways, there are a lot of animals and birds.  Just outside of the crossroads town of Lake, we pass a hiker laden with all sorts of photographic equipment, fisherman’s vest, Indiana Jones hat: the whole regalia.  He asks if we have seen any bear scat.  We answer no, but sure enough, a mile down the road, in the opposite direction, we spot the unmistakable signs of a berry eating bear.

Lake is at an unusual spot in Michigan.  Barely higher than the surrounding country, it sits in a circle of marshy lakes.  To the west, water flows to Lake Michigan; to the east, streams run to Saginaw Bay in Lake Huron.  Wes is standing on his pedals, making a small hill, when we hear the unmistakable SPROING!  He has broken another spoke.   We are about 20 miles to Clare, where we know there is a bike shop.   Another repair.

We make it to Clare to discover that the bike shop is closed on Wednesdays and, of course, it is Wednesday.  There are two other shops on our path: one is an auto shop in Coleman, then big shop in Midland.  Wes will have to nurse his bike to the next repair.

Just down the street from the bike shop, we experience a curious cultural anomaly.   Clare had a bakery that had been in business since the 1890’s, but was slowly dying.  It was a few days from closing, when the entire police department of this small town pooled their money, bought the bakery, and renamed it Cops and Doughnuts, and began decorating it gave it lots of goofy cop jokes. It is now a hopping joint, with visitors from all over the world, and a big crowd when we stop in.   We are eating our coffee and muffin, when a big group of the owners/local police stop in.   A handsome, young, slender cop stops by our table and asks how we like our food.  We talk about their decision to keep the business going, how much it has grown, and how it has become the anchor of a downtown revival.

Once we leave Clare, the landscape changes as we enter the flatlands of the Saginaw Bay.  This whole area was once underwater: its lake heritage shows in the bogs, salt wells, and miles of perfectly flat cropland.   As we have been traveling, we often play “Name that crop!”  Of course, corn, and wheat, and soybeans are easy.  What is this crop that looks like lettuce, or maybe collard greens?  There are miles and miles of it.  What is it?

In Coleman, we stop at the Bike and Auto.  Sorry, the bike guy is gone for the week.  After admiring the Raleigh bikes for sale at this shop, and laughing that the antique Raleigh on display looks just like Wes’ bike, we plug on.   For the first time since we entered Michigan, we are passing through farm towns.  When we stop at a little diner to get yet another root beer float, the farmers look at us, but don’t speak.  We drink our sweet treat and are just about ready to go, when one man asks us where we headed.  When we tell him we have been and where we are going, a dam breaks loose.  Now people all over the diner are asking us questions about our travels.  It was clear they were interested, but they didn’t feel comfortable starting a conversation. 

The path to Midland is well marked, with lots of pretty little pocket parks.  Wes and I vow to bring some of our Lower Michigan friends up to this wonderful trail.  There starts to be lots of riders and walkers on the trail.  At one point, we see a young mom along with her eight year old son taking an afternoon ride.  The little boy is fascinated by our bikes and trailers, and speeds up to ride alongside of us.  I slow down to answer his questions.  When he finds out we rode all the way from the Pacific Ocean, he asks, “Is there a bike trail around the whole world?”  I tell him no, but that there should be.  He tells me all about the sites along the trail, and really wants us to go off the trail to see a big bog.  He is riding a small BMX bike, which he is really pedaling as he works to stay alongside me.  We talk about how he could fix his brakes and tighten his chain.  In the meantime, Wes is getting further and further ahead.  The little boy wants to show me how fast he can go, so he speeds up.  I let him win for a while, then slip into my top chain ring and easily move past him.  He tries to keep up for a while, but can’t.  As I move away, he calls after me, “Don’t forget to stop by the bog!”   We don’t stop, but I wish we had.

Just outside of Midland, we pass the 3000 mile mark on the trip.  This feels momentous.  We have taken photos at many of the 500 and 1000 marks.  It will be interesting to compare the photos after this trip is over. 

We cruise into Midland, stop a nice little craft brewpub, eat great home-made food from a food cart, and make our way to our room.  We are following the hazy instructions to our motel, when we come across another young male on a bike.  He is a bit older, perhaps 12, and like us, pedaling hard in the right lane in heavy 5 o’clock traffic.   We talk a bit as we go by.   Some blocks later, we are at a confusing intersection, trying to determine what to do, when we are  re-joined by the young teenager.  We ask if he lives nearby. He does.  We ask if he knows how to get to our motel.  He does.  His directions are clear, precise, and well-spoken.  He rides with us some blocks, asking about our trip.   This is one lively mind in a body of a boy.  Just as he turns off, he provides an exact visual description of our hotel and its environs, then wishes us well.  We tell him to start planning for his bicycle trip across the country.  He says he will.  We believe him. 

We find the motel easily with the boy’s instructions and description, but it is now too late to repair Wes’ bike today, so we will have to do the repairs tomorrow.  The next morning is very rainy.  It is just been a few days since our break at Ludington, but remembering some of other disastrous attempt to ride in the rain, we decide to stay, do repairs, and work on the blog.   This of course ensures that the rain will lift.  It does. 

On the way to the bike shop, we are riding on a very uncomfortable, busy road, so decide to cut off into the paths of the Whiting Forest.  There is an open gate on the paths, so we take it and soon find ourselves biking through the wonders of the Dow Gardens.   There are sculptures, exotic landscapes, and intricate bridges.  It is rightfully one of the celebrated tourist stops of Michigan.  There are also docents leading groups on tours.  One was taking a group of 12 over a bridge, “Please note the sunburst design of the bridge, which is picked up in the layout of the…. HEY! You can’t ride bikes in here!”  Wes rides a bit further.  The tour guide says, “The nerve!”  I am not sure Wes even hears, but I get off my bike.  We push our bikes around a bit further, looking for a way to get out of the gardens.  The only way out is through the gift shop.  We shamefacedly scoot our bikes through while the salespeople laugh and customers gawk.

At the bike shop, after telling them we just replaced five spokes and now have another broken spoke, the bike tech asks, “Why didn’t you just replace the wheel?—You are just going to keep breaking spokes if they are this fragile.”  We think about it and realize that this is probably the wheel that was put on Wes bike during our last bike trip—in Quebec—in 1998.   So we buy a new wheel two days after getting five spokes replaced.  More fine planning on our part.

We explore downtown Midland, which has a big park where the Tittabawassee and Chippewa Rivers join, and which is crossed by a three-way bridge called the Tridge.  We take pictures and explore the grounds.  As we make our way back to our room, we come across a hill planted with thousands of dahlias.   Wes and I had visited Midland years and years before and remembered it as a chemical factory town.  Now we see it as one garden spot after another, with big trees, lots of open spaces, and very active corporate culture.  Did we not have eyes to see or has it changed that much in 25 years?
 

Leaving Midland the next day, we enter the lea side of Saginaw Bay.  We have left the wonderful environs of the 150 mile Pere Marquette trail.  It is back to farm roads and traffic.  It is fine, but we miss the secret passage across Michigan on its wonderful, beautiful rails to trails conversion.

 

Posted from Rome, NY

 

T+103: A Lucky Break

Mile 3690: Fulton, NY

After a difficult and frustrating day, we find ourselves in a town as least as beat up as Detroit.   Having lost Nestle, Birds Eye, and Miller factories, this small town in upstate New York is full of poverty, degenerating businesses, and people trying to make a way out of no way.  We recognize the signs and will tell this story soon.  In the meantime, our trip across Michigan begins….

After we said good-bye to our friends in Ludington, we began following the Adventure Cycling map through the Manistee National Forest.  It exemplifies everything we both love and hate about these routes.  First of all, it is a beautiful ride, but it is far from efficient.  We ride 50 miles through all sort of back country forest and lakes.  It is a lovely ride.  But at the end of the day, we have only gone 25 miles towards the east.

Throughout the day, we have been on a quest to get a good paper map of Michigan.  This is apparently a rarity, now that many (most?) people use GPS on their phones or in their cars.   In the little town of Wolf Point, after visiting with the resident young Jack Russell and ancient Shepherd/Corgie dogs, we ask the proprietor if she sells maps.  For the fourth time that day, the answer is no.  A few minutes later, a customer who heard our request and denial returns with a high quality laminated map from his car.  He will sell it to us at cost.  We are happy to accept, even though we squirm a bit to see that it comes from Wal-mart.

After Wolf Point, we make our way to the Red Moose Inn, which is south of Baldwin, Michigan on the Pere Marquette River.  We are struck by the level of abandonment and disarray we see along the way.  This part of Michigan is not looking so good.  At the inn, the proprietor tells us that he is full up with salmon fishers, but that we will be housed in a cabin just down the way.   He shows us the way to the cabin in the woods by driving us over in a 2009 Cadillac with leather seats and just 50,000 miles.  He tells us that it is his son’s vehicle, and that it originally cost $54,000, but that his son purchased it for just $2700.   “Some depreciation, huh?”  he asks.

The cabin is deep in the woods.  Wes and I are at first disappointed, because we hoped to be on the river, but once we got inside, it felt so homey, we settled right in.  After a quick trip to a local grocery store, we played “at home” and truly enjoyed the evening.

The next morning, we jounce over sandy roads and make our way back to the highway.  On the highway, Wes immediately experiences difficulties.  His back wheel is not rolling right.  We try several strategies, including realigning the axle and adjusting the brakes, until it finally dawns on us that the reason the wheel is not rolling is because Wes has 3 broken spokes.  We are now dead in the water.  I make a few calls and find out that the closest bike shops are 57 miles away in Clare, 25 miles back to Ludington, or 30 miles the wrong direction to Cadillac.   I call the Clare bike shop.  They can’t help because they are short staffed and cannot come get us.  Sorry.  Maybe the folks in Ludington can assist.

While I wonder if this is how our trip will end, Wes drags his bike across the road, removes the BOB trailer, and turns the bike upside down.  I pull my bike across and watch while Wes begins to hitchhike.  He signals to the first car by, a new truck pulling a big silver ATV trailer.  Wes gives his best “6 second sell” to the passing vehicle.  When he was younger, Wes travelled many thousand miles by hitchhiking, which he says depended upon making a connection within the six seconds a driver sees you on the side of the road.

Sure enough, the truck turns around and comes back to pick us up.  The driver asks us if we need help.  We tell him about our situation and tell him we need to get to a bike shop, or at least on a main highway.   He jumps out, opens his trailer, where a brand new Polaris 4-wheeler is secured, and tell us to load our bikes in the trailer.  Wes and I pile in the jump seat of the truck and meet our saviors.  They are Karl and Nancy Nelson, owners of the Pronto Pup in Grand Haven, out on a rare day off to try out their new four-wheeler.  They saw the upside down bike, knew we were in distress, and thought, “Something is obviously wrong.  We’ve got room, and time.  Why not?”

Nancy gets to work on her I-phone trying to find a bike shop where we can get the spokes repaired.  She calls the shop in Cadillac and finds out they are open and can do the work.   They decide right then and there to drive us the 30 miles to the north to the bike shop in Cadillac.  While driving there, we have a chance to visit.   They were out that day headed to the ATV trails around Baldwin.  It was lucky for us they chose to drive the back way from Grand Haven.  They just purchased this new ATV and wanted to check it out before taking it up to the Upper Peninsula for its maiden backwoods trip.   They are taking their first break after a long summer selling their high quality hot dogs to the resort community.  Throughout the trip north, Karl takes phone calls and makes deals to provide hot dogs at various events.

It is very clear that Karl and Nancy and Wes and I are not people whose lives would normally intersect, but we are glad to tell each other stories of life and work, bills and choices.  We connect around the challenges of running small businesses and how important good employees are to business success.  This leads to a surprisingly frank discussion about many corporations misplaced emphasis on financial success instead of employee success.   Despite our obvious ideological differences, all four of us agree with the principal that secure employees are the cornerstone of a strong economy.  We also agree that such security is no longer the norm.

In Cadillac, Karl and Nancy drop us off, wish us well, and drive off to enjoy the rest of their day.  We take the bike in, and find out that there are FIVE broken spokes.  While the young men in the shop do the repairs, Wes and I head out to get breakfast and explore the town.  We have great handmade food at the Blue Heron, wander a few shops, and are generally amazed at the comeback in this town.   We had visited a few years ago; it is vibrant and exciting by comparison. 

By noon, we are back on the trail.  The bike shop guys recommend the White Pine Trail to us.  This is a Rails to Trails from Cadillac to Reed City, going through forests and small towns in western Michigan.  The first 17 miles are paved.  It is beautiful, full of big trees, small lakes, and wetlands, and we have a blast.  As we discuss the broken spokes, we realize that Wes probably broke his first spoke way back in Wisconsin on that rotten concrete road.   Sheesh. 

We visit outback towns like Leroy, Michigan and buy handmade baked goods.  The trail turns to dirt and it gets rougher and slower.  It is far less fun.  The next 20 miles are much harder work.  We pull into the little town of Reed City, where the White Pine trail intersects with the Pere Marquette trail.  We wander up and down Upton Avenue, stare at the Yoplait factory, and think to stay here.  At the local pub, the waitress is one of those types that drive us crazy.  They don’t know anything about the town, its amenities, or its services. 

We finally determine that the next motel is in Evart, 15 miles down the trail.  We head out on the smooth and lovely trail as the sun starts to sink in the west.   This is the Michigan not seen by the roads, lush and lovely.  We stop to see the Muskegon River and marvel at its pure beauty.  When we finally land at the Osceola Grand Hotel in Evart, Michigan, it is nearly dark.  We have been on the move since early morning.  We have almost seen the end of the trip, travelled 30 miles north, and ridden more than 60 miles on Michigan rails to trails through wonderful beauty.  Like the day before, we have only travelled about 25 miles to the east, but we are incredibly grateful, first to the Nelsons, then to the creators and sustainers of these beautiful trails.

T+100: A Question of Community

Mile 3580: Brockport, NY

100 days ago, Wes and I drove away from Detroit.  11 days later, we began our bike journey from Portland, Oregon.  It has been an amazing, revelatory experience, but it has been a journey through and with strangers.  That’s what makes the time spent in Manitowac, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan so wonderful and so different.   In both places, dear friends came to see us, wish us well, and provide us respite on our journey.  In both experiences, questions of making, participating in, and sustaining community were central.

Robert drove all the way up from Chicago on a few hours sleep to, as he said, “honor and support your trip.”  In 2002, he had taken very nearly the same trip by bike, going from Anacortes, Washington to Portland, Maine pulling a BOB trailer.  He, however, was traveling with a group of 12, with a designated trip leader, and camping almost exclusively.  We spent a fair amount of our too short visit comparing trips---comparing the places and people that somehow touched us.   They were traveling just after 9/11; emotions were still raw.   Robert did not see the signs of economic devastation that we have seen nearly everywhere. 

Also, his group was a company of strangers that came together for a common purpose and experience.   There were big variations in age and outlook in the company composed of 11 men and 1 woman.  It didn’t take long for the group to divide into niches, then cliques, then factions.   Robert ended riding the last part of the trip alone, as each faction broke off and took their own journey.  Ten years later, the group has not stayed in touch with each other.

By contrast, this trip has re-knit my marriage to Wes.  We are with each other 24/7, and lord knows we can get on each other’s nerves.  However, it has re-acquainted both of us with each other’s strengths.  After years of marriage, it is easy to focus the weaknesses, in each other and the relationship.   Of all the gifts of this trip, the renewal of our partnership and friendship may be the most important and enduring.

We also talked about Detroit—how much we love it, what will become of it, and how it is so different from the way it is presented--- and any place else we have ever been.  Robert came to Detroit as a volunteer in service.  That experience began an incredible journey.  After living a year with the Capuchin brothers in Detroit, Robert began the long, arduous path to becoming a Franciscan brother himself.   This is no easy thing.  The whole process takes no less than seven years, which is huge at any point, but gigantic when one begins after the age of 40.   One might excel in the schooling and service, as Robert has done, but finding a way to live in community with other flawed and incomplete humans is challenging under the best of circumstances.  All these contradictions and conundrums were presenting a huge challenge to Robert when we saw him.  All we could do is offer our love and community.  

We could offer no insights on these conundrums, but all of us could be super-fascinated by the process of loading four 80 foot wind turbine propellers onto the Badger ferry.   That was some feat.    It took four semi-trucks and occupied a full deck of the Badger.   Wes and I wondered if they came from the turbine factory just outside of Wausau.

The ride across Lake Michigan on the coal powered ferry Badger was beautiful but boring.  I wasn’t willing to pay the highway robbers’ fee to get Wi-Fi onboard.  It was much too windy to stay on deck, (which I have done of previous crossings).  I didn’t want to play bingo, or watch the movies, or the football game.  Both Wes and I would sit for a while, wander for a while, read the paper for a while.  I was fascinated by the big group of ham radio operators who set up several stations and broadcast throughout the trip.  (In the Colorado floods, the older technologies of ham radio and land line phones were the only communication systems that didn’t fail.)

We visited a bit with a family from Wisconsin, who told us they take a “mini-cruise” every year for the delight of their brother, a vivacious middle-aged man with Downs who LOVED the boat, the views, the food, and was happy to tell his family and those around him how good it all was.  We mentioned that we thought Wisconsinites were not cursed with self-consciousness.   One brother said, “I wish we had more.   All of it can just get to be too much!”

These questions of community were very much present in our reunion with our dear friends Keith and Tada.  They drove over from Detroit, and arranged adjoining rooms for us in Ludington, sweet things that they are.   When the Badger pulled in, amongst hundreds of small boats out salmon fishing, they were dockside, waving and smiling, taking pictures and pointing us out to random passersby.  It was wonderful to see them.  In Ludington, we visited and talked and ate.  True friends that they are, Keith and Tada helped us with our re-supply and maintenance tasks.   It’s a true friend that helps you do your stinky bike laundry.  While Wes and Keith did laundry and talked politics, Tada and I combed second stores looking for fall clothes for our bike trip.

While on these errands, we hear that my brother Steve and his cat had been airlifted from his canyon home in Colorado.  The road is out both above and below his property.  There is no electricity, water, or cell service and will not be for some time.  His wife has arrived from Maine: can they use our car in Wyoming while they secure their property, then drive it out to Maine, where they will stay the winter?  Of course.  It will also work great for us to pick up our car in Maine.  My brother Scott will pick it up in Wyoming and get it to them in Colorado. I am proud of my family. The crisis is now entering what will be a very long recovery phase.  

 

Keith, Tada, Wes, and I also had an extensive conversation about intentional and eco-village communities.  Tada has been fascinated by intentional communities for years and reads extensively about their various iterations.  She is currently focusing on eco-villages.  We talk at length about the various permutations.  Can community be consciously created?  What are the elements of voice and choice, money and power that make or hurt the formation of communities? Humans are weird and capricious, and (like me), so often confused by what we want and what we need.   In my experience, managing the complications of an intimate relationship between two people is hard; I can’t imagine negotiating financial, spiritual, and residential intimacy with a group of people.

The four of us decided to walk out to the Ludington lighthouse under threatening skies.   We stop at the end of the end of the jetty, admire the view, note the many salmon fishers, and have a brief conversation with four men fishing from the pier around the lighthouse.  I tease one fellow, dressed head to toe in camouflage by asking if he was hiding from the fish.  Tada sets down her big daypack while talking to another fellow.  All of a sudden, the wind shifts.  The front, which was headed north, starts coming south.  It is clear we will be rained on in just a few minutes.  We hurry down the jetty and back to the car, but don’t quite make it before the rain begins.  

Back at the motel, Tada realizes she has left her bag.  Keith and Tada return to the jetty under drenching skies to find that all the fishers have moved away from the daypack, to the other side of the lighthouse.  They told them they feared it was a bomb.  They didn’t quite believe it, but were worried enough to move away, just in case.

All these conversations about community make me homesick for Southwest Detroit, which is a real living community.  It is a joy to live where people contribute sports, and arts, and gardening, and history walks, and progressive dinners, and help with building, cleaning, or kids for the good of the community.    How all these communities-- of friends, of family, of location, of choice, or shared experience, or shared values—are sustained and maintained in the face of inevitable human frailty is a big question in all these conversations. 

We don’t have any answers as we climb aboard our bikes after kissing our friends good-bye.   When we head out to the woods of Michigan, we feel quite acutely the loneliness of this kind of travel.  How wonderful it was to be with friends, to share intimate news of our families, to talk at length about our fears and joys.   Travel is fun and meeting people is great, but blessed are those who are held in the web of friendship.  We have been blessed by our friends and we look forward to returning that blessing soon.

 

Posted from Fulton, NY

T-46: The once and future city

Part of the reason we are taking our bike ride across the country is to see how other places operate, how they have weathered the disinvestment in public life that has been the norm for the last 25 years.  We have been so embedded in Detroit, which certainly is its own unique self.  We are interested to see if how it is in the big out-there.  Even so, very little riles me up quicker than folks who don't diddly about Detroit making big time pronouncements about how to "fix" the city. 

I recently read an article in which the writer was touting the influence and necessity of small entrepreneurs as the salvation of Detroit.  While it was a well researched article, it missed the boat because the writer was not much aware of the way in which life in Detroit has already left the 19^th century model of centralized commerce and government.  Detroit, both through choice and necessity, has found ways to invent key structures of daily life,  whether that is food, cash free economics, or a deeply rooted maker culture. 

One cannot tell the story of Detroit’s rebirth without discussing its central role in transforming the food economy.   With miles of open and incredibly fertile river bottom land, more than 2000 community gardens, and an active local food movement, Detroit is a the center of the urban agriculture movement.  It is not unreasonable to think it will be food self sufficient in 10 years.  And… this is a movement centered in the African-American community.

Another feature of life in this city is the robust social capital that keeps this place running.  There are time banks, thousands of grassroots block clubs and community groups which do everything from patrolling the streets, to tutoring kids, to running city parks.  Detroiters are past masters of “making a way out of no way”.  The resilience of the African-American community fuels this, of course.  The community has been ignored (or mistreated) by officials for so long, that other structures to solve problems are put in place.

This is what I call “the Auntie network”.  Battalions of kin and near kin organize the structures of life, from baptisms to funerals, from transportation to home repairs.  When you want something done, you engage families, not individuals, in this city.  When I say families, I don’t mean daddies and mommas and kids…. I mean grandma, grandpops, aunties, uncs, cuzzes (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd) bros, sisters, and all their kin.  A typical family reunion can bring together hundreds of people…it is an organizing feature of the social, economic, and community life in the city.

Finally, one cannot omit the central role of the culture and arts in this city.  Singing, storytelling, painting, poetry, film, dance, and more... are daily occurrences made by all sorts of people.  With food being grown in the neighborhoods, folks that know how to get stuff done with little money or help, and super cheap housing, it is possible to live as an artist here.  I know this and see this every day, having founded and run a community based theatre for the past 22 years.   Matrix Theatre Company has employed thousands of artists and engaged tens of thousands of residents.  We see them go on to make art with and around us, year in and year out.

So, yes the structures of 19^th century commerce and government are broken and nearly gone in the city.  But a new, organic, self-determining and self-creating structure is already here.  Those who have eyes to see it, already do it.