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.