T+116: The Outback of Erie

Mile 4162:  PORTLAND, ME

We made it to Portland yesterday, arriving at 2:30 in the afternoon.   Stephen and Esther got us a glorious room in the Regency Hotel.  We have been celebrating and reminiscing, and just a few minutes ago, Wes was crying because the trip was over. 

However, it is not over in many ways.  We still have to get back to Wyoming, where we will gather all the materials and add some reflections, ruminations, and rants to create the book about our trip.  I still need to finish writing the story of the travels from coast to coast.  In the next few days, as we stay in Brooklin, Maine with my brother and his wife, I want to share the stories from the rest of Canada, across New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. 

I will keep the T+ counting until we return to Detroit.  It began when we left the city on June 22.  Eleven days later, we were abike in Portland, Oregon.  We cycled 105 days to get to Portland, Maine.  Of those 105 days, there were only 7 days we did not cycle, although to be sure, there were a few very short rides in those 98 days on the bike.   It really was two trips combined into one long trip: the first from Portland to Anacortes, WA, then from Anacortes on the Pacific Coast to Portland on the Atlantic Coast.  The first trip was 420 miles, the second, 3740 miles.  Now comes the re-entry.

But first, the rest of the story……

The eastern side of the North Shore of Lake Erie is quite distinct from the touristy middle range.  The shoreline changes.  No longer sandy beaches, it is either shallow, rocky, little inlets, or swampy coves.  The farms on the plains above the coast stretch out too.  Instead of a wide variety of vegetables, the landscape again begins to be dominated by corn and soybeans.   

 

We are following the Lake Shore route, which is taking us through mile after mile of small cottages.  For reasons we cannot determine, there are a number of bridges being replaced in this section of the lake. It is a bit frustrating because we keep getting turned off our route, returned to the busy main highway for a few miles, then returned to the shore route.  These detours are adding many miles to an already long ride.

There are few tourist services like restaurants and motels.  Nor is this the land of Victorian trophy farms, such as we had seen on Talbot Trail of Chatham-Kent. The wind turbines continue apace; the density of anti-wind turbine lawn signs also increases. 

 

We stop to read an information display about the turbines, and find out that the Ontario provincial government lets bids to private companies to build and run these wind farms.  It seems clear that local residents are not happy with the way Toronto chooses the companies or places the turbines.

We had been riding several hours and were beginning to look for a place to eat some lunch.  We are riding in a little colony of houses clustered in concentric circles around a small point on the lake. We see a sign directing us from the main route to the Peacock Point Store which has Hot Lunches.  It is a small white building across the street from circular park with big oak trees.  A line of small houses rings the park so that all the houses are facing each other. 

There are three people sitting outside the small building, chatting, smoking, and enjoying the bright fall sun.  One is a youngish, heavy-set blonde.  Another is an older male with long, scraggledy hair and wispy beard sitting in a non-motorized wheelchair.  Both his legs have been amputated.  A small sixty year old woman with dyed brown hair completes the trio.   A chalk board sign announces “Mary’s Last Day!  Thanks for a Great Season!”

They seem surprised when we stop our bikes. When we ask if they are still serving lunch, the older woman jumps up, and motions me to follow her inside.  Wes stays outside with the other two.  The store with its little grill at one end, bank of coolers at the other, and line of shelves in between is nearly empty of products.   Mary explains that when she leaves today at 3pm, the store will close for the season.  She apologizes for the state of the store, bustling about, wiping shelves, swatting flies, and explaining what few items can still be prepared.  She says she is behind on the closing because she had family in all last week.  Her son and family had come all the way from Nunevet, where they live way above the Arctic Circle and he works as a geologist for an oil exploration company.  After the store closes, she will travel to Dallas to see her daughter, who works there in the medical field.  After that, she didn’t know what she will do, perhaps go get an apartment in Hamilton and see if she can find work until she can come back to Peacock Point the following spring.

When I return outside with Wes’ egg salad sandwich and my Italian sausage sandwich, Wes and the man in the wheelchair are in heavy discussion about the wind turbines.  “I hate ‘em!” the local declares.  “All they do is kill birds and they don’t even provide much energy.  All of these damn turbines and they only provide 8 percent---8 percent—of Canada’s energy.  Look around at all these towers.  (We could easily see 30.)  How come so many are turned off?  I’ll tell you why.  They turn ‘em off during the day because of the protests, but at night, they turn ‘em back on and sell all the energy to the United States!  And who even gets to choose whether to have a turbine or not?  Corrupt Toronto politicians, that’s who.  They come in and tell the farmers they have to lease their land to company for 50 years, no questions asked.  At the end of the term, the farmer is supposed to get turbine, but who’s going to want it when it’s old and broken down?  I tell you, it’s a bad deal from start to finish.  I hate ‘em!”

There is not much anyone can say to this rant, so we change the subject.  In increasing numbers, all along the coast, we have seen many houses with Union Jack flags, along with signs that say “Loyalist Cemetery” and “Loyalist Union Social Club.”  We ask if these British flags stand for anything.  Did it mean anything when one house had the Canadian red maple, and another the stars and bars of England.  No, no.  If anything, the flags just show who the house supports in soccer….or maybe their ethnic origin. The blonde, whose name is Donna, says that she regularly flies a German flag, because she is German and she supports the Frankfort team. 

Eldon, the man in the chair, says, “I should see about finding me a Finnish flag!  But that’s the thing with you Americans.  You’re not even allowed to put up a flag in front of your home.  I think it is just a real crime when you aren’t even allowed to do that.”  I try to correct him, but he is not to be deterred.  “And another thing, look at the mess your government is in right now.  Why is there such a big mess about getting health care?  It’s unbelievable!  What a bunch of corrupt politicians…but, hey! I’m not saying ours aren’t a bunch of crooks, too!”

He goes on.  “Look at Donna and me.  I don’t know what we would do without NHS.  But you Americans are against health care for the people.  It just don’t make any sense to me.”  Wes points out that most Americans are not against the new health care law, and Eldon is just about ready to start another rant, when I ask Donna about her experience with national health.  I tell about our encounter with our contrary host in Port Rowan, who was furious with the difficulties he encountered trying to get treatment for his Parkinson’s.

She says that they was not at all her experience.  Her husband had recently passed away after contracting a particularly aggressive form of Lou Gehrig’s disease.  A year ago, he began falling.  Six months later, the 36 year old man with three children, was dead.  They had taken him to all kinds of specialists in Toronto and London.  Nothing worked, but she never had to pay a bill.  But…she also pointed out…she also hadn’t been able to work and if it hadn’t been for the community here in Turkey Point, she and her family wouldn’t have made it.

“Yep!”  Eldon declares, “It’s not unusual for me to come home and find food, or some groceries just sittin’ on my table, but that’s just the way it is here in Turkey Point.  People take care of each other here, not like some big city where nobody knows nothin’ about you.   I remember a few years back, when I ran out of water after my cistern sprung a leak, people brought me some of their own, even though it meant they were cutting into their own stores.”

We find out that the water supply will be shut off to the whole community after Thanksgiving.  Many people will leave the colony, but fulltime residents like Donna and Eldon will need to depend on water from their individual cisterns.  I ask if people have trouble making it through the winter on the limited water supply.  She laughs, and says, “That’s how we know they are city people.  They don’t know all the tricks to save water---liking using your dishwashing water to flush your toilet---but if you’ve lived here all your life, like my family all the way back to my grandma, it’s no big deal.”   I ask why they don’t keep the water on the winter.  Eldon replies, “The pipes from Lake Erie freeze!”

Our delicious handmade sandwiches are long gone, and our short break has stretched far past its allotted time, when we make our good byes to this vivacious trio.  There was a certain melancholy in the air.  In a few short hours, the store which had provided work for Donna and Mary would close.  Most of the summer people would leave and the water would be cut off.  Not one of the trio had a clear sense of how they would get through the coming winter, but they were all certain they would find a way.  They wished us a good ride and told us to come back and see them sometime.  We cycle off and wonder if we ever would.

 

Posted from Brooklin, Maine

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+96: Where We Are Right Now ----Wrapping Up Wisconsin

Mile 3410: Dunnville, ONT

WARNING: WHINE ALERT!

Here we are, one day from Niagara Falls, and I am still trying to get the stories from Wisconsin finished.  I very much want to tell the stories as soon as I can, before the memories become too faded.  I keep records and notes, as well as photos, receipts, and maps of our travels.  But each blog post takes quite a number of hours to write, re-write, edit both words and images, post to the BlogSpot, then re-post to social media and emails. 

At night, after a long ride, cleaning up, securing the next night’s lodging, and getting some dinner, I am usually too tired to write.  In the morning, I am fresh, but the days are growing shorter, and it is important to use the daylight to get down the road.  I have been trying to find time in pre-dawn, and that sometimes works.  But sometimes, it is all I can do to get up, get dressed (quite a ritual!), and get on the bike.

The other irritant is the constant hassling with the technology.  For quite a long time, my USB port was not working and I couldn’t easily get my photos from the cameras.  I have twice had to refresh my computer and re-install my software because constantly using open networks and motel Wi-Fi means that malware has been a big problem.  If I harden my firewall, then often I can’t get on the internet at all.  Simple tasks become hard and time consuming.

All sorts of people write me wonderful emails, which go days and sometimes forever without being answered.  There’s not time on the bike, even if there were reliable phone service. 

Wes and I are real mixed bags right now.  In some ways, we feel great.  Wes is almost to “fighting weight”, and I am slimmer and stronger than I have been in years.  My knees are complaining about the daily workout.  Wes complains of feeling mentally weary.  There are nights when we stay in a cottage and nothing feels better than sitting down to a (sort of) home cooked meal.  We have been eating out nearly constantly, and I am sick of it.  I miss my kitchen and my “things”.  I miss all the homely rituals around food: its shopping, preparing, and presenting.    So much of this trip has been in the outback, where food choices are a result of what can be purchased, stored, frozen, or fried easily.  The ubiquitous corporate chicken breast whatever is becoming completely unpalatable to us.

Biking reduces life to the most basic level: going, eating, sleeping, maintaining self and equipment.  For most people on these trips, this is a blessing.  There are many times on the bike, where we are not talking, and just off in our thoughts, our legs moving along.   Wes has been working out what it means to no longer be a teacher.  He circles back to this point over and over, as he tries to understand his new place in the world.  I, too, try on new identities.  I have been so focused for so long on Matrix that there are huge elements of my personality and interests that have stagnated.   I want to more fully live in my body, for one thing.

Despite the wear and tear, we are really excited to see this long journey through.  We will re-enter into the US on Sunday, after just 6 days in Canada.  It has been a wonderful ride on the north shore of Lake Erie, and it has completely changed my view of this most maligned of Great Lakes.  

As for the stories of the travels, I don’t have a solution.  I will just keep moving the story forward, even though my legs are outrunning my brain and my hands.  I think I will do updates as we move along, but forward the story of the people and the ride as best I can.    Reality charges away, with story coming when story can.

Wrapping up Wisconsin

 

We have a forty mile ride to Green Bay, then will need to get across the city, and onto the ferry port city of Manitowac.  We guess the ride will be 70 miles, which we can do, but find it pretty challenging.  We have a reservation at the port hotel and need to be there because our friend Robert is coming up from Chicago the next day to spend a few hours with us.

On the way there, I am quite worried about my brother.  We still have heard nothing but that the flooding is epic.  They are calling it a “1000 year flood” of “Biblical proportions.”  I tell Wes that if something has gone wrong, I will leave the trip in Green Bay fly back to Wyoming.  He says he will join me.  We think about what we would do with our equipment if we had to leave immediately.

Shortly out of Shawano, we encounter two burly Marines, walking the Mountain to Bay trail in combat boots, full camouflage, and back pack with rifles.   I slow down to chat with them as they and we keep going.  I ask, “Didn’t we see you sitting on the grass just outside the K-mart in Shawano?”  Yes, they had seen us, too, on the mad scramble to get to rotten resort before dark.  They are sort of a Mutt and Jeff pair.   One is tall and muscular; his biceps are twice around one of Wes’.  His massive shoulders and pecs prove a long acquaintance with barbells.  His partner is also all muscle, but a full foot shorter, round and solid and a few years older.  Both have “jarhead” haircuts—almost shaved on the sides, with a little bit of length on top.

They tell us they are walking the trail from Wausau to Green Bay.  This is a distance of 110 miles; they will do it in 3 and half days.  They need to walk 30-35 miles a day and have been camping on the trail.  They are raising funds to purchase care packages for soldiers serving in Afghanistan.   They will be featured at the Packers game at Lambeau Field on Sunday.  This is the fourth year in row they have done this.  They like the challenge and the outcome.

We tell that we have ridden from Portland, Oregon, and the shorter soldier’s jaw drops.  This is becoming a more common reaction now, especially when people see that we are not spring chickens and that our equipment is not the most efficient.  We wish them well.  They return the same.   Afterwards, we talk about walking 35 miles in combat boots.  It sounds both painful and impressive.

Our friend Robert is much on our minds as we enter the little town of Pulaski, where there is a big Franciscan abbey in a large tiled domed topped church.  We take our lunch in a Polish bakery and Wes finally gets to indulge his latte coffee habit for the first time in days upon days.  When we order the lattes, the counter woman’s face darkens, and she says, “Let me see if I can get the Latte Girl to come help you.”  Well, the Latte Girl, a young heavy set blonde with a very chirpy voice, makes a damn fine latte.  Wes actually sighs when he tastes it.

To my great relief, I get a text from my brother Scott, who has been able to establish contact with Steve.  My eldest brother and his cat are holed up in the guest room above the garage.  They are all right, but there is no power, no water, and the roads have washed out.  It is still raining a bit, and his house, parts of which sit right next to Left Hand Creek, have sustained heavy damage.  His wife, Esther, is in Maine, but will fly back to Colorado as soon as possible.  It is not clear what will happen next, but it is a great relief to hear they have come through the worst of it.

The bike trail into Green Bay is pretty amazing.  For a long while it takes us through a boggy canal, far below the surrounding surface. We are in green secret passage, tunneling into the innards of the city.  We start to encounter more people on the path.  It is Friday afternoon.  Nearly everyone we see is a baby boomer on a bike. 

After a series of pretty parks, the trail ends on the northwest side of Green Bay, which is a big city.  We come out to the road and try to figure out where to go.  We point our bikes southeast and hope for the best.  At the first big intersection, we start following a bike lane, but the sun is in the wrong place.  So we pull out the handy-dandy compass, and yes, we are dead wrong.  Luckily enough, we soon find the truck route through town, which is going exactly where we need it to.   It is the right direction, all right, but boy does it suck as a bike route.   We ride a lot of bumpy sidewalks instead of fighting Friday afternoon traffic.  We stop and take pictures of the big Fox River just before it empties into the Green Bay.  We are thrilled to finally be in the Great Lakes region.

As we keep following business Route 10 and we start moving toward the inevitable plastic land that rings American cities, the sidewalks disappear.   The traffic is horrendous and fast.  We are reduced to riding parking lots and walking across patches of grass.  It is slow going.  We have been going for hours.  It is getting near 5; traffic is peaking, and we are still a long way from Manitowac.  At a tavern advertising a Friday Fish Fry (a ubiquitous Wisconsin tradition), we decide to get some dinner, wait for the traffic to calm a bit, then enter shoulderless, busy road.

Inside the dark and simple structure, a group of men and women are having beers and getting ready for the first home game of the Packers.  We order the delicious fresh perch and the folks there immediately engage us in conversation.  They are very fascinated by our travels.  The women run outside to see our equipment.  Like all women we have encountered, their first question is, “Doesn’t your butt get sore?”  I tell them my strategies for this very real and never-ending problem and I can tell they are both amazed and repelled.   (Just as a note, many women think a big seat with big pads are a solution: actually it makes it worse because there is more surface to rub.  Tight padded bike shorts are a must.   As is painkiller for my tender parts.) 

We ask about the Packers and find out they each of these people are stockholders in the team—“the better for them to get money from us,” they say.  They also tell us that Lambeau Field holds 80,000 people.  The city has 100,000: they don’t know “what the hell those other 20,000 people are doing on a Sunday.  The town is dead quiet when the game is on.”

The folks in the tavern are very concerned about us trying to make it to Manitowac that night.  There is a big debate about how far it is.  Some say 25 miles, some say 35 miles.  One thing for certain is that is a long way to go after we have already gone 50 miles.  Sensible people, (which doesn’t include Wes and  I) would have taken the hint, cancelled the reservation in Manitowac, and found a place in Green Bay. 

But no.  We are concerned about our rendezvous with Robert.  We are looking forward to not having to mad dash in the morning to get to the ferry.   We make our way out to the highway and squeeze ourselves as far to the right as we can and push on.  We get the turn off to Denmark, which is the direct back road route to the ferry.  The road is horrible.  Made of concrete blocks in the 1950’s, it is broken at the edges and separated between the blocks.  It is shaking the hell out of us and the bikes. 

We continue like this for some miles, watching the sun move ever lower in the sky.  At one point, still outside of Denmark, Wes has had it.  He stops his bike and tries to hitch a ride.  This is futile and a waste of precious daylight.  I tell him, “Let’s just go to town, where the traffic will be slower and we can talk to someone about giving us a ride.”

The town is hardly more than a crossroads, but the road greatly improves and there is a good shoulder.  We don’t stop, pushing hard to cover the distance.  Dusk is starting to come on when Wes stops a man riding a lawnmower, and ask how much further it is to Manitowac.  He tells us we still have 12 more miles to go and we better get a move on, but like a good Wisconsinite, he also wants to visit. 

The landscape is really getting interesting as we get closer to the lake.  We see a few 18^th and early 19^th century buildings, but there can be no stopping to read history plaques.   We zoom down a hill to lovely little glen.  The sun slips behind the horizon.  There is a very sweet state campground at the bottom.  We have to make a decision.  We have missed the deadline to cancel our reservation.  If we camp here, it is likely we will mess up our visit with Robert.

I call the hotel to tell them about our predicament and ask if there is any kind of shuttle service that can pick us up.  They don’t have one, but there is a service called “Two Guys Taxi” who might be able to pick us up in one of their vans.   She gives me the number.

I call and tell them where we are two adults with two bikes and two trailers.  He is in the midst of servicing one of their vehicles, but he will get someone out there as soon as they can.  I tell them we will keep moving toward them as long as there is light.  We make a few more miles and come to a well-lit intersection and decide we best stay put.  I call they guy and tell him where we are.  He is on his way in a car; a van is coming, too.

A little while later, a middle aged man and his 11 year old son pull up in small sedan.  We finagle our trailers into the trunk and back seat. “Don’t worry about the upholstery,” he says.   Pretty soon, the van arrives.  It is driven by his 18 year old son.  We move seats around, fiddle here, fiddle there and finally get both bikes in.  Wes will ride with the son.  The game younger brother will ride in the cargo area of the van.  I will ride with the dad in the sedan.

The ride to the hotel takes a fairly long time on the freeway.  We were obviously delusional to think we could make it on bike.  I have a nice chat with the dad.  He tells me he had been long-distance trucker based out of Milwaukee for 25 years, but then began to get neurasthenia of the feet and could no longer drive.  He was using some re-training dollars to go back to school to study computers.  He and his wife moved to Manitowac to help with her parents.   He was in the midst of his studies, when a school mate told him he was about to lose his business because his partner lost his driving license.  So four months ago, he became a business owner, running this transport service.  It is lots of hours, but he liked it a lot.  They mostly transported people back and forth from the ferry.  A big source of business was taking people from the ferry to the Packers games.  The hardest part for him was dealing with all sorts of customers—“quite a difference from spending hours alone on the road.”  A year ago, his family was in crisis.  Now they felt like they had a future---as long as his feet held out.

At the hotel, he charges us the ridiculously small amount of $30 for the use of two vehicles for a 30 mile round trip.  We give him more than that, and I wish we given more than we did.  I really hope this family can make it in this new venture.  

We have made it to Manitowac all right.  Not quite under our own power, but here nonetheless.   We entered Wisconsin on Sunday.  We will leave on Saturday.  We’re moving fast now.

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Posted from Medina, NY

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T+92: We Like Wisconsin

Mile 3243: Ridgetown, ONT

The next morning we make our way back through the town of Bloomer, whose 19^th century downtown is fairly intact.   We feel time pressing on us, so we don’t stop.  I experience this as a contradiction in terms.  Our “job” is to explore America, but we won’t make it across America before cold weather, if we don’t get a move on. 

It is not long before we are in the heartland of Wisconsin.  This is the landscape of small family farms.  Gone are the giant threshers we encountered in North Dakota, where the blades of a single mower were wider than both lanes of the highway.  (The thresher moved as far to the left as possible, and we left the road, and the huge arm of rotating blades still just missed us.)  The acreages for these Wisconsin farms are probably in the hundreds rather than the North Dakota thousands.  The ground is hilly and in the bottoms, it is marshy.  It is easy to see why this is dairy country.   While there are stands of corn, it does not dominate the landscape the way it does in central Minnesota.  In fact, it is more likely to be sweet corn or ethanol corn than miles and miles of feed corn.

The ride is really fun and the weather is just right.  The hills can be charged, so we are moving pretty rapidly.  This is a testament both to our increasing fitness and the relative gentleness of the landscape.  Wes and I debate the best way to charge a hill and have mini-competitions to see who develops enough speed and thrust in the downhills to glide up the uphills without having to resort to the lowest gears.  Wes has fun making up silly sayings about this, “I’m playing this hill like a….lyre…like lycra…like a lute…like a bassoon….like a baboon.”

There starts to be more and more trees as the day progresses.  Our destination is the town of Medford, which sits just outside the Chequamegon National Forest.  In between the farms there are stands of Northern Forest, which is a rich mix of pines, firs, and larches, along with ashes, oaks, and birch.  At the little town of Prairie View, we first see a curious machine in a city park next to the Chippewa River.  We find out this large diagonal machine, whose top was 60 feet in the air, was the sole example of a counter-weight operated log stacker.  This a testament to the huge logging industry which is almost gone in Wisconsin, and to the ingenuity of 19^th century engineering.   At its base, a long rails-to-trails bike path winds its way down the river to Eau Claire.  It looks lovely. 

We make our way to a little café that specializes in homemade ice cream.  There are two older women in there, along with the proprietor.   All three women immediately start asking us all sorts of questions.  Wes starts teasing and flirting with the women in their 70’s, making them laugh and telling them to get ready for their bike trips.   The smaller, rounder woman, with assiduously dyed black hair, holds up her cane and waves it at Wes, “When I was younger, I rode my bike everywhere, but my biking days are OVER!”  The two debate who Wes looks like: certainly like their friend Rory, but doesn’t he also look like Burt Lancaster?  This makes us laugh because it is so outlandish.  We eat our lunch, visiting across the dining room.  Finally, they leave and wish us well. 

Hours later, we make our way into the little town of Gilman.  We are thirsty and hot, and after our delicious root beer float of the day before, have a hankering for another.  We step into a tiny café, and ask the big blousy waitress for a float, which is not on their menu.  She says, “Let me ask…”  A youngish cook steps out, sees that we are cyclists, and says, “I think we can do that.”   As he makes up root beer and ice cream concoction in the blender (decidedly not a float), he tells of his bicycle adventure at the age of 19, during which he and a group of friends cycled from Vancouver to San Diego.  “Man, I remember eating whatever we wanted: steaks, fries, cake.  Boy, those days are over!”  The waitress jokes, “I am a perfect size 10, I just wear this size 22 over it to hide it!” 

About that time, we hear the sound of small scooter pull up.  As a stocky, older gentlemen comes through the door, the waitress and cook holler, “Hey Pauly!”  He responds, “You got any of that lemon merengue pie left?”  Then, without waiting for answer, looks at us, “You ridin’ them bikes out there?  You need to get a scooter like mine.  Be a lot easier!”  They tell him the pie is all gone.  He says, “You had some this morning.” “Well you should have ordered it then!”  Back and forth like this, the signs of a long and easy acquaintance.   Pauly finally allows that he will just have a bowl of chili.  The waitress sets down the bowl.  As Pauly starts to struggle with the crackers, she steps over, removes the package from his bent and rigid hands, and deftly pours the crushed crackers into his bowl.  The gentleness and familiarity of the gesture touches me. 

The conversation and joking is really rolling and we don’t want to leave, so we decide to split a tuna fish sandwich.  The cooks starts making it as we talk about farming and trees and the economy.  They all say that the economy is barely scraping along.   The waitress says, “We lost alotta businesses in this little town, let me tell you.”  When they find out that this is Wes’ retirement trip, Pauly says,  “You know how you can tell when a dairy farmer has retired?  He starts to raise beef!” 

We truly finally have to leave.  Our fifteen minute break for a cool drink has stretched in 45 minutes.  We ask about the route ahead.  They tell us a back way into to Medford that will save us some miles and some hills.  Pauly takes his leave as we do.  Wes says, “I’ll leave with a joke.  You know there are only two kinds of gamblers.  The first one goes to the casinos, the second runs a farm.”  The cook laughs and says,  “Well, Pauly is both!”  Outside, Pauly zooms his tiny, maybe 50 cc scooter around us as we get ready to ride again.  He wishes us well, then putt-putts away.

We are aglow with fun of the visit when I step in the local pharmacy to see if they carry Anbesol, which I use to dull the pain of constant abrasion on my tender parts.  The pharmacist is a real grump, proving that not all Wisconsinites are ebullient and outgoing.  Just down the street, at a garage littered with all sort of golf carts, four wheelers, lawnmowers and all manner of small motorized equipment, Wes hollers out to the youngish men,  “Can we get a squirt of air from you.”  Sure thing.  This leads to another long conversation.  One of the men has a cast on his leg.  I ask what happened to his leg.  Pointing with his thumb at this partner, “He ran me over with that golf cart!”

By the time we get out of this town, it is getting late and the sky is starting to darken with heavy rain clouds.  We still have 20 miles to reach our destination of Medford.   About 6 miles from Medford, we take the short cut and the sky lets loose.  We soldier on in the pouring rain.   When we get to the truck entrance to the town, we take it, and make our way through a warren of window manufacturers.  Just as we pull into the park alongside the Black River, the rain lifts.  We climb the steep hill to the main street and call our motel for further instructions.   The desk clerk seems totally befuddled and has a hard time describing how to get to the motel that does not involve major highways.  I am unhappy to hear that we have another 4 miles to go after we had just come more than 60.  A young, Goth woman in black with heavy tattoos steps out of a bar.  Her sweet face and gentle voice do not match her harsh clothes and loud tattoos.  She gives us good instructions to get to the motel, which is on the outskirts of town, by the Wallmart.  Now we understand why the downtown, once a prosperous and lovely mill town with elaborate limestone storefronts, looks so forlorn.  Another victim of “spawlmartization.” 

We wind our way to the perfectly average, but perfectly acceptable motel and realize that if we hadn’t taken the “short-cut”, we would have driven right by it.  On our way, we meet an older couple from Milwaukee.  They too want to hear all about our trip.  They, too, are funny and friendly.   During our nightly ritual of showering together at the end of our biking day, we talk about the open culture here in Wisconsin.  Certainly people have been friendly and helpful all the way across the country.  But nowhere else have we seen people so free of self-consciousness, so open to experience, so funny and friendly.  We decide: We like Wisconsin.

 

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posted from Port Stanley, ONT

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T-9: Some Birthday

 Wes  celebrated his 60^th birthday on Tuesday and it was memorable---mostly for the wrong reasons.  On the positive-- if emotionally charged-- side, he taught the last class of his career on that day.  On the other side of the coin was the hot mess on our back porch.

Like all good maniacs, we are trying to address a big list of deferred maintenance issues before we leave.  One such issue is our back porch.  The plain truth is that the back porch needs to be pulled completely down and re-built.  Not only is it precariously balanced on a weak brick support on its southeast side, it is built so that it effectively blocks the light into the dining room.

We have wondered for years how to fix it because it has a critical, structural door to the basement that has to be accommodated into any rebuild.  The current porch is obviously not original to the 1908 house, and while it has some nice features, like an air-lock mud room, it is and has been a problem for at least 10 years. 

In typical poor Nethercott decision making, we chose not to paint the back porch when we had the house re-painted a few years ago.  We reasoned, “Why throw good money after bad, when we are just going to tear the whole thing off anyway?” 

So the porch has been sitting there, raggedy and unpainted, for years and years.  We finally figured out a solution, but of course, it will cost tens of thousands of dollars, so it’s not happening any time soon.  We decided to hire a local fellow Wes is friendly with to do the scraping and painting.  This neighbor is chronically un- and under-employed and was really struggling, so Wes thought this could help us and help him at the same time.

Unfortunately, hiring him didn’t involve checking out his painting skills. 

When I came home late from work on Wes’ birthday, it was obvious that the hire didn’t know beans from baloney about painting.  He had done a competent job scraping, and when it was done, just started painting, in the most higgledy-piggedly fashion, without cleaning first.  He commandeered one of my landscape tables, which was now covered in paint, spilled the paint bucket so that there was now a big splash of paint on the bricks, which he made no attempt to clean off, even though I had given him Goof Off for just such purposes.  He was painting over metal, wood, windows—unbelievably bad. The paint brushes are left to dry with paint on them.  There were five paint brushes like that.  Once a brush were fouled from the dirty wall, he just went on to the next brush.

So here I was bringing in bags of mulch and landscape stones, and a tres leches cake in a plastic container for Wes’ birthday.  It was already after 7pm.  It is all I can do to not go ballistic. 

Wes and I have some heated words about this mess on our porch.  Wes stands over the kitchen sink and eats his birthday cake while we figure out what to do.    We spend the next hour trying to salvage the paint brushes, remove the paint from the bricks and steps.  Wes ends the evening, painting the handrail, banister, and rail, while I strain and groan hauling 50 pound bags of mulch and placing rocks. 

We work until it is dark.  When we are done, the landscaping is finally done in the yard, the most visible part of the priming on the back porch is done, and Wes’ 60^th birthday has come and gone.

Wes keeps telling me, “Go listen to the answering machine, it will make you feel better.”   I dutifully go listen, sweaty and filthy, and it does make me feel better.  It's our exchange daughter, Louise, along with her mother and father, calling from Germany, singing “Happy Birthday” in English to Wes, before dissolving in laughter.  It makes us laugh, and reminds us not to take it all so damn seriously. 

We take turns taking baths in our deep, wonderful, claw foot tub and laugh at ourselves—our epically poor decision-making, our constant efforts to do the right thing, (which often ends up as the wrong thing),  and our need to remember--- that in the end, our relationships buoy us and keeping us moving forward.   Such are the lessons of 60 years…I think they fortell some more lesson-learning coming up.