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+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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