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.