At the Lion’s Club in Luther, MI

No explaination, except to say that I’m trying to cut back on beer consumption. Check last night’s post if you haven’t seen the pictures I added.

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Just over the edge of 3,000 miles

I don’t know where the few readers of this blog imagine me to be right now, what with the sparodity of these posts and the total disregard I show for linear temporal organization. For those of you who are interested in getting the truth of at least one experience on this windblown tour, please check here: www.NT2010.blogspot.com that’s the blog of John Fischer, the guy who’s fundraising for the American Lung Association as he rides across the country with us, and who documents everything everyday, down to the sandwiches he ate (which are, incidentally, almost always the same PB&J and turkey and cheese).

Let’s pretend that we left off of the tale at the border of Minnesota and Wisconsin. That would be St. Croix Falls, WI, which is notable for its steep river valley and dense hardwood forests. For those of you who read the Adventure Cyclist, this is the country just north of the area Aaron Teasdale writes about in his most recent feature. We all decided that we liked Wisconsin more than Minnesota, although I’m still not sure why. To me they were essentially the same, with friendly people with friendly accents and good cheese and lots of lakes. If I were to make a value judgement I’d say that the landscapes of Wisconsin were slightly more interesting, but all the world’s in a blade of grass, as they say, so I don’t complain about nothin. Thus we rode smoothly and without complaint ENE toward Hayward and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Dairy farms dotted the corners of quiet county roads, which in Wisconsin are quaintly lettered (as in, “county road JJ”). Corn fields did not roll endlessly on, but instead were to be found couched, almost hidden, among the hills and woods that swarmed up around us. Some friends of one of our riders sat one afternoon on an untrafficked corner and fed us crackers and watermelon as we came by, and told us stories of how drastically the Northwoods world changes come winter. That’s when the snowmobiles come out en force, and rev their beery engines. Or is that the drivers? Anyway, the small towns all kept bars at least, and sometimes a gas station and sometimes a coffee shop. Somewhere along there was a diamond in the rough, an absolutely heavenly coffeehouse where Chuck roasted his own while his wife baked the pastries and we sat contented in a well restored service station of yore. The picture of Dolores and Dan in front of the wall hanging that reminds, “Kindness Matters,” to be found a couple of posts down, is from there.

Hayward was a trip. We stayed in a KOA with, no joke, probably 2,000 other people, all of whom lit fire to soggy logs sometime around 8 each night and blanketed the whole place with COsomething. There were so many creatures there on account of the International Lumberjack Competitions, which we were lucky enough to see on a Saturday night. That’s right! Underhand chopping and springboards, and the 60- and 90-foot tree climbs. These interspersed by log rolling, men’s and women’s, poised opposite or chasing (the competitors either facing different or the same direction). These amazing people on the logger’s deck could saw through a 20 inch section of lathed white pine in 8 seconds flat, I kid you not. And my land (said one lady), how those boom runners sprung across the logs!

After Hayward we made our way into Michigan, where on the first night, true to form, we weathered a minor disaster. This has been an uncomfortable trend for us, to endure some minor tragedy with each transition into a new state. I am determined to break the spell when we enter Ontario in a couple of days. But the day we entered the UP, one of our rider’s bikes fell almost completely apart, and we camped in a city park just in time for the storm of the season to roll over us and flood us out. Dan, the guy with the mechanical disaster, holed up in a town nearby and waited for a new bottom bracket to be overnighted out, while we hunkered down under picnic shelters, wishing we could dry out. Happily, the next day it did dry out and Dan got his part and caught up with us. The rest of our introduction into Yooper culture went smoothly, and all of us appreciated arriving on the shores of Lake Michigan. Throughout the next week I was constantly tricked into thinking I was back on the coast of Mexico, such a clean turquoise were the waters of that lake, with such white sand below. It was a time of great swimming. We made it to St. Ignace, the Straits of Mackinac, and Mackinac Island (“Mackinac” apparently is pronounced with the “c” silent and with a “w” in its place). There we had a layover day, which most of us used to brave another rainstorm on the island, where we had the distinct pleasure of watching hordes and gaggles of manicured tourists, on rented bicycles without fenders, getting splattered all day long with mud and horse manure. I know that’s cruel to say, but it was fun to be there and I make no apologies. The forests of the island are extremely well preserved, and walking the paths was tiring in a way I haven’t felt in a while. The stables of the Grand Hotel were a highlight. I caught a nicely sillouhetted view of a worker spraying down his horse after a long day of cart pulling. Some chocolate fudge and a few more tourist traps later, and it was time to take the jet boat back to the mainland.

Crossing the Mackinac Bridge was a slight disaster, but I won’t say more about that. After that, we stayed nights in Petosky, Torch Lake, Interlochen, and Luther. Riding through Traverse City and taking a brewery tour with Dan and Andrew, and then meeting my Awesome Uncle Mike at the Right Brain Brewery, having a pint with him, and riding with him 13 miles back to our camp was a great highlight of Michigan and of our trip. It was a giant treat for me to see family and we had a great time chatting about everything and nothing. He showed me photos of cousin Ali’s wedding from July 4, in which my cousin Ali appears as the most beautiful bride in the world. Congratulations Ali! I felt pretty special to have Mike come visit and to show my Michigan roots to the group. So thanks again, Uncle Pa, it was great to see you.

Tonight we are in the Doherty Motor Hotel in Clare, MI.Around the corner is this little oddity:  It’s nice to be indoors, though a bit stifiling. I look forward to another state park tomorrow, this one outside of Bay City on the Saginaw Bay. Thanks for reading this far, if you have. Now yer caught up.