Bronson, Michigan

As I wandered around the yard of a house out in rural Michigan just across the border from South Bend getting a close look at an array of bicycle sculptures, a white-haired woman came out onto the porch of the house and said, “Those are the work of my husband.  He’s a retired bicycle shop owner.” 

“It looks like years of work,” I said.

“No, he did it all this past summer when we were confined by the pandemic.”

“They’re magnificent.  I’ve been in France during The Tour de France and I see many bicycle sculptures along The Tour route.  I’ve never seen a bike in a tree or a wall of wheels or a couple other of your husband’s creations.  He would be greatly celebrated if he did this in France.” 

“Are you from around here,” she asked.  

“No, I’m from Chicago.  I’m bicycling around the state visiting Carnegie libraries.”

“You must see lots of interesting things.”

“I do.  This morning I passed a yard with a couple of decorated toilets of someone selling mums.”

“The day before I saw a bunch of rolls of toilet paper scattered on the road.  I picked up a few to redistribute. Would you like one?”

”No I don’t think so.  Thanks anyway.”

“I’ve seen a lot of displays of pumpkins.  But nothing has been more eye-catching than your bike art.  It makes my day.”

Finally, after two-and-a-half months of down time, partially due to a case of Lyme Disease I picked up in New York from some tick on my last trip, I’m back on the road for my annual fall ride of Carnegie-hopping.  The last three years I’ve made circuits of the cluster of “I” states (Illinois, Indiana and Iowa) in pursuit of the libraries.  This fall it will be Michigan.  

I would have preferred Wisconsin, as more await me there, plus I could have slipped into the Upper Peninsula and Minnesota for a few more, but its Covid infection rate was so high Chicago was requiring anyone coming from Wisconsin to undergo a fourteen-day quarantine. Michigan’s infection rate was among the lowest in the country, so I made that my destination even though I’d only have fourteen Carnegies to visit, about half of what I usually gather on these fall forays.  Fifty of the state’s sixty-one Carnegies still stand, but I’d been to thirty-two of them on previous trips.  My present ride won’t finish off the state, as I did in Ohio earlier this summer with a hefty haul of fifty-three, as there are four in the UP all the way over on its western end along the Wisconsin border that I will save for another time.

The first of this trip came in Bronson, 160 miles into my ride.  As always it gave me a great wave of pleasure, heightened by two days of anticipation, to behold the magnificent century old building that has been a great source of pride and joy to over seven generations in this town of 2,400 residents.  It shone as the town’s most prominent building a block over from route 12, the old Chicago Highway laid out in 1825 to connect Detroit and Chicago.

 

The community had such pride in having a Carnegie that it added “CARNEGIE” in bold black letters over the entrance.  A plaque out front also honored the library, while acknowledging the Women’s Library Association dating to 1880 for instigating it’s acquisition.  It had a small addition to its backside and Covid-necessitated plexiglass panels on its original circulation desk spanning the middle of the one-room library.  The Carnegie portrait hung over the bookshelves on its northern wall.  I was able to soak in its glory for an hour, making use of it as a warming center with the temperature just fifty degrees, quite a contrast to my summer ride when I was seeking places to go into with air-conditioning to cool off.

Its nice to have no concern of running out of water in my tent at night.  I have slipped into forests my first two nights, the first a bit prematurely when a rain storm came sweeping in off Lake Michigan as I approached Michigan City.  I followed a clear cut under power lines turning into the forest a little ways down where I could set up my tent somewhat protected from the rain by the trees.

My second night I turned off Highway 12 onto a side road a little before Sturgis, where I was able to ride on a dirt track alongside a field of mown wheat along railroad tracks surrounded by a strip of forest.  I had to break off branches to make space for my tent for a perfectly secluded spot for the night.  And so it goes, the life of the independent touring cyclist.