St. Helen, Michigan

 

My visit to Bay City for its Carnegie would have been further enhanced if my cycling friend Gary was in town visiting family, as I  hadn’t seen him since he had retired to Thailand several years ago.  Besides catching up with his ever interesting life, I would also be happy to let him see the Surly I was riding as it had originally been his.

He bought it for a trip to South America, but after reading reports of others who had cycled there thought he needed a different bike, one that could accommodate 650mm tires rather than 700s.  He wasn’t able to return his practically new Surly, so was going to offer it up on eBay for a bargain.  I wasn’t in need of another bike, but it was such a good deal I couldn’t resist adding it to by stable of bikes and to have a touring bike in reserve.  Ever since I have been alternating my travels with it and my Trek520, prolonging the lives  of both.

When I emailed Gary asking if he might be home, he replied from Vietnam, where he was taking a break from Thailand, as he had to periodically leave the country to renew his visa.  I had once visited Gary in Bay City, back in the days when he was selling cars.  He drove me and my bike up from Chicago, and I happily biked home.  That was twenty years ago.  It left no memories of this city on the Saginaw River where it empties into Lake Huron, so it was all fresh to me as I arrived in search of its Carnegie Library.

It was on Center Street, a four-lane boulevard lined with mansions built at the turn of the previous century by lumber barons and others who had amassed wealth in coal and sugar beets and ship-building. Among them were impressive churches and the Mason’s building, many with plaques out front, as had the Carnegie.  The entire street has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Carnegie was now a bank, replaced by a huge two-story library filling an entire block a few blocks away closer to the city center.  As other Carnegies in the region, it was constructed of red-brick, though it was larger than the others in smaller towns and was accentuated with a set of columns.  

From Bay City I continued north after crossing the Saginaw Rive, heading to Gaylord and the cottage on Otsego Lake of a cycling friend taking a break from his base in Lansing.  It was off my Carnegie route,  but would take me into the North Woods.  The next Carnegie was in Cadillac about one hundred miles west.  Gaylord was more than one hundred miles away, mostly north.

Almost immediately the traffic diminished and the trees closed in on me.

It would have been idyllic except for a strong wind from the north and the many political signs desecrating the otherwise pristine landscape. It was by far the most fearsome headwind of the trip gusting up to thirty miles per hour.  Flapping flags along the road reminded me what I was up against, on the bike and politically.

The day dealt up more woes when I approached Edenville and the Tittabawsee River, where I came upon two bridges that had been wiped out this past May when two dams burst due to heavy rains.  It required a considerable detour to find a still intact bridge across the river.  The head wind and the detours meant that my reunion with Rick and my arrival in Gaylord would be half a day later than planned.

That allowed me an extra night of camping in the thick forests of Michigan’s north, the best and easiest camping of the trip.  I could ride right up to dark knowing I could camp just about anywhere.  I waited until I came upon a dirt track into the forest so I wouldn’t have to push through the brush along the road, though there was little enough traffic that I need not be concerned about being spotted before I could disappear into the woods. 

The forests were so spacious the deer didn’t even object to me encroaching upon their domain.  Now I just have to hope the wind continues from the north when I head south to Cadillac and back to Chicago.