Sparta, Michigan

 

Halfway between the Carnegies in Cadillac and Sparta I took a small detour to pass through the long-forgotten town of Idlewild, the largest resort town in the US for African-Americans for fifty years until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended segregation and freed blacks from around  the country from having to make the effort to get to this out-of-the-way cluster of small lakes in the northern forests of Michigan.  

This once thriving town, founded in 1912 and comprised solely of black-owned businesses, has become a virtual ghost town.  I had this once “Black Eden” virtually to myself as I biked it’s network of residential streets, many unpaved.  There was no one to be seen other than an occasional Black out on foot.  There wasn’t an open store.  The relatively new museum (Historical and Cultural Center) on the outskirts of the town had a sign saying “Closed for the Summer.”  It at least provided a detailed map of the town.

One could tell what homes were presently inhabited by the Biden signs out front.  No Trump signs here. I could thank Jeff H. of Chicago’s “Reader” for suggesting a visit if I was nearby, as I had never heard of it.  Nor had Janina or even Rick, who knows Michigan like the back of his hand.  

It was an otherworldly experience cycling around this largely abandoned town reflecting on its past, that such a place was necessary, but also that it was a place of pride for those who built it and the thousands who had a joyous time there romping in the cool waters of the lakes and horseback riding in the woods and letting it all hang out in the clubs at night and glorying in the floor shows that rivaled anything Las Vegas could offer. 

Plaques scattered about town in front of various buildings and on a walking tour around the largest of the lakes expanded upon its past and what a draw it was for black entertainers including Aretha Franklin, The Four Tops, Sammy Davis Jr.and Louis Armstrong.  Their performances attracted large crowds of blacks and whites, who sat side-by-side.  An Idlewild Review toured the country during the off-season, spreading the word of the resort.

It is still Edenesque, more forest than town with lovely lakes and beaches and dozens of cabins waiting to be renovated.  The most modern complex of buildings is a retirement home, presumably the largest employer in the town.

Jeff also recommended the Hartwick Pines State Park twenty-five miles south of Gaylord, noted for patches of old growth trees.  It was another exemplary experience cycling through its majestic forest of trees.  If a hurricane force wind happened to come through, there might be a neckerchief to be found around it’s entry.

It was a good day’s ride through mostly forested terrain to Cadillac, another town nestled around a cluster of lakes. It’d been three days since I’d coseyed up to a Carnegie.  It was nice to once again feel that surge of pleasure at its first sight, even though this one had let itself go.  It was in desperate need of a make-over.  It had been replaced in 1969 and its next tenant, the police department, had done little to maintain it during its eight years residence.  The biggest travesty was letting the steps to the entry deteriorate and rather than fixing them wiping them out so one wouldn’t have to walk up steps to get into the building.  The entry had been replaced by a window, greatly undermining the beauty and integrity of the building.

It’s been a historical museum since the police left, without the funds to return it to its former glory.  It’s dome is its most notable feature, so much so that the museum’s slogan is “Your history under the dome.”  It had recently been repaired and repainted, unlike the pair of columns flanking the original entrance.  They are badly in need of being painted, as rust is showing through.  

The standard Carnegie portrait greets those mounting the steps to the museum entrance.  It had been amended by a feminist faction with a tiny clipping of a photo of his wife, who he married later in life at the age of fifty-one in 1887 four years after his library-giving began.  She was twenty-one years younger and outlived him by twenty-seven years, dying in 1946.

The following day a couple hours after my time in Idlewild I stopped at a Dollar Store to restock my ramen and take advantage of its electric outlet and WiFi.  With a temperature of 60 I had the rare opportunity to sit outside and eat a peanut butter sandwich while checking my email and the football scores.  And it gave someone an opportunity to make me a charity case, even though the discerning eye would have realized my attire of tights and long-sleeved Garmin winter-jersey, a hand-me-down from Christian Vande Velde, defined me as something other than an indigent with no place to live. 

It wasn’t long before an SUV pulled up in front of me and a kindly lady, after rummaging around in her glove compartment, got out and  approached me with a small cloth pouch.  At first I thought she was offering me a handmade mask, as it had a couple of strings to draw it closed.  But no, it was a bag with about a pound of coins in it—11 quarters, 42 dimes, 19 nickels and 86 pennies, many corroded as if they’d been confined to the bag for quite some time. It wasn’t as much as a similar stash a guy gave me in Ohio earlier this summer, but still a tidy sum, well more than a day’s expenses. Five minutes later she reappeared with two bags of groceries saying “God bless you.”  

They contained two bags of trail mix, beef jerky, cheese sticks, two mini-apple pies and two bottles of water.  I had to struggle to make room for it, as the day before in Cadillac I scored big at an Aldis, just the third I had come upon in this trip.  I harvested four one-pound containers of soup (three chicken-noodle and one tomato), a bag of Halloween candy and a dozen packages of fudge peanut butter clusters.  I could have gotten a year’s worth of the clusters, but that’s all I had space for. The clusters were premium fuel, each in the packs of six provided one hundred calories, just fifty calories less than the chicken noodle soup.  I was sorry there was only one tomato soup, as it contained four hundred calories. The bag of Halloween candy contained an assortment of mini-Snickers  and Milky Ways and bags of M&Ms.

I had a similar bonanza  at the first Aldis I came upon in Owosso.  It offered up several dozen one-pound bags of a deluxe chocolate-coconut granola.  I only took five,  some of which I still have, along with a pound of Colby cheese, four bananas and two quarts of pineapple juice.  The one time I had loads of capacity was at the Gaylord Aldis when I was visiting Rick, but the dumpster had just been emptied.  I had been hoping to come back to Rick’s place with a week’s worth of food for him and Jeanie, as I regularly do for Janina and I.

Twenty miles before Sparta I said hello once again to the Carnegie in Newaygo, which I had visited two years ago when Janina and I were driving up to Traverse City for Michael Moore’s film festival. It had had no more additions than the several it had already had to its back and sides.

The Carnegie in Sparta also had had a significant addition to its side and rear, but its original building retained its regal splendor.  The building didn’t have Carnegie on it, but a sign out front identified it as a Carnegie.

It had greatly reduced hours, not opening up until one on Mondays and Wednesdays and open only four days of the week, so I had to sit outside to use its WiFi and drain my battery.  Hopefully I’ll be able to gain entry to the next Carnegie in Portland, north of Battle Creek, and good ‘ol Kirk from Facets.

Gaylord, Michigan

 

Just as we did in April of 2018 Rick and I met up at a small town library so he could escort me the final twenty-five miles to his home on some of his favorite, lightly-traveled roads. The last time he led me into Lansing, back when it wasn’t under threat from white supremacists. 

This time our destination was his girlfriend’s cottage on the shore of Lake Otsego, outside of Gaylord, 190 miles north of Lansing and 60 miles south of the Mackinac Bridge way north in the state.  The library in Lowells wasn’t our designated meeting point, rather it was wherever we happened to meet up as Rick cycled towards me knowing the route I was coming in on.  I stopped at the dinky library in Lowells, a room in this small town’s offices, to email Rick my location.  Not ten minutes later Rick walked into the library, having spotted my bike out front, not having received my message.

I’d had a wonderful morning ride of twenty-five miles on F97 with hardly a vehicle passing.  I could well understand why Rick was so enamored with this road, enough so that he had biked the 190 miles up to Gaylord from Lansing three times this summer, then driving back to Lansing with Jeanie, his girlfriend of twenty-five years.  He used to make the ride in one day, taking no more than twelve hours, thanks to a lifetime of conditioning that at one time back in the ‘70s had him strong enough to qualify for the national championships on the road and on the track and have Olympic and even Tour de France aspirations.  

He can still ride with the Big Dogs, but rather than making a day of the nearly two hundred mile ride between his residences, he divides it into two, carrying a tent and sleeping bag so he can camp halfway.  His three rides this summer are his most in one summer.  Thanks to Covid allowing him to conduct his business on Zoom and on-line, he had spent more time in Gaylord this summer than he had the previous ten summers combined.

It wasn’t that the biking was so much better up there than in Lansing, as in the summer months the roads are clogged with vacationers, many in grotesquely large “McMansion” RVs.  Even worse are the reckless locals in their black pickup trucks, who he fears all want to run him off the road. He’d love to carry a baseball bat so he could swing it at their heads, just barely missing, so they’d know how he felt when they pass him so closely.  The perils of the road are outweighed by the cozy comfort of Jeanie’s long-time family cottage and its million-dollar view out over the six-mile by one-mile lake. It is nestled right up to the lake and has one of its few beaches a few steps from it’s porch.  

The view to the left isn’t so fabulous, as it is of a recently built, inordinately large house on two lots with a sprawling driveway that takes up a good part of the property to accommodate a three-car garage.  It was made an even worse eyesore with most of the trees on the property having been cut down, in contrast to just about every other residence on the lake clustered with trees. “A Detroiter,” Rick said, just like the neighbor to the right, though that one had a much more civil mindset, kind enough to let them use their WiFi before Rick and Jeanie installed their own.  

Like all the cottages ringing the lake these were close enough that when Rick and Jeanie were on their porch, they could engage in conversation with their neighbors without having to raise their voices.  In the summer months when the lake was crowded Rick had to try to block out all the noise from the neighbor’s socializing along with the near non-stop jet skiers on the lake and leaf-blowers and lawn-mowers.  

Summer was actually his least favorite time to be at their retreat.  He was particularly aggravated by all the “nature-fakers” holidaying there who were always in a hurry to get somewhere or do something and were afflicted by that disease of the “me” in America. They had come to be in nature, but didn’t know how to do it.

Our first ten miles of cycling together on F97 couldn’t have been finer, other than  a three-mile stretch of badly pocked road, as we were able to ride side-by-side chatting away with only two non-aggressive vehicles intruding upon us.  It is hard to find such a road anywhere, at least in the paved universe.   I was in a good mood as I had finally found a Michigan license plate earlier in the day to add to my collection.  It wasn’t the version with the “Pure Michigan” slogan, but it would do.  Rick said he couldn’t recall ever seeing a license plate along the road in his thousands of miles of biking all over the state.  I was delighted to hear him say that, as it was a good omen that I’d find another while riding with him.

And indeed I did the next day, and it was a “Pure” one, when we took a ride to a nearby ski resort on the fringe of what Rick calls the “Otsego Alps.”  Rick rode right past it, not attuned to the offerings of the road.  He was similar to Chris, who I rode with in June.  He hadn’t spotted a single neckerchief in the 9,000 miles he had ridden up to that point on his trip.  But after I gathered a couple in our time together, his eyes were opened and now I hear from him regularly about his latest find as he nears the completion of his ride on the Oregon coast, about to finish up his nine-month circuit of the States at his starting point south of San Francisco.  I’ve gathered three neckerchiefs so far on this trip, including a take on the flag with rows of white stars on three diagonal strips of red and blue.

The road does provide.  I mentioned earlier how I wished I’d brought along heavier gloves with the temperature in just the thirties some mornings. Since then I have found two strays that will do.  They are both left-handed, but one is large enough that I can flip it over and fit my thumb in the thumb slot and little finger in the far right slot.

There is a minimum of aluminum cans along the road, as Michigan has a ten-cent bounty on them.  I didn’t realize that until I noticed a cluster of disheveled folk with shopping carts full of cans gathered in a corner outside a Walmart.  I thought they were an enclave of homeless sheltering themselves from the cold wind.  But then I noticed one gain entry, taking his cart in to feed his cans into a machine.  Since then I’ve spotted lines of people returning cans and bottles outside of grocery stores.

The Treetops ski resort Rick took me to was less than ten miles north of Gaylord.  It didn’t offer much more than two hundred vertical feet, but it had several lifts and a nice selection of trails.  The back road we took to the summit had us straining when it’s twelve per cent grade suddenly ramped up to eighteen per cent.  The views were exceptional out over the colorful forest.  

A golf course adjoined the ski resort.  It was hard for us to fathom why so many guys would want to be hitting golf balls on a driving range when they could be riding bikes, getting their blood flowing, feeling alert and alive and taking in an ever unfolding panorama of fabulous scenery on this gorgeous fall day.  Standing around whacking at balls seemed like a silly endeavor, as they no doubt regarded us riding bikes.  Hadn’t we heard of the automobile?

Over dinner Jeanie lamented that if not for the virus they would be in England.  Rick could lament the cancellation of the 50th DALMAC ride, a four-day ride from Lansing to the Mackinac Bridge that attracts 1,500 riders every year, and that he has ridden almost as many times as anyone.  It was started by a Michigan legislator, Dick Allen, a bicycle advocate.  He gathered a handful of friends in 1971 to “ride all the way to the bridge to prove that bikes and cars could share Michigan’s roads safely.” It has grown considerably since then.

Rick had been on its board of directors and caused a ruckus one year when he refused to ride with the mandatory safety flag on it stick, electing to just have it dangle out of his rear jersey pocket.  A rules-stickler wanted to ban him from the ride.  That led to a “Let Rick Ride” campaign that caused such a stir that one need only type those three words into google search to find out all about it.

As always, it was an enlightening and entertaining time spent with Rick and well worth the swing up to Gaylord into the cold north wind.

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.

Owosso, Michigan

 

The temperatures have become more amenable, climbing into the sixties for the first time in a week.  It is much easier to crawl out of the tent when it is fifty degrees, rather than forty.  It is no longer November, but rather Biketober, the best month for cycling.  Along with the warmer temperatures, the sky has cleared.  It is always good to be on the bike, but all the more so when it is bright and sunny.

It didn’t even dampen my spirits to be passing through Flint, a symbol of industrial decay and government not concerned with the welfare of its citizens.   Even before it’s disastrous drinking water crisis when the mayor chose to change the city’s water source from Lake Huron to much cheaper, heavily polluted river water, Flint had the image of a downtrodden city where one wouldn’t want to live, partially thanks to Michael Moore, who grew up in the neighboring town of Davison.  His documentary “Roger and Me,” about his attempt to interview the CEO of General Motors so he could give him a piece of his mind, established Flint as the epitome of a city strangled by corporate-firstism, at least in the mind of Moore.

Biking through the city, I couldn’t distinguish it from Gary, Indiana or Port Huron, or other cities in serious decline.  There wasn’t much traffic, pedestrian or motorized.  I figured it would be a good place to find a cheap motel, as I was in need of a shower after six nights of wild-camping.  TripAdvisor offered a handful for fifty dollars or less, most with breakfast included.   None mentioned that breakfast had been cancelled due to Covid, as I learned when I checked in, a huge disappointment.  Motel breakfasts may not be anything special, unless they are accompanied by a do-it-yourself waffle-maker, but they are generally self-serve.  I can often eat enough to get me through the day.

Besides a shower, I was also in need of a tire, as my rear one had surprisingly shown spots of the tread having worn through.  I had replaced it in Columbus on my last trip, a little over 2,000 miles ago.  I can generally count on getting 2,500 miles on my rear tire and twice that on the front.  I had expected it to last this trip.  

Having to replace it wasn’t all bad, as it allowed me to search out a bike shop.  There seemed to be only one in Flint, five miles south of the city center—Assenmacher Cycling Center, named for the owner, Matt, who had at one time been a frame-builder.  When demand declined for custom frames, he turned his urge for welding to making lamp shades and other objects from bike parts.  

The possibilities are endless, as was demonstrated by the yard full of bike art I passed by  earlier on this trip, and, of course, by all the concoctions I encounter along The Tour de France route.  Matt is an ardent racing fan and had gotten to The Tour de France a couple of times, including 2004 when we were both among the tens of thousands packed on L’Alpe d’Huez for the only time it was a time trial in The Tour, which Armstrong won on his way to his sixth consecutive Tour victory.  Matt was wearing a well-faded Postal Service baseball cap from that year.  In hand was another of the arty bike objects scattered around his large shop—a pen and pencil holder made from bike chains.  

His artistic whims went beyond bicycle parts.  He had arranged a couple of piles of rocks in front of his shop as well.  He didn’t really need to draw attention to his shop as he acknowledged he is about the only one in the area.  “There might be one downtown,” he said, “But I’m not sure about that.  There were five Schwinn shops twenty-five years ago and several others, but they’re all gone.  There is one in Davison to the east of the city.”

Flint’s Carnegie had been razed in the ‘60s, but it was flanked to the east and west by towns twenty-five miles in each direction whose Carnegies remained—Lapeer and Owosso.  Both were home towns of distinguished authors, who their libraries featured.  In 1981 Lapeer put the name of the Newberry Award-winning children’s author Marguerite de Angeli on its Carnegie.  She had been born there in 1889.  The basic red-brick building sat on a slight hill and had just a small addition to its backside, which was now the entrance.  

It was very community-oriented, open on a Sunday.  The Carnegie portrait resided in a corner above the original wooden book shelves.

Owosso hadn’t placed the name of its renowned author, James Curwood, on its building, though it did have his portrait and several other photos related to him, including his nearby castle, on a wall.  Curwood was born in Owosso in 1878.  Most of his books were adventure tales set in the Canadian north in the spirit of Jack London.  He was one of the top selling authors in the US in the 1920s.  More than 150 movies were made from his books and short stories, one staring a young John Wayne in 1934, “The Trail Beyond.” He was also a zealous conservationist and served on Michigan’s Conservation Commission. He built his fairy-tale themed castle in 1922, about the same time the Carnegie was built.  It is now a museum dedicated to him.

The library was located on the busy four-lane highway, Main Street, that passes through the center of the town. Entry is now through the small addition on its backside, away from the hubbub of the traffic.

In this time of Covid, as in all the libraries I’ve stopped at, plexiglass surrounded the librarians and the drinking fountains were closed.

Twenty miles north of Lapeer in Marlette is another later-Carnegie, also built in the 1920s. It was the last in the Midwest to receive a grant from Carnegie and the second to the last in the country. It too was a modest, but distinguished-looking, red-brick building, as Carnegie preferred.  He didn’t endorse the ornamentation of the early libraries—columns and domes and such.  His usual ten thousand dollar grant went further a decade or two before these libraries built in the ‘20s and could provide for such excesses.  

It had an addition to its side, more than doubling its size.  A plaque out front gave the false information that it was one of fifty-three Carnegies in Michigan, confusing the number of grants to the state with the number of libraries.  Carnegie gave grants to fifty-three towns and cities in Michigan, with the grant to Detroit providing for nine libraries—its main library and eight branches—bringing the total of Carnegies in Michigan to sixty-one.  I’ve gotten to all but ten of the fifty still standing, each a marvel.  Six more await me on this trip and then four more in the far west of the Upper Peninsula.

Port Huron, Michigan

 

The light from the sun hasn’t been waking me in the morning, as I’ve had my head buried under the flap on my sleeping bag helping me to stay warm in the thirty degree temperatures. I’m fine in the tent, but I’ve had to shiver a bit at day’s start on the bike.  I wish I had brought along heavier gloves for the first hour or so of riding, as I wasn’t anticipating such cold temperatures.  It is unseasonably cold, and there’s not much promise of it warming significantly with the days growing shorter and my route taking me north.  

Though Michigan is the car state, it’s roads aren’t the best.  All too many have deteriorating edges, which are highly treacherous when there is no shoulder to ride on.  I have a small measure of extra safety thanks to Chris, the cyclist I rode with for eight days in Ohio this past June.  He was riding with an Ortlieb mirror attached to his handlebar just below the brake lever.  I saw how effective it was, so decided to join the very slim ranks of cyclists with mirrors.  I’ve given mirrors a try over the years but have never found one to my satisfaction.  This may at last be it.

Ortlieb is the premier manufacturer of panniers. I had no idea this German company had added mirrors to its product line.  Anything with their name on it had to be superlatively designed.  And that Chris, a PhD in physics who knows a thing or two about quality and utility, had made use of it as a commuter before setting out on his grand touring adventure from San Jose last January and gave it his full endorsement was enough to convince me to give the mirror a try.

I have been very happy that I have.  I have full confidence in this high tech object.  It’s nice to be able to give it a glance rather than twisting my head around to see what’s behind.  It has become a fun toy checking traffic, even when there is no need to.  I’ve generally relied on my ears to detect the sound of traffic coming up.  This helps confirm what they may or may not be picking up.

And it’s nice to have a mirror if I have to look at in accessible spot on my body for ticks.  There have been none so far in this cold.  I did have a slug slip into my tent and nestle in the recessed nozzle on one of my water bottles, attracted by a residue of chocolate milk.  The bottle was empty, so I luckily didn’t squirt it into my mouth.  I only discovered the intruder when I filled the bottle with water and squeezed it to rinse it out in the sink of a library.  It was quite a surprise to all of a sudden have a tiny slug squirming in the sink.

Another surprise that I don’t particularly welcome has been roads suddenly turning into hard-packed dirt or gravel. Such roads may be a fad among some cyclists, but I don’t enjoy them at all. I would have thought this car state would be fully paved.  At least unsurfaced roads mean a minimum of traffic, as cars want to avoid them too.  The out-of-the-way locales such roads take me through generally bring an extra abundance of Trump signs. They are a genuine phenomenon, if not blight on the land.  They don’t just outnumber Biden signs, they totally overwhelm them.  I can go all day without seeing a Biden sign, while the Trump signs are non-stop.  Many are homemade or arranged in a shrine of a sort.  

Many look as if they have been in place for four years and will remain so for another four years regardless of the outcome of the election.  The “No More Bullshit” signs get to the root of Trump support.  These people are sick of mealy-mouthed politicians.  They appreciate Trump’s forthrightness, whether it is valid or not.

Trump signs dominate small towns too, but the larger ones, such as Ann Arbor and Port Huron bring out the Biden supporters.  I was glad a Carnegie Library brought me to Port Huron, as it has long stirred my imagination of what this most eastern city in Michigan at the tip of Lake Huron and entry-point to Canada was like.  As I approached from the south along the St. Clair River, the Canadian side of Sarnia was dominated by large oil tanks and industry.  The Michigan side was residential.  I greatly longed to cross over to Canada and the one hundred Carnegies in Ontario, but Americans continue to be barred entry.

The monumental Carnegie, now a museum, indicated the former wealth of Port Huron.  The city hired noted Chicago architects Patton and Miller to design the library, constructed of Indiana limestone, and brought in New York State Librarian Melvin Dewey, creator of the book classification system that bears his name, to speak at its dedication in 1904. There were other buildings of similar grandeur in Port Huron, but the city was much in decline, and appeared semi-abandoned in these times of people staying at home.  The new library in a complex of municipal buildings with large swaths of open space around them had yet to reopen, only allowing patrons to order and pick-up books as was the policy in Ann Arbor.  

All the small town libraries I had stopped at, including the Carnegie in Armada, thirty miles to the west, were allowing patrons entry.  

I couldn’t take advantage of the “Armada Free Library,” as I arrived in the early evening after it had closed. It was a modest brick building with a sizeable addition to its side.  A sign in front of the addition echoed the engraving across the top of the Carnegie.

After forest-camping my first four nights, I was able to camp alongside a corn field for the first time a little ways out of Armada.

There was just a thin strip of forest separating me from several homes set back aways.  It was my first campsite within range of human habitation, but I was confident no one would be out wandering in the cold.

Ann Arbor

 

My heart sank when I slipped inside the Ann Arbor library and I saw further entry was blocked by a barricade and shelves of books for pick-up.  I had been looking forward to some sit-down time and finding out from a librarian where the Carnegie was located, which had been replaced by this building in 1957.  Wikipedia was vague about its location.  As I approached the barrier to see if I could spot a stray librarian I heard a voice ask, “May I help you?”  It came from an unmasked woman on a video screen, as if she were the Wizard of Oz.

When I asked her the location of the Carnegie, I thought she would know off the top of her head, but she had to bow her head (in shame) and consult her computer.  “The article I’m reading says it is at State and Huron,” she said, “and was remodeled and enlarged.  One can see the stone exterior of the old building in contrast to the red brick of the new building.”

It was just several blocks away.  I was able to ride on bike lanes part of the way, some even protected.  They were the first bike lanes I had come upon in the 250 miles since I left Chicago.  There weren’t many cyclists out and about in this college town with the temperature barely above fifty and not many students on campus.  A few were bundled in Michigan sweatshirts, mostly women, some who didn’t let the cold deter them from going about in shorts.  I was among them, as I hadn’t resorted to tights yet, even starting the day bare-legged with my thermometer registering 39 degrees.

I’d encountered more Amish in horse-drawn carriages than cyclists.  The lone cyclist was a 30-year old on a spiffy new carbon fiber bike on his four-mile commute to his job as a bee consultant.  He spent his day helping people in the area who had bee hives, often having to drive considerable distances in the company car for on-site diagnoses.

I didn’t immediately spot the remains of the Carnegie Library when I got to State and Huron.  The lone red brick building was a huge seven-story university building.  I feared I was at the wrong location, as when I asked the librarian if she had a specific address for the library rather than the vague Huron and State she said,  “500 South State” which was several blocks away.  But as I circled around I spotted the unlikely site of the grand facade of the Carnegie sticking out of this characterless monstrosity that had totally consumed it.

It was admirable that its frontside had been preserved, but an outrage that it had been so denigrated.  And the bland red brick and glass library a few blocks over that replaced it was a further outrage.  The Carnegie had been a majestic building that the community could truly be proud of, something that residents would take visitors to see.  The new library was an utter blah.  At least the Carnegie’s history was acknowledged by a storyboard on the side of the building along the sidewalk, complete with a photo of its former glory.

Despite the letdown of this Carnegie I had the glory of the Carnegie in Hudson, sixty miles to the southwest, still fresh in my mind from the day before.  It was a spectacular castle of a building built in stone that hadn’t been marred by an addition, just a street level entrance in the rear.  I arrived after it closed so could only peer in through the door, which had a sign saying masks required and no more than four people allowed in at a time.

The ride from Hudson to Ann Arbor took me through the Irish Hills, a region settled by the Irish in the 1850s fleeing the Great Potato Famine that reduced Ireland’s population from eight million to five. Most of those fleeing the country came to the US.  A monument along the road complete with the Irish flag explained the woeful tale of the An Gorta Mor (The Great Hunger).  The hills weren’t too steep or prolonged, but they did get me over 2,000 vertical feet of climbing for the day for the first time in these travels.

Most of the signs along the road were endorsements of Trump.  One farmer included a denouncement of Michigan’s governor calling her an idiot and mocking her with a play on Michigan’s motto of Pure Michigan.

Biden signs finally popped up in Ann Arbor.  Along with them were the typical college town emblems of hammocks on porches and strings of Nepalese prayer flags.

The central part of Ann Arbor offered blocks of old homes, many rented out to students evidenced by the bikes locked out front and other accoutrements.  They were a welcome contrast to the sprawling developments on the outskirts of the city of cloned all-too-big two-story homes utterly lacking in character or individuality. It was hard to imagine who would want to live in such compounds with minuscule yard space between each and the danger of returning to the wrong one late at night after imbibing beverages that might impair one’s judgement.