Sept 3 note: I wrote much of this on Aug. 31 but, due to lack of service and becoming very busy, I wasn’t able to post until today. I’ve since traversed Michigan’s UP and am nursing my bug bites.
I’ve entered my last state, my last time zone.
Thursday, when I left Duluth, had me pedaling against blowing winds and through merciless storms of black clouds and hard rain. I threaded northeast up a spur on what locals call the north Wisconsin’s “south shore” — the “north shore” of Superior is not in Canada but actually in Minnesota.
The land was blustery, dark, cold. Cars were few and far between. Every ten miles the road would deposit me on the coast, and I’d stand there in the silence watching the black water erode banks of brick-colored earth. The tempestuous surface sloshed beyond, as far as the eye could see, ad infinitum. I lost cell service and the road narrowed and rose and fell in dramatic but challenging hills. I passed two small towns that both harbored fishing vessels and sailboats in rocking marinas. A black bear scampered across the road ahead of me. Not long after, I swerved into the road to bypass a skunk wandering around the tall grass bordering the shoulder. I was much more scared of the skunk.
Somewhere during this time I glanced in my rearview mirror and realized tiredly that the passenger truck behind me intended to play chicken. This asshat won. I jerked to the gravel shoulder and into the weeds and it roared past me, kicking up mist and startling a serene trio of sandhill cranes. I watched the truck pass down the road and I realized that the driver would’ve hit me had I not careened into the dirt. The truck’s oversized mirror hovered completely in the narrow shoulder as it passed out of sight, a 55 mile-per-hour battering ram. This was my first close call in many, many miles. I kept going.
A host I stayed with in Minnesota had connected me with his friend near Cornucopia, who said I could pitch a tent on his property. My stuff was soaked, my hands white with cold, and I envisioned a huge cabin with a roaring fire. When I finally trundled down the pipestone dirt road the sun was dipping and the lush forest gave way to 20 acres of cleared meadow. Mist enveloped it all. In the center, on a hill, stood a white shipping container with windows. Marc stood over a smoking firepit, around which were several chairs and a wooden counter of dishes and cutlery. I said hello and he walked toward me, a man perhaps in his late 50s with long hair and a wiry, salt-and-pepper beard. He smiled and gave me a big hug.
It felt like coming home. I looked around in the mist. A large grate stood over the small fire, supporting a big, steaming pot of something gurgling freshly-made pasta sauce.
“Feel free to pitch your tent wherever you want,” he said. “And I just made some pasta, with some fresh tomatoes. I just picked up the beef earlier from down the road.”
He built the fire up and we sat happily in the mist, which became rain. And then the rain stopped and I meticulously dried my tent over the fire, which I do not recommend.
When he was my age, Marc and his now ex-wife homesteaded in northern Minnesota, by the Boundary Waters with Canada. They built a shack off the grid and lived there, growing crops and raising small animals, for four years. After that, he lived in Nicaragua teaching for the Peace Corps — a complicated experience, given the shameful history of U.S. imperialism there. Marc still camps in Minnesota through the inhospitable winters. Now he has his cozy home of corrugated metal to flock to when he’s sick of the cities down south. He built the structure’s interior of dark wood. A bed, big windows, shelves, cabinets, two chairs, a big lush rug. I’m not very into tiny homes, which, in my estimation, seem to be cost-intensive and aesthetically over-the-top. And not to mention, very small. But I loved his.
Later that night some of his friends came over. We had some beers and the forest rustled around us. Some animal fumed in the night, rhythmically growling, zig-zagging toward us. My ears perked up.
“What is that?”
Marc laughed. “Sven. The neighbors’ farm dog.”
I looked into the dark. Two eyes glowed in the tall grass.
Sven continued his guttural rumblings, like an old man clearing his throat, and paced the perimeter. He wouldn’t come closer. Slowly we heard less and less from him and he slipped into the dark.
Only to return in the dead of night.
The unmistakable rumble of Sven’s methodical, slow approach spilled into my dreams in some capacity and finally woke me. I turned over in the blackness of my tent and weakly pleaded with him to please, please go away. He was apparently wandering around my tent in concentric circles. I swore and crawled out of my cocoon into the cold night.
He was gone. I stood there in my boxers, in awe of the scene. Wispy clouds rushed before the moon. The meadow shone in mysterious silver night and, in the woods bounding Marc’s land, coyotes chattered in their shrill language.
The next day I rode through a native reservation and then walked my bike onto the ferry, to Madeline Island in the Apostle Islands. These islands are a chain of mytical, pine-rimmed landmasses that have somehow managed to weather Superior’s ferocities all these millennia. For you northwesterners out there: they look exactly like the San Juans. The only difference is the air isn’t salty.
I walked into a deserted park pavilion to eat lunch and became stuck there for two hours weathering a powerful thunderstorm that hurled rain through the awning and soaked the cement in a half-an-inch of water. Afterward I stubbornly refused to buy myself enough food because the prices were absurd. I rode ten miles then to a state park and through a dense emerald forest to where a low cliffband jutted far into the indigo water. I ate ramen there and another rainstorm pummeled me.
I became very concerned about money — three months as I am into this trip — and since resolved not to pay for camping at all. This is totally feasible, but if you’re in a rush, you can end up camping in less-than-ideal locales. That night was a case-in-point. I camped in the mud behind an official campsite in the state park and weathered two malevolent storms.
I took the ferry back and rode the next day in the sunshine to Ashland. Every day since, the weather has been perfect. 70s, and 80s blue sky. Nice chilly nights.
My front derailleur cable was fraying, I noticed, so I replaced it — after some effort, because I initially screwed it up — in front of a diner. I didn’t have cable-clippers, so I awkwardly wrapped the excess cable around my seat post for three days, which worked. My toiling amused the old folks through the windows.
That night I rode Highway 2 for the first time since Twisp, just outside of North Cascades National Park in Washington. The road narrowed and I had to pull off of it constantly to let traffic pass. I later sat in a bar in a gas station and ate a pizza and had two bud lites. I sat directly next to two local guys who shot silver tequila and blackberry brandy with the bartender in honor of their deceased friend’s birthday. When the guys left, one of them bought a spot for me in the nice campsite behind the bar.
The next morning I rode hard on backroads, but mostly on 2, which sucked. I crossed into Michigan and briefly rode the Iron Belle trail, which is paved and glorious and winds through pristine woods.
The land near Ironwood swept upward into rocky overlooks. Here every inch of the earth’s surface harbors deciduous forests and, at the crags and precipices, the first vestiges of autumn are spreading down through the leaves. I had two goals for the day: to hoard baked goods and pasties from a revered bakery in a tiny town, and to hitch-hike 150 miles to Marquette.
I quickly did both. The hitch-hiking was surprisingly smooth. I stuck my thumb out and, after two minutes, I watched an RV from the 80s putter past. An old man smiled at me. He circled back.
“What’s the deal?” He said.
I explained that I had a camping trip planned with my sister, and I was riding my bike across the country, but I was late for the appointment. He shook my hand.
Larry and his partner Clara. I took my handlebars off my bike to squeeze it into the 1987 Toyota RV. Larry explained that they’d just bought the thing in North Dakota the day before. They keep it running during the day when they stop, he said, because it’s prone to suddenly dying. Thankfully for Larry and Clara, a mechanic showed them a trick: with a crowbar, one can bang against something in the engine, and the truck will start.
They dropped me off at the Walmart in Marquette. It was late afternoon then. I rushed like a madman to get my hair cut and my beard trimmed and feed myself and get water and give myself enough time to see town.
It was enough. I made it with sunlight to spare a few miles north up a bike path to Presque Isle. The famous Black Rocks cliff-jumping spot is there, in a cove. I resolved to jump and immediately pitched myself in before I could sow any seeds of doubt. Two other people were there jumping. The water was surprisingly warm in the rugged enclave.
I stayed there almost until dark and quickly found a place to sleep.
My adopted home for the evening was a small and lumpy patch of tall grass, on the outskirts of town, sandwiched between bushes and a chain-link gate belonging to the port company. The company runs the rail lines bringing iron ore from the mines to the great rusting shipping depots on the lake. I had to hear the rattle and grind of the fence all night as passenger cars entered the property. When I unrolled my front pannier in the morning, two spiders scurried out of a webbed nest they’d made.
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