Note: this is my last blog post about my summer 2021 tour in the U.S. West and Midwest. To read a list of bests-and-worsts, scroll to the bottom of this post. To read other blog posts, click on a particular month you'd like to access from the selection to the right.
I camped again with my sister, and her boyfriend, the following night at Buttersville Campground in Ludington. On Sunday morning I was on the road again.
Emotionally, it was difficult to push off. By now I was firmly in the territorial sphere of friends and family who offered generously to pick me up if I asked for it, wherever I might be. I began cycling the rolling hills and quiet highways of Lake Michigan cottage country and realized that I’m most unhappy in circumstances like these, when I’m too close to family and it would be so easy to throw in the towel. I began considering taking the ride and then resolved not to — and then I would consider it again.
Now, I was entering southern Michigan. A place not known for nature. For those who don’t know, most Michiganders live in this region, a dense belt across the southern and central swaths of the Big Mitten. It’s a place known for suburban sprawls and rotting rust-belt infrastructure — and deep poverty in its inner cities. It’s far flung from the idyllic northern cottage country offering respite for wealthier Detroit suburbanites and Grand Rapids folk.
I also became lonely and emotionally raw. Past beautiful Pentwater, on the coast, I had the opportunity to begin striking east but instead I followed the sirens’ call to a perfect rails-to-trails path through forest and small towns to Muskegon. I rode alone, continuing south, blasting King Krule’s new live album. And I felt something yield in me. I was alone yet tantalizingly close to my destination. If I just put my head down and dug in, and stayed strong enough, I would reach Detroit.
And I felt the weight of all those days before me when I’d dug in and pulled from a deep well of strength somewhere inside of me. All of those days, from Washington to Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula. Over 4,500 miles. I felt it not intellectually but in my bones, in my marrow. I put my head down and began crying out of exhaustion and joy but chiefly wonder at the vastness of it all. The towering mountain passes of the Cascades and the Rockies and the heat and the vastness. It seemed to me that I was wearing the imprint of those places, in my tanned skin, in the rough palms of my hands and my scrawny wrists. Like pendants. I felt minuscule and as if the land had offered me passage not with full hospitality but by opening a sliver of space and time I was able to slip through.
When I reached Muskegon I realized that riding this far south was a mistake, and one that I would pay for over the next two days.
The sky became dark again — the storms move in fast in Michigan, I’ve come to learn. Downtown Muskegon seemed to be a ten-block radius of breweries and expensive bar-and-grills, and white people in vibrant colors coalesced around a convention center housed in an impressive old stone building. Beyond this sphere Muskegon seemed mostly Black and poor, with the unmistakable rust belt atmosphere of huge stone cathedrals and desolate mansions in Queen Anne style. I rode a bike path east, through a rough part of town. I saw two guys on crappy bikes. Both white, they both were rail-thin and covered in tattoos and they watched me unsmiling as we passed each other. By 6:30 the storm had brought premature night and I sped on dangerous roads to the home of a family who agreed to host me last-minute. The heavens unleashed their hell literally within five seconds of me docking my bike on the side of the house. I hadn’t even made it indoors when the storm exploded. Peering out from underneath an awning, I glimpsed two young girls pull back the blinds behind a window and wave at me. The door squeaked open and a woman holding a baby shouted at me “Thank god you made it here.”
Winnie and her family gave me good space to do laundry and get some sleep early. In the early morning she prodded her baby in English and then Spanish. The child sat wide-eyed in a high chair, her eyes flicking between me and her mother while her fingers probed into a cup of water. “Quien es?” The mother asked her. The baby sat dumbfounded and knocked the water over.
I sat at a diner early that morning filled with old blue-collar Muskegans. I felt good. But it seemed to me that getting into Detroit would be impossible at worst and very dangerous best.
The first order of business that day was skirting a dangerous road that was apparently my only route to another rails-to-trails into Grand Rapids. I winged it and decided to investigate a pair of dead-end roads that almost connected. Luckily, I was able to connect them via a dirt path on someone's land, and when I popped out at the other side, a man with bad teeth on a bicycle approached me. I never asked his name, but he was so stoked on bike touring, and I answered all of his questions for about half an hour, us standing in this weird little cul-de-sac. I told him what I tell everyone interested in biking across the country: it’s awesome, go for it.
I rode the bike path and relished in the surroundings as the land turned from dingy suburbs to quiet cornfields and hamlets. Without warning the land turned dark and thunder howled metallic above. The heavens once again opened and I stood under a tree for some time, but then decided to damn it all. I was soon wet beyond wet and stood under another tree as somehow the rain yielded to harder and harder rain and the wind throttled the deciduous canopy above. The tree wasn’t offering any protection, so I sallied forth and was elated to find a rare overpass that offered total respite. A woman sat on the floor in there with a University of Michigan umbrella and I bummed a cigarette from her. “When in Rome,” I told her, and she laughed. She left to walk back to work and I sat there eating a peach I still had from up north and I read a little bit.
The storm passed some 45 minutes later. I found Grand Rapids to be unremarkable — which disappoints my friends from Michigan, because it has a reputation as a cool and affluent city.
I saw a beaver among the wetlands that day and made it to Ionia, a surprisingly large country town. That night I stealth-camped in the state fairgrounds outside of town, tucked in between the abandoned horse and goat stables. I was sick of riding in cities and suburbs and, after speaking with Matt on the phone, I decided to end my trip about 70 miles north of Detroit in Lexington, on Lake Huron’s quaint coast, where our families have long enjoyed little manufactured home cottages.
That morning I rushed out and forgot my riding gloves. RIP. I bought them in Worland, WY.
And the joy of cycling returned to me. Far out in the country again, among the field corn, I watched with satisfaction the swelling indigo bellies of huge scattered thunderstorms. I was able to weather the only storm that hit me from a safe vantage point in a diner called Grandma’s Kitchen, or something to that effect, where I ate everything but the plate and the table. A group of old-timers sat next to me and were delighted that I’d come so far on a bicycle.
That evening was lovely. The sunset seemed to linger for hours, as if the world was suddenly preserved in amber.
This would be my last night in my tent. I had nowhere to stealth-camp but I wasn’t worried. I decided between one of two cemeteries and arrived at nightfall in Montrose, north of Flint. A huge public park offered a better position that the cemetery, I figured.
A storm was projected to hit me that night. So I decided to take the risky approach of commandeering a pavilion, in clear view of whoever passed through the park’s parking lot. I’ve seen these pavilions became totally inundated with water in Michigan storms — in other words, even a twenty-by-forty-foot structure isn't enough in these circumstances. I decided I needed to get my tent off the ground and set myself to erecting a one-man shanty town by way of pulling together two picnic tables and pitching my tent on top of them. My backpacking-style tent also needs to be staked-out to retain its structure, so I meticulously cinched down its ends with a combination of bungee cords and strips of paracord. This took some time. The result was somewhat solid but an illegal occupation. I hadn't seen anyone yet.
My solitude didn't last. I heard the rush of a vehicle approaching and watched with dread as an SUV slowed to a stop in front of my pavilion. I knew immediately that it was a cop car because of the high-beam light on its roof, no doubt designed to cast light far into the reaches of darkness and root out rats like myself scurrying in the periphery. The light burned with the ferocity of a star, and I could only make out the shape of the vehicle.
I thought about ducking behind my tent and realized that was the stupidest idea I've had in a long time, which is saying something. So I turned off my headlamp and sat on a picnic table and ate Bugles, waiting for my fate.
The light burned and the car sat there in its shadow, idling. Unmoving. Some time passed and finally a figure walked out of the driver's side door. It padded away from me and toward some bathrooms.
I realized that the cop somehow hadn't seen me. I sat there on a picnic table still, in silence, watching. The figure slammed and locked the bathroom doors and approached its car. And, putting the thing in reverse, it backed up. And I knew then I was doomed because the cop would have to swing his vehicle around in my direction to leave the parking lot.
The headlights washed over me and I waved. The cop abruptly stopped. The car idled for a moment and from somewhere behind the blinding white light a voice called.
"The park's closed," a voice called. A man's voice.
I pretended not to hear and cocked my head, slowly and deliberately approaching the car. I was conscious that the cop might somehow interpret the bag of Bugles as a semiautomatic firearm, so I sort of put my hands up and told the person I couldn't hear him.
"The park's closed," the voice barked again. "You have to leave."
My entire range of vision was absorbed into the white light, and I slowly put up a hand to block it. And I began my spiel.
I told him things that were true. I was riding my bicycle across the country, and, you're not going to believe it, but this is actually my last night on my bike. I'm rolling into Lexington tomorrow afternoon, where my grandmother has a cottage. I told him a huge storm was coming to hit Montrose in an hour or two, and this pavilion was my best bet to avoid getting struck my lightning.
And then I lied to him. I was slated to stay with a host family but, would you believe it, one of them began having flu symptoms and was worried they might have COVID-19. That put me out here with nowhere to go.
I spoke in a mellow, relaxed voice to lessen my risk of being shot to death or perhaps tased.
At some point the cop turned off the searchlight and I saw him for the first time. In his upper 20s, perhaps, a white guy with hawk-like eyes and a strong chin with stubble. He mildly slurred his words when he spoke, like a frat boy with a heavy tongue.
I made headway with him and I could see him slouch his shoulders and relax. He was confused by my biking across the country. He apparently could not see the shantytown I'd erected behind me -- thankfully.
"To be honest with you," he said, "you're very strange."
He shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair. He was tired. "Riding a bike across the country. And this is what you do: you camp in parks?"
Hardly ever, I said. Circumstance.
I received his blessing to stay there for the night, in a roundabout way. And then he became interested in me and my trip.
His prodding kicked off a 45-minute conversation between us: him, a silver profile in his cruiser illuminated by the glare of an MPD laptop, and me, in my dirty clothing and attempting to eat an entire bag of Bugles out of anxiety.
This man was judgmental, paranoid and rough with women. He almost demanded that I carry a gun when traveling and told me vehemently he'd never allow his daughters to do something like this out of protection against "sexual predators." (I'm not proposing that risk doesn't exist to women, but I did meet many traveling alone by bike or car this summer who were in high spirits.) He probed into my personal life and abruptly concluded that I broke up with a girlfriend earlier this year because she "got fat." (That's not why.) Then he told me emphatically that, when his wife gains weight, he'll tell her unequivocally that she "let herself go." He demanded to know whether certain women I met on the road were sexy. I told him I made several new friends who were women, which he did not understand.
"Women," he told me. "You don't need them. They're only good for one thing -- let's be honest."
He laughed and I laughed nervously. And quickly he added: "I have two daughters. I shouldn't say things like that."
I began pushing back on him, gently, so as to assert my beliefs but avoid being extrajudicially gunned-down in a parking lot.
He also proposed that I should have "caught my own food" this summer with a fishing pole and, producing his iPhone, he swiped through photos of himself and his daughters holding large fish.
"Do you fish?" He asked me. I lied and said I did in an effort to make myself as normal-sounding (to him) as possible. "What do you fish out West?" I thought about it for a second. "Trout," I said. The only fish I could think of at that moment.
Once he understood how far I'd come, we listed off all the states I'd traveled through. And he suddenly approved of me and my voyage. "Dropping out of society" is what he called it.
Eventually he told me that the groundskeeper would arrive at 4:30 a.m. and yell at me. But he said I had his blessing.
"Alright brother," he said, fist-bumping me. "Next time I see ya, let's go fishing."
And he rolled away.
I stood there and exhaled and watched him leave. A strange, strange man. He did not give me renewed faith in American police departments.
And I promptly moved my tent into a much better stealth-camping spot, now likely hidden from this groundskeeper. Damn the storm. As I assembled my items and tucked myself in I understood what this trip might have become if I were not white and capable of explaining that I actually have money. A one-way trip to the morgue at the behest of paranoid and trigger-happy property owners and bored cops. The storm never arrived.
The next day, my last, I rode 80 miles, mostly on gravel.
I shook my head, incredulous, when I realized I had 15 miles left. I picked apples in the countryside and out-ran several terrifying farm dogs. I rode in silence in the sun, under an array of immense but latent storm clouds scattered between the horizons.
A deep calm washed over me.
I coasted into Lexington, a place I've spent so much time in what felt like past lives. And every fiber of my body harbored a deep satisfaction at what I'd accomplished. I pushed my bike onto the narrow concrete harbor jutting far into Lake Huron and snapped some photos. Two military jets rocketed south, directly above me, and I laughed at having won an accidental fly-over. I didn't speak to anyone and stood in silence, humming with a quiet joy I intend to harbor like a secret.
***
Thanks for reading, everyone.
This won't be my last bike tour. I'll fire up the blog again when I'm back out there. I'd chewing on either Alaska or a big ride from LA To Patagonia in a few years.
If you'd like to get in touch with me for touring or other questions, my email is stringer.grantj@gmail.com. I'm on Twitter @Stringerjourno and on Instagram @grantj_stringer. My website is www.grantstringer.com.
***
SUPERLATIVES
-miles: about 4,700
-miles hitch-hiked (not included in above tally): about 350, mostly due to fires
-biggest day: 105 miles
-favorite day: can’t say
-favorite state: Wyoming
-worst day: Entering Dillon, MT while the entire region burst into flames
-flat tires: 3
-crashes: 0
-bike glove pairs: 2
-tire pairs: 1
-worst physical challenge: numb hands (abated with seat adjustments)
-almost-crashes: 1 serious biff in Pictured Rocks. I rode it out.
-most dangerous campsite: Kooskia, ID, where a guy was swearing and pacing around my tent all night. Needless to say, I did not sleep well.
-longest pass: Washington Pass, North Cascades National Park. 30 miles up and 20 down w/no services
-hardest day: purely subjective. Bonking on a small pass outside of Prairie City, OR when I was hungover after the 4th.
-tallest pass: Big Horn mountains, WY, 9,666 feet
-windiest day: Highmore to Huron, SD. Nasty crosswind/headwind
-strangest regional food: kuchen, a cake in South Dakota.
-national parks: 10
-favorite national park: Yellowstone
-most generous town: Ivanhoe, MN
-whale sightings: 1
-mountain lion sightings: 1
-porcupine sightings: 1
-bear sightings: 1 (black bear, WI)
-worst loneliness: Chelan, WA or Suttle Lake, OR
-most days without a shower: 10, between Duluth and Interlochen, MI
-scariest farm dog: back-to-back days in central Michigan
-favorite art museum: Minneapolis Institute of Art; Buffalo Bill Center in Cody, WY a close second
-least favorite town: Yakima, WA
-worst mosquitos: Yakima, WA
-worst people: Yakima, WA
-best regional bike path: Olympic Discovery Trail, WA
-favorite meal: Thai food in Huron, SD
-worst mechanical failure: front derailleur cable became frayed after 4,000 miles. I replaced it.
-favorite regional news story: South Dakota’s attorney general killed a man walking on the side of Highway 14 — which I rode — and botched a coverup. Ongoing.
-biggest rain storm: leaving Traverse City, MI at 9 a.m.
-biggest hail storm: Big Horn mountains
-worst official campsite: Yakima Sportsman State Park, WA
-best official campsite: tentatively, Mammoth Hot Springs Campground in Yellowstone
-sketchiest stealth-camp: my very last night, in Montrose MI
-worst sunburn: leaving Montevideo, MN
-most ubiquitous bug: harvestmen
-favorite regional beer: Moose Drool, MT
-best new skill: opening starburst packets one-handed
-best swimming hole: undisclosed dragonfly hot spring in Boiling River, Yellowstone; Black Rocks cliff jump in Marquette, MI
-best hidden gem: yeah fucking right
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