Firmly into a lower gear; time to travel on...

Empire Beach, Lake Michigan

Michigan's biting flies, buzzing lawn mowers, sand in toes, ice cream, fireworks, tourists, river-soaked shoes... this is how we knew our summer had begun. After down-shifting in Michigan for a week, it was time to get back on the highway again in order to see the Great Plains we'd set out to.

Our onward travel was delayed a day when Jenifer's knee buckled over the wrong way bringing us reluctantly to the emergency room. This meant we had find room in the car for crutches and adjust some of our later plans for hiking and backpacking, but with a couple couch pillows to elevate her leg on the long ride ahead, we drove down the eastern shore of Lake Michigan for Illinois and points west.

Michelle, Jenifer, Jeff (mother, daughter, father) looking out over Empire, the dunes, the lake and all that

Thanks Jeff, Michelle, Hayley and everybody up there for a great time!

Under the Milky Way

The skies in northern Michigan are so far from city lights that even staring into a backyard fire for a couple of hours does not erase the brilliant Milky Way over head. One of my favorite things about traveling up there is the way our galaxy reveals itself beyond the usual smudge across the sky. Looking sideways into our galaxy's disc, there appears to be wisps of cotton floating above and below the whirling plane. The night we built this fire was chilly, so to boost the fire's effectiveness we opened the bottle of whiskey we'd bought at the duty free shop on our way through Canada.

Slow paddle on the Crystal River

The Crystal River empties Glen Lake into Lake Michigan just over a mile away. But, because of the slow, meandering course the river takes, there are about 15 miles of paddling via canoe or kayak to get to the village of Glen Arbor on Lake Michigan. A map of the river looks like the chart a seismograph makes in an earthquake, but the land surrounding the river is mostly flat, sandy cedar swamp that occasionally opens up for lush reed fields -apparently good habitat for huge snappers and strange bitterns.

The stream itself is very shallow and clear with a sandy bottom. This apparently allows one's companions to feel brave about smacking water toward fellow paddlers, and getting faces full of water in return. Right, Jen?

What would it sound like...

paying for something convenient, Empire, Michigan

What would it sound like if all of the labels, words, images and colors used to get our attention were making noise instead?

Steeped in culture on the 4th of July

What better way to bury oneself in the smells and flavors of the United States on July 4th than at a classic car show in Michigan? In many ways the car show culture is as foreign to me as is being anywhere else in the world, so while I don't know anything about cars, the shapes, forms and colors of their fans were rich and fascinating! Especially fun to watch was the pride of the owners as they sat back taking in the appreciations of the wandering crowds. Oh yeah -the cars were interesting too.

Lake Michigan's bearish dunes

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Empire, Michigan

Sleeping Bear Dunes, Empire, Michigan

The prevailing winds off of Lake Michigan pile sand dunes up on top of already high glacial moraines making the dunes reach heights of over 400 feet straight out of the lake. This means many familiar beach functions like water gazing and sunbathing take place far removed from the lapping waves. It also means, for anyone running down to the water, a long, steep, very soft, thigh-burning, waterless hike back up. It's not unusual for the rangers to have to rescue people from below using jet skis.

Empire beach, Lake Michigan

Empire beach, Lake Michigan

Empire beach, Lake Michigan

Just about everything anyone loves about beaches can be found in the upper Great Lakes: smooth soft sand, vast horizons, clear blue water, tiny strange sand bugs, gull footprints, the bubbling sand after a wave recedes. One thing not usually idolized however is the freezing-cold water of the lakes. It can make swimming something you have to "get over with" in order to lay out on the beach. For many locals however, the icy temperatures they grew up with translate to cleanliness. It means they get turned off by warmer southern waters since it feels "dirty". I think it's just a way to identify themselves with the land they're from...

Michigan, July 2009

I'll begin the photo-blog style flash-back to last summer's road trip where I left off previously -in Michigan, before we set out onto the midwestern prairies. Staying in northern Michigan for a week visiting Jenifer's family allowed us to shift gears and sink right into so many wonderful clichés of summer including beaches, classic car shows, local festivals, canoeing & kayaking, sun-baked sand dunes, cool starry nights with distant coyotes howling, and -not least- ice cream...

Left to right: summer job at an ice cream shop, black cherry ice cream

A pretty blank slate.

What is it about water, by itself, that can draw people just to look at it? It's obvious why human geography has largely organized along the coast lines and major water courses of the world, and it's beyond obvious why it's so precious to us as living bodies. But why are we drawn to it as a place to stare off into? Perhaps a more interesting question: when there's a crowd of people staring off at the horizon from an overlook built expressly for the purpose of staring out over an empty sea, what is going on inside each person's mind?

If one lets it, it can be restoring to watch the open water for a long time, just as it can to watch a fireplace. It's refreshing whether you catch up with and order all the jumbled thoughts that pile up in our heads, or whether you go someplace new in your head. I guess I wonder if this is what people are mostly doing, and if so, whether they are aware of it.

Almost an island

I've always been curious and befuddled by Michigan, though I've never been able to articulate why. I remain perplexed despite having previously lived there for over eight years.

It's in the middle of a large continent, but it's surrounded by huge inland seas. It's culturally conservatively midwestern, yet also very coastal. Perhaps some of the trouble lies in that having grown up in the US, we're conditioned to stereotype coastal culture as liberal, stylish and worldly compared to an insulated, provincial continental interior.

So, life there is steeped in visuals of vast sand beaches, wooden ship steering wheels and lighthouses as home decor, sport boats, fishing vessels, giant ore tankers, gulls, huge sand dunes covered with beach grass and covering ghost forests, and ever-present horizons of open sea. Now add to that a deep-running fondness for cozy pastel sweatshirts and flannel, fleece slippers, an ingrained deer-hunting culture revolving around bait piles, big, square, American-made minivans and trucks, and a decent peppering of conservative religiosity, and you have a unique culture I've only ever seen in Michigan. Occasional whiffs of preppy looks or aspirations remind me of New England, though perhaps only a movie version of New England... Of course stereotypes never hold up upon any kind of examination, but for that matter neither do most people's dearly held self-identity.

On the surface, none of the above geographic or cultural elements should seem to be at odds with another (and likely match quite perfectly in the mind of any given reader); nevertheless, every time I go back I have to adjust my mental map. I can't shake my surprise that there are all those huge seas all around me there.

Saginaw, Michigan

We spent the first evening of our trip crossing Upstate New York, bridging the Niagara River at midnight. After an over-night across Southern Ontario, we entered southeast Michigan at sunrise. Trading the steering wheel back and forth and long naps prevented the marathon from becoming a chore. In the morning we made our way north through Michigan, stopping for a while in Saginaw.

45 years ago Lefty Frizzell sang a song called "Saginaw, Michigan". He may have only picked this town because of the rhythm it makes when singing its name, but hearing it on local radio when I lived in northern Michigan ten years ago put a version of the city into my imagination. We pulled off the freeway to finally see the place, and found what looked like a mass abandonment. I think a whole boom and bust cycle occurred here in the half-century since that song was written.

Whole blocks of houses were boarded up. Strip malls were largely hollow and wildlife has started to reclaim the sprawling parking lots. Scattered around the city were what looked like small bands of survivors waiting at bus stops. Although it was late morning on Thursday, the downtown was as quiet as a Sunday afternoon.

We stopped for breakfast at a diner, and in response to the "Hi, how are you?" greetings, the waitress said she was "blessed". Given the context of her city, I couldn't help but hear it as a reference to the fact that she was working.