Paul E. Fallon's Blog, page 73

Trip Log – Day 31 – Kalamazoo, MI to Stevensville, MI

Miles Today: 65

Miles to Date: 1,796

States to Date: 8

June 5, 2015 – Sunny, 75 degrees

One month on the road! It was great to start it with David Bere, who made sure I got a solid breakfast before we cycled over to Western Michigan University. David showed me around the Sustainability Center where he works and he tuned up my bike. Friday is the day David’s mother makes cookies for the Sustainability team, and we all ate awesome chocolate chip cookies.

  

At eleven I met with Mike Way and the Innovation Team at Bronson Healthcare. I have worked with Bronson since 1997 when they began planning the replacement hospital that opened in 2000. Now, Bronson is a national leader in community healthcare, won the 2005 Malcolm Baldridge Award, and continues to lead innovation in wellness and sustainability. We had a great round table discussion about tomorrow.

I enjoyed lunch with my good friend Vickie Nelson, my Kalamazoo counterpart at Diekema Hamann, a local architecture firm with whom I worked on several Bronson projects. Vickie’s life and my own have shared several parallel interests. She has been deeply involved in education and aid work in Guatemala, as I have in Haiti. She is retiring this week and will have more time to devote to that effort.

I didn’t leave Kalamazoo until almost three but wanted to get a few miles under my belt. When I reached Paw Paw, which had a nice little motel, I still had energy, so I kept on. But I was tired by the time I reached Hartford, a farming community that appears to be 100%Mexican. No motels in town, but, happily, an ice cream stand that sold soft serve as well as burritos.

  

After a short break and a generous cone, I had renewed energy. As soon as I rose out of the Hartford valley, the vineyards were lush, the lettuce fields thriving, and the air was tinged with a cool breeze. Lake Michigan was near. It was another twenty miles before I passed through Benton Harbor (a desolate place) to reach St. Joseph (a lovely place). I was hoping for vintage lakefront motels, but there were none. So I kept along Lakeshore Drive until I found a Super 8 near the highway. Not exactly a seaside hideaway. Still, it was after 8 p.m., I was tired, and happy for a clean and quiet place to stay.

Trip Log – Day 30 – Jackson, MI to Kalamazoo, MI

Miles Today: 70

Miles to Date: 1,731

States to Date: 8

June 4, 2015 – Sunny, 75 degrees

I rose early. My warmshowers hosts left me the best sesame seed bread ever to kickstart my day, and I slipped out of their driveway shortly after six. The first twelve miles of my ride was along the Falling Waters Trial, a rail trail through dense woods and past beautiful lakes. I saw only one other cyclist, but a dozen deer. I took a local road from Concord to Albion, riding under a canopy of huge trees with rolling fields beyond me on either side. Albion is a small college town, and the outskirts are littered with offbeat, Modernist houses college professors seem to favor. Unfortunately, the historic downtown is not as interesting. Most of the storefronts are empty and though I craved a local diner for breakfast, my only option was Subway.

   

I pedaled on to Marshall, which proved a sharp contrast. Marshall is happening! Why do some towns founder while others thrive? Marshall’s main street is full of stores, both useful and hip. The central fountain is gorgeous, the eclectic nineteenth century architecture impressive. But most important, there are people everywhere. Downtown is the place to go.

  

On a whim, I stopped at the American Museum of Magic. Harry Blackstone, a famous magician, set up his summer quarters in nearby Colon, and ever since this area has been the world’s center of magicianship. Every summer over 1,000 magicians convene in Colon to trade secrets (or not) and the American Museum of Magic and its archives contain almost a million artifacts, including a 1584 Book of Sorcery (supposedly used by Shakespeare as a reference for Macbeth) as well as Houdini’s lock box and Penn & Teller’s suits. Since, as one on the text plaques states, “Magicians are paid liars – always trying to convince people something is happening when it’s not”, I enjoyed it all but didn’t take it too seriously.

   

Too bad I was full from my Subway meal, as Marshall is full of great looking places to eat. Still, I couldn’t resist Louie’s, a vintage 1952 bakery on Main Street. The cases were full of great looking stuff, but the entire back wall was filled with racks that I could tell, by sheer volume, held the house specialty. I ordered a nut roll, which Jessica and Wendi insisted on giving me free when they heard about my journey. Within minutes, there were six or eight people in the store, all comparing the virtues and vices of Louie’s nut rolls. As a cyclist who needs to consume many calories a day, I can tell you the virtue of this delicious sweet far exceed any vice.

 

The ride along Verona Road into Battle Creek was pleasant. I arrived in time for my 2 p.m. appointment with Don Scherencel, Director of Historic Adventist Village, where I learned about yet another religion birthed in upstate New York’s ‘Burnt over District’, that moved to Battle Creak and has flourished there since the Civil War. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, health and exercise fanatic who first invented Corn Flakes (though his brother made the famous cereal company) was a Seventh Day Adventist. The Welcome Center is full of Dr. Kellogg’s exercise machines.

  

 

It was four by the time I started my final stretch to Kalamazoo. The map showed 22 miles, mostly along the Kalamazoo Rive. All true. However, the stretch was industrial, heavily trafficked and had little shoulder. Since it was late and I was tired, I took several breaks to stay centered. Luckily, there was a nice bike path for the last eight miles into Kalamazoo.

I arrived at my warmshowers host’s house a little late but none the worse. David Bere is a local 20-year-old bicycle enthusiast. Last summer he cycled 6,000 miles through the Northern U.S. and Canada. Now he works at the University of Western Michigan Center for Sustainability and vows “to never own a motorized vehicle.” It was greet to meet a young man of such passion. His mother, a native of Kalamazoo, made an incredible meal for us, and we spent a few hours looking at the photos and maps of David’s trip before heading off to bed.

Trip Log – Day 29 – Dearborn, MI to Jackson, MI

Miles Today: 74

Miles to Date: 1,661

States visited to date: 8

June 3, 2015 – Sunny, 75 degrees

Today was easy riding: up at 5:30 a.m., out shortly after six, with only short breaks until I reached Jackson just after one. I pedaled a few miles along Tireman Road, the line between Dearborn and Detroit; a world of stability on one side, a world of chaos on the other. Hines Drive out of the city was closed to cars; I shared the wide, pleasant road with only a handful of other cyclists. Even after the Ann Arbor Trail merge, traffic was light and the shoulder solid. Plymouth is a beautiful town with a graceful fountain in its center. Instead of seeking out University of Michigan intelligentsia in Ann Arbor I stopped by a skateboard park and talked with the board guys. After several miles of wide highway, the road narrowed to country proportions in Jackson County. Farmland rose around me like bed sheets drying on the line. Main Street in Grass Lake is lined with elegant old houses. The tall grass outside the aptly named town billowed in the soft crosswind like waves in a shallow sea.

    

I spent the afternoon writing. Around five I pedaled through Jackson, past Allegiance Healthcare where I did some consulting two years ago. On that trip I dragged my companions away from highway chain restaurants to explore downtown, which was a shadow if its glory. This trip downtown is a construction zone as the city’s replacing core infrastructure. I guess I’ll have to come back in a few years to see if the massive project spurs rejuvenation.

    

I spent a relaxing evening with my warmshowers host family. The sun doesn’t set until past nine this time of year in Michigan. After dinner, Scott, his neighbor Jeff and I drank beer on the deck while their children ran between the backyards. We kept talking after we moved inside and Scott’s wife Karen joined us. It was past eleven when I crawled into the cozy bed tucked under the stairs in the dark and quiet basement.

A shout out to my niece Isabelle who texted me to say I should add how many states I have visited to my header – which I did. Great idea, Izzy.

Trip Log – Day 28 – Dearborn, MI to Dearborn, MI

Miles Today: 0

Miles to Date: 1,587

June 2, 2015 – Sunny, 65 degrees

 

My first rest day! I slept like a baby in Bill Basse’s old bedroom; I am getting very good at a different bed every night. My friend Bob Basse had set up a meeting with the Director of Public Information and the Sustainability Director of the City of Dearborn, where we talked about tomorrow.

  

Bob and I spent the afternoon on the Rouge Ford Factory Tour, where F150 pick-ups roll off the line every 60 seconds. The plant, built in 2000, is the latest addition to the famous River Rouge Assembly plant that Henry Ford opened in 1924. Whereas 100,000 people worked at River Rouge in the 1920’s, today it takes only 1000 people to assemble an F150. True, many components have been outsourced, but still, the degree of automation is impressive. Surprisingly, the most automated parts of the process as the most precise ones. Windshields are attached without human intervention; the bed is fixed to the cab mechanically; while people still snap in place interior finish panels in place.

I didn’t leave with the impression that we will all be replaced by robots so much as the realization that the amount of planning required to make those 1000 floor workers efficient is phenomenal. The logistics of material flow and coordination of parts is a wonder of this factory that’s not on display.

We got home late afternoon and enjoyed our leftover Middle Eastern food, took a few hours of downtime, and then took along walk through lovely Dearborn, including a stop at the local Middle Eastern supermarket and an incredible macaroon for dessert. I was in bed before nine, recharging to hit the road again.

Trip Log – Day 27 – Elmore, OH to Dearborn, MI

Miles Today: 78

Miles to Date: 1,587

June 1, 2015 – Overcast and windy, 55 degrees

 

Days with 4,000 vertical feet of elevation rise are physically exhausting. Days with 400 feet of vertical elevation rise are just tedious. The trip from Elmore, OH to Dearborn, MI is so flat the only times I downshifted was to climb overpasses.

 The few creeks I crossed were full of muddy water from yesterday’s torrents

 

 

 

 

Some houses sat only inches above flooded yards.

 

 

 

I chuckled at Brewthrough, the most literal drive-through coffee and beer place I’ve ever seen.

 

 

 

Toledo was the saddest collection of aging industry and neighborhood neglect I’ve passed through to date.

 

 

Michigan didn’t offer a welcome sign, just long stretches of wide highway with marginal shoulder, thought I enjoyed the cool machine that turns old concrete into new aggregate and filters fine and course aggregate in one process.

 

I also had to stop to ponder this sign: would I really get my hair cut there?

Off my bike, of course, the people were terrific. The owner of Fino’s Resaturant on Monroe, MI insisted on buying my lunch. Virginia and Marietta, two elderly women having afternoon coffee at the McDonald’s in Lincoln Park were baffled by my journey. They went outside and studied my bicycle, incredulous that it would carry me so far.

I arrived in leafy Dearborn just after six. My friend Bob Basse was in front of his family home, with his brother Bill and their neighbor, Housalla ElMoussa. I wanted to visit Dearborn to explore the Muslim influx, which was everywhere evident on Middlepointe Street.

Bob took me out to Al Ameer, the best Middle Eastern food I’ve ever had. We ordered all sorts of dishes and brought enough leftovers home for a second meal tomorrow

1000+ Followers

I want to thank all my readers of http://www.theawkwardpose.com and http://www.howwillwelivetomorrow.com – this weekend I surpassed the 1,000 follower mark. Running two blogs is an imperfect science, but for those who are confused, here is the difference. Feel free to follow one, or both!

www.howwillwelivetomorrow.com is the blog for my current project – cycling to the 48 contiguous United States to ask people the question, “How will we live tomorrow?” This blog includes a daily Trip Log of my cycling adventures as well as all of the responses that people give along the way. Some responses are aggregated into weekly lists. More detailed responses are profiled in dedicated posts. I’m pretty good about keeping my Trip Log only a day or two behind my experience. Profile Responses are not as current, but are posted in the order I meet people. Right now I am in Michigan, and still posting profiles from New York!

www.theawkwardpose.com is my original and ongoing blog. It contains all my social commentaries and posts about yoga, Haiti, and cycling. It will continue to be the archive for all of my writing. I also post the Trip Logs of my current project to this blog, but not the responses, since I don’t write them.

 

When my cycling trip ends in 2016, http://www.howwillwelivetomorrow.com will be retired; http://www.theawkwardpose.com will keep on and on…

Trip Log – Day 26 –Norwalk, OH to Elmore, OH

Miles Today: 44

Miles to Date: 1,509

May 31, 2015 – Rain and wind, 50 degrees

 

After more than three weeks of ducking rain, my weather luck finally ran out. I slept for eleven hours in Cathy and Don Mayles’ quiet basement, and enjoyed a huge breakfast with them before heading out in a light mist about 11 a.m. Before I left they described that a friend whose son died young but donated his organs is tracking where people see this poster on trucks. If you find one, let me know and I’ll pass the news on to Cathy and Don.

The mist dissipated after I stopped by CVS for provisions, so I was hopeful for an easy ride. The stretch to Monroeville was uneventful. The rain picked up by the time I reached the decision point on the east side of town – side roads or U.S. 20. I decided to stick to the main road, which had a wide shoulder and little traffic. This proved a good decision to Bellevue, as the rain picked up and the wind started blowing hard from the northeast. I weighed all the good attributes of my ride – short distance, flat terrain, good pavement – against the rain and decided I was doing pretty well.

Beyond Bellevue I encountered some highway engineers idea of good design – a wide rumble strip down the shoulder that forced me to ride inside the white line. There was so little traffic on the four-lane road that most vehicles gave me a wide berth but a few came awfully close. Then the wind picked up hard and the rain came down harder. A few cross-gusts made my bike shiver, and for the first time on the trip I felt insecure. Once anxiety descends the chance for mishap grows, so I kept a steady focus and recalled my friend Dave Gibson’s wisdom, “You won’t always have fun, but you’ll always feel alive” I certainly felt alive, trying to keep my Surly stable against the thirty to forty mile an hour winds.

Fortunately, the next town, Clyde, had a McDonald’s where I could pull off the road for a few hours and watch the storm from indoors. When I entered the dining room, a group of bikers also seeking respite from the storm said, “Whoa, we thought we had it hard.” The rain slowed down eventually. I left after five and rode the last twenty miles to Elmore, all on one of Ohio’s great rail trails, in a list mist. The wind was still strong, but there were no other vehicles to avoid.

I arrived at my host’s home about 7:30 p.m. After a warm shower, Gordon served an incredible meal: appetizers and matzo soup, ham loaf with beets and salad, fresh pineapple and blueberries for dessert. We talked until ten and then I slept well under the big down comforter on his guest bed.

Trip Log – Day 25 –Akron, OH to Norwalk, OH

Miles Today: 62

Miles to Date: 1,465

May 30, 2015 – Sun and storms and 75 degrees

 

The bank time and temperature sign registered 75 degrees before 7:00 a.m. It was going to be hot one. I had a straight shot of over 60 miles on Ohio Route 18. The first ten were the usual litany of parking lots and stores, all empty on an early Saturday morning. Then the road became a nice four-laner with a wide shoulder. I worried about the lack of local color on a busy road, but it found me anyway. I stopped to chat with a guitar-carrying hitchhiker from New York and a jolly Kiwanis member picking up litter on his stretch of adopted highway. The road turned local through Medina, the birthplace of raising bees, where I came into a throng of half marathoners at the town square finish line. Medina is a vintage Mid-west town with brick storefronts facing a landscaped square of tall trees and center gazebo. The wholesome, healthy runners reinforced that image.

Beyond Medina the road became country, passing beautiful fields and dramatic cloud formations. They kept the temperature from climbing, but looked ominous enough to keep me pedaling to beat the storms. Forty miles in, on the outskirts of Wellington, I had my first flat of the trip. I limped my bicycle two blocks to a Subway, filled my belly before I tackled the repair, and spent a few hours waiting out a series of thunderstorms. How fortunate to have the flat and bad weather correspond with a welcome rest stop. When the sun shined steady again, I kept on toward Norwalk.

I detoured to see the Lincoln Funeral train car, on display courtesy of the Lake Shore railway Association. I’m pretty sure the two local train geeks would have talked to me past dark, but I extracted myself to cycle the twenty remaining miles to Norwalk. I got town just before another big thunderstorm and spent the night with Cathy and Don Mayles, my housemate’s sister-in-law’s cousins. That may not sound like a close connection, but they treated me like family, fed me well, kept a beer in my hand, and gave me a comfortable place to sleep for the night.

Trip Log – Day 24 – Poland, OH to Akron, OH

Miles Today: 60

Miles to Date: 1,403

May 29, 2015 – Sun, 85 degrees

 

Cyclists love Ohio and Ohioans love cyclists. The state has the most extensive system of rail-to-bike trails in the country, and people view us as welcome tourists rather than nuisances. Although my route today didn’t include any bike trails, people gave me wide berth, trucks slowed if necessary, and nobody honked, except for a few oncoming toots by people who wanted to wave rather than rant.

My warmshowers host Bill sent my on my way by 7:00 a.m. with a toasted egg sandwich and banana in my belly and an heirloom apple for the road. He was apologetic that the first eight miles of my ride was through a big box strip, but I accept them as an unfortunate but integral part of the United States. Our country has twice the amount of retail square feet per person than any other nation in the world – all of those aisles of stuff have to go somewhere.

Despite my good breakfast I felt peckish, so stopped at a market for a donut and stocked up on power bars. By the time I reached Canfield the road became tranquil, and when I tuned off on Route 45 the ride turned pastoral. I ate the most delicious apple I’ve ever tasted and began thirty pleasant miles along Route 18, parallel to I-76.

A sign for Kiko Auction caught my eye, so I detoured to witness the scene. Pick-up trucks lined both sides of the residential street. Colleen ran a food concession with cold pop and hot sausages. Michelle, who must be very short, staffed the registration booth from the back of a van. She explained that today’s auction was tools and basement items. Future auctions would liquidate the household items and finally, they’d sell this retiree’s house. It was a solid house in a good neighborhood, definitely not a distress sale. I asked why someone would auction their stuff rather than sell it though ads. “We’ve been in this business for seventy years, my grandfather found it. People find is easier to go to auction. We have a lot of success stories, especially among retirees.” The auction start time was almost two hours away, but Michelle had a steady stream of guys – all guys – registering to bid. She knew most of them by name, and Colleen ran a tab for a good number of them as well: traders looking for a deal.

  Sometimes I feel this trip is as much about ‘stuff’ as it is about people. We have so much, and so much of our energy is invested in making, moving, buying, using, trading, selling, and throwing it all away.

On my bike, my cravings run to food rather than possessions, and today I could not get enough. I stopped under a nice tree to devour an energy bar, and was still hungry when I came upon a young man stabbing the ‘Open’ banner in the ground in front of Angelo’s Pizza in Rootstown. It was just 11, but I stopped to enjoy a chicken parmesan sub, cole slaw, and Jojo’s, which are steak fries on steroids. Brian explained that the fryer was still warming up, so I talked to his father Woodie while I waited for really fresh, crisp fried goodness. “Where’s Angelo?” Woodie laughed. “There is no Angelo. We bought the place with that name and just kept it.” I stayed an hour while Brian set up the kitchen, Woodie’s wife ran deliveries and Woodie asked me about my trip. The food was amazing. When I went to pay, Brian nodded toward his dad, “He said no charge.”

 

I rode the last twenty miles to Akron, finally satiated and grateful for the random acts of kindness that I find all about me.

I arrived at Mr. Bob’s House, the National Historic Landmark home of Dr. Robert Smith, one of the founders of AA, before two and got a personal tour from an inspiring volunteer guide. Then I met my Haiti friend Kim Conrad at a coffee shop, where I hung around for a few hours after she left soaking in the Akron vibe before heading to my motel for the night.

Trip Log – Day 23 – Pittsburgh, PA to Poland, OH

Miles Today: 62

Miles to Date: 1,343

May 28, 2015 – Sun, 75 degrees

 

My warmshowers host, Simon, got up early, made thick oatmeal with nuts, yogurt and honey, and rode with me down the hilly streets of Pittsburgh to the Hot Metal Bridge, now a bike path across the Monongahela River. I proceeded along the Southside bicycle path with sweeping views of the early morning city to beyond the where the Allegheny and Monongahela merge to create the Ohio River. I passed back across the West Side Bridge, rode through the Manchester neighborhood, crossed back on the McKees Rock Bridge and took 51 North. Pittsburgh is all about bridges.

I diverted onto Neville Island, a long strip in the middle of the Ohio River that includes miles of active industry, from a cracking plant to manufacturing concerns that have flipped over to recycling enterprises. The north part of the island includes a town where residents have tight to the Ohio River.

The Ohio River actually runs north for about 25 miles out of Pittsburgh. 51 North follows the west bank; with the narrow shoulders and brusque drivers I have learned to endure in Pennsylvania. Its not that they dislike me so much as they wish this small, slow, yellow thing on the road would simply disappear. I navigate even more bridges around Monaca, Rochester and Bridgewater, and then begin the steady climb out of the valley onto high ground.

After forty miles, I pulled into a McDonalds in Chippewa for a Diet Coke and Wi-Fi break, where I met the loquacious Ed Morton and his quiet wife Crystal. Ed, a 40 year stock clerk for US Air, wanted to know all about the trip, invited me to sit with them and offered to buy me lunch, which I declined. When they finished their meal, I stood to shake Ed’s hand. He grabbed my shoulder for, dropped his hand into mine, reached for his wife, and led the three of us in a prayer circle in the McDonald’s dining room. After his “Amen”, he handed me a pamphlet, The Seven Words of the Cross. I am on the road to meet whoever crosses my path, and I am grateful for their goodwill, however expressed.

Beyond Chippewa the land started to flatten out and I knew Ohio was not far away. My directions required a turnoff just before the state line. Turns after landmarks are so much easier. I knew I missed it when I came upon Welcome to Ohio. Cyclists don’t like to turn around; guys really don’t like to turn around. Just beyond the sign was a narrow road with a sign State Line Road. I recalled my high school history of the Western Reserve and its careful survey. I decided the road probably ran north along the state line and decided to test history. The road was rocky, but never went to fully dirt. After four miles, with a quick jog at the end; I connected to the country road I had missed, which allowed me to pass another Welcome to Ohio.

The rest of the afternoon was a breeze. I enjoyed a large dipped cone at Dairy Queen and arrived in Poland, a bucolic town, before time. I spent an hour in their gorgeous library and chatted to locals about tomorrow. Missy and Bill, my warmshowers hosts, prepared a tasty picnic and I played tag with their son Ash in the backyard.