to Onaway, MI

It was an interesting conversation going on at breakfast. Two older men sitting at a table. Only one was facing in my direction and he had a louder voice, the other was quite soft-spoken so I only heard one side of the conversation. I was facing away so I didn't see any facial expressions. It was like listening to someone talking on the phone except the other person was right there. The accent I was hearing had a touch of what passes for a Minnesota accent. The pauses were long, monolog ran something like this:

"Well they just weren't biting that day, that's all. I wonder if Mike had any luck."

. . . the other fellow said something

"Oh yah, well he was out on that boat of his, he gets out there."
. . .
"Yah, well... they... they say it's God's way."
. . .
"Oh no, yah, well, you did what you could.... These things get out of our hands."
. . . . . .
"I'm thinkin' I might go hunting next weekend with Tom and Bob."
. . .
"You know, that's just how it is. You go through life. You work. You find somebody you want to spend the rest of your life with. . . It's . . ."
. . .

"No, it's not the same when she's not there."
. . .
"I saw Don Wheeler the other day, He's got that new truck, you know. It's a real shiner, real beauty."
. . .
"I once had to spend three weeks in the hospital for that thing on my back. They're not the best places to spend time."
. . .
"Well... it was good it was quick."
. . .
"How's your son? Didn't that girl leave him?"
. . .
"Oh well, she was no good. They didn't have no kids did they?"

His cell phone rang at that point.

"Yah? Oh hi. Yah, I'm working down at the restaurant. Yah, Uh huh, I'm going to be here a while I won't be coming in. Yah, he's here with me. No, he's not going to be interested in that with how he is. Yah, uh huh, OK. Bye."

"You know I went out four-wheeling with Randy a few weeks ago. Those little thing sure can be fun."

. . .
"Well, no. It can't be easy."
. . .
"You know, if there is anything I can do for you... Anything... If you want to go fishing or something and need somebody to go with, don't be afraid to holler at me."
. . .
"Well, I don't know why they weren't biting I suppose it was the wrong time of day for that spot..."

It was a dance of intimacy and consolation by a person who had little if any experience at it and didn't seem comfortable doing it. The other man needed the company and this friend, the speaker, was going to do the 'right thing' no matter how uncomfortable it made him. These are good people here.

I started the day driving up along the coast of lake Huron and then drove into the state diagonally to cut across to the tip. There are lots and lots of lakes in certain areas and when you go "off map" you can find yourself wending round and round all of these lakes and end up some place you hadn't planned. This is a state where a Delorme map would be wonderful! Well a Delorme map would make every state more interesting, Maybe I can get them to give me a set of their maps by mentioning them a lot! Oy!

The parts of Michigan I have been driving through are amazingly beautiful Very natural, lots of lakes and scads and scads of state campgrounds. The Rand McNally atlas map I have been using kinda sucks in that realm. Don't get me wrong. It is the best of the "one-state-per-page" atlases but in Michigan, well there are scads and zillions of state campgrounds in Michigan, get a Delorme map, it'll show them all!

Enough about maps. Back to Michigan. The soil I have driven over the last few days is pretty sandy, some areas moreso than others. A sandy soil when it is dry and driven over a lot can become a sand bog. Sand bogs can be no fun. Completely no fun when you are the one bogged. I don't know the proper technique to get through them with a two-wheel drive vehicle. I presently rely on momentum. I see one coming up and I go faster and pray I don't get bogged down.

When I was in Queensland, Australia I rented a car. It was a little "toy" city car. Well, I was doing my usual thing, driving in directions I perhaps should know better than. I was headed to the outback, driving along this road and had been driving it for quite some time. I was getting tired of this road. I knew from the map that there was another road parallel to it about 50 kilometers North. That's only about 30 miles, Right? I saw a side road coming up and I took it. Not bad. Nice wide road. I cruised along it kilometer after kilometer, crossed a few creeks. Hey, My driveway back in Missouri was worse than this road. Of course you come across a driveway every 5 or 10 kilometers or so. Whups! Suddenly the road turned rocky and narrow. It had been cut out of the side of a stony hills. Nothing elegant like asphalt. Asphalt is for sissies, this is Australia. And it was fine. Rough, narrow-- good thing I didn't come across someone, this road was only 10 feet wide... but not horrifying to someone immunized by my driveway. I had driven a slow 30 kilometers when I came to a creek bed.

I stopped and investigated. It was about 35 meters wide (I suppose that is about 80 feet, since I am in Australia at this point I was thinking metric) and it was all made up of gravel. A smooth, ground, round gravel about 4mm in diameter (about 3/16 inch.) I walked it, felt how it played under my feet and estimated how far I had come and how much further to the next road. I could get across this. I backed way up and got momentum and went for it I made it about three-quarters of the way across and bogged down. Oh gee. I found sticks and boards to dig myself out and give the tires a ramp of sorts and two feet at a time made out of the gravel mire. It took about an hour and a half to traverse that last 20 feet, but I made it across. "Ever onward" as the saying goes, and so I went. A few miles/kilometers further (at this stage what does it matter?) I came across a most fascinating bit of civilization. A crossroads with street signs naming this street and that street. Did I mention that I was way out in the outback? Oh yeah, sure enough. I checked my map. These road signs put me about 45 kilometers west (further out in the wilderness) of where I thought I should be. What's more is that they clarified that I didn't know where in the doodley-whack I was nor how I might be able to find my way back to civilization in a strange country in a stupid city car with no food or water backup. I was also fortunate to not have gotten a flat tire, the spare was one of those undersized "doughnut" things, that would have made it an event in the outback.

It was beginning to dusk, 8 kilometers back was that damn gravel bed. I turned around--it might take me an hour or more to get back to the original road I had turned off of but it was a known place. There is nothing wrong with backtracking when it is your best option. So I turned around. I knew there would be difficulties at the gravel bed. I gathered logs and sticks that might make the traverse easier. I picked up this junky log. When handling it, it broke open, revealing a brilliant red-colored wood. Once at the gravel bed, I realized the incline to the gravel bed was much steeper on the return. I wouldn't be able to hit the gravel at a glancing angle and skim much of the way across. My momentum was lost within the first 20 feet and I was bogged down to the axles.

Dig, Dig Dig. Get those front wheels up on those sticks and logs and whatever. it was not fun. Two feet at a time, I gulped over that gravel. It was pitch black by the time I reached the far side. I backtracked all of the way I had come. The damage my little foray inflicted upon that poor little city car cost me $400+... Ph the expression on the car rental guy's face.... Next time I will rent an appropriate vehicle to fool about in the outback.

Fortunately I never got bogged down in the Michigan sand bogs.

Toward the end of my drive I saw a sign that read "sink holes 3 miles=>." Now who can pass up an opportunity like that. The state thought is was worthy to put up a sign that pointed to "sink holes." That makes sense in a area with so many lakes. What prevented these three holes from filling up with water like the rest of the lakes? Oho, mysteries. When people go through all of the effort to make signs that point to holes in the ground and imply that they constructed platforms from which to view said holes... well... How could I refuse? How could anyone? I went and found the trail then walked the walk. There were umpteen-bajillion steps to the bottom of one of these holes where I was accosted by a chipmunk that had no fear. Apparently there are few chipmunk predators in these holes. The chipmunk stood in the middle of the trail in front of me, assessing me. It decided I was too big to eat, so it moseyed the rest of the way across the trail. Investigated under a few leaves and then climbed up a bush so it could investigate me again eye to eye. Apparently It didn't approve of my appearance and began castigating me for not bringing snacks or something. I wasn't about to stand there and be insulted by a chipmunk so I ascended the stairs and continued along the trail to look at the other holes.

Just as advertised, they were holes in the ground. Tour complete, I went back to the truck and drove the remainder of the way to Onaway, Michigan.