I was elated when I left Nappanee. I had had a wonderful four days, seen some great sights, stayed on a superb campground and met some lovely people. My next plan had been to ride to Chicago and then to Milwaukee, but Daughter had phoned two days earlier to say that she hoped to be able come out on 5th August to Chicago and ride with me for 10 days, so, as it was only Sunday 22nd July, and I was only 300 odd miles from Chicago, I clearly had to find something to do for a fortnight. I decided to take Rob’s advice and ride up through Michigan State.
Michigan State is a fat, flat, peninsula bordered on the east by Lake Erie, on the west by Lake Michigan and it has a horizontal part in the north, the upper peninsula, just known as the U.P.
which tops Lake Michigan and separates it from Lake Superior. This is connected to the main land mass by the longest suspension bridge in the world, longer than The Golden Gate Bridge, called the Mackinaw Bridge.
I have just returned to finish this blog and found that everything I had written yesterday, from here on, has disappeared, as the battery on the laptop ran out before I could save it, so in not the best frame of mind, I shall start again.!
I set off northwards, quite closely following the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. The weather seemed stable at last, and it gradually increased to 85 degrees and humid. The country was gently rolling with scattered farmsteads growing maize (corn) interspersed with open grassland
and copses of trees. The wind on the bike kept the sweat away, but it soon developed when slowing down or walking about. The grassland had large patches of purple where a wildflower like a thornless thistle grew in swathes across it. The scenery was really beautiful, and the farmsteads were different from those I had seen before, in particular, most had bright red painted wooden
buildings, and the barns in particular were stunning. I wished that I had time to sit and draw and paint a little but I had to keep moving, and sadly, although I have the stuff with me, I have still not got round to doing any painting. The trip is huge and time is all too short. The roofs of the buildings 
were double slanted, a flat pitch on the upper part with steep sides and a slightly up tilting edge. In winter they get a lot of snow and these would clearly allow both easy removal of heavy falls and also the ability to pack the barns higher at the sides or to build an extra room space in the house with roof-light windows.
The first place of any consequence where I stopped was Holland, so called after the many Dutch who settled here in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. They brought with them windmills and of course bulb fields, but I was disappointed not to see a windmill and the bulb fields were past their flowering time and the bulbs were harvested. Overall, rather boring and I only stopped for a drink and to fill up with “gas”
[Incidentally, you lot at home will be fascinated to know that there has been a lot of protest by the American people recently over gas prices. The poor dears went almost loopy when gas prices hit just over $3-00 a gallon.(£1-50!!!! For almost 5 litres!!!!) Our equivalent is that we pay $9-60 a gallon. They can’t believe it. I have been paying about $3-20, which is £1.60, or 42pence a litre. How do the U.S.A. get away with it? I really don’t know, but there will be an article on American attitudes later on I feel sure, when I have seen and met many more people and got the balance right.]
I continued north to Muskegon, where I had planned to spend the night. There were a lot of bikes about and people asked if I had been to the rally. Apparently there had been the second Muskegon bike rally that weekend, and of course, I had missed it because I didn’t know. I arrived at the town campsite, near an industrial plant on the estuary, and found at 7.30p.m. that it closed at 5.00 and would not open the office again until 10.00a.m.the following morning. There was a chain hanging across the entrance, and a lad with a bike called from a tent on just the other side asked me if I wanted to come in. “Sure thing” I replied, “but I can’t get checked in at the office.” He assured me that all I had to do was come under the chain and he and his girlfriend lifted it up for me while I passed under. He kindly gave me the code for the lock on the “restroom” door and said to camp up anywhere. “Where are you from?” he asked, “Australia?” “No, I’m from North Yorkshire, England” I said. “New England?” he asked. “No, Old England, THE England,” I answered gently but firmly. “ No shit! That’s ‘aw-sum’ was the response, “did you do the show? “ No, I didn’t know it was on, or I’d certainly have been there” “D’ya wanna get to the stage show tonight? he asked. I politely declined. I was tired and just wanted to get dinner on and my tent up.
I rode over towards the shoreline and next thing I knew was the grass which had started hard , had turned to dunes and my back wheel was stuck. The weight of the bike was sat in it just as if embedded in cement and each time I tried to ride forward it dug in deeper. I got off, leaving it stood in the sand and went back to find the guy who had let me in. He and three mates came over and pulled and pushed the bike out. “Shoulda toldja ‘bout them doons” he laughed. “stick on the grass over there and you’ll be fine”, he pointed. At least I hadn’t dropped it!
It was getting dark and the music from the show was bouncing across the estuary. I set up a mozzy net and bivvied under it, I couldn’t be bothered with the tent. I had a can of ravioli and meatballs and a can of root beer and had them both straight from the cans and turned in. I was bushed..
I woke with the sunrise at about 5.50. I had slept well and coffee was soon on, and then I packed up. It was going to be almost 4 hours before the office opened, so I set off to walk around the camp for a while and take a shower. An R.V. went past me to the other end of the camp, it couldn’t be coming in. It must be going out? It approached a gate at the far end of the drive and it opened automatically and the R.V. left. I wondered if there was a radio control or electronic key. Further on I met another tent camper. I asked him and he replied that it was on a pressure sensor in the road, and that it would open for his bike, so I had my shower, returned to the bike, drove at the gate and left by 7.00 on a free nights camp.
By 9.30, I had arrived in the lovely lakeside town of Manistee. This town’s “Historic
Centre” (they all have “Historic Centres” which usually means the few brick built houses built about 1900 at the centre of the town which have not been bulldozed or burnt down) was actually really 
pleasant, not because it didn’t fit all of the above description, because it did, but because it was along the south side of the estuary of the Little Manistee River and all along the shore, behind the turn of the century brick buildings was a Boardwalk and marina. The actual 100 yards or so of the “historic” centre (center?) was also well kept attractive , well repaired and had a quite nice selection of 
small shops. I met a chap from the organic food store who was on his was to the bank. “You from Australia?” he asked. I put him right. “Ah-sum!...d’ya ride over or rent it?” “I rode down from Montreal”, I said, “I’m on a 14,000 mile road trip of the States” “Man, that’s just ah-sum” he again exclaimed. “Where ya goin’? I outlined my trip to another “ah-sum”. He was very friendly and welcoming and clearly and rightly proud of his town centre. He told me where to get my phone card charged up as it was no longer working and I assumed that I had run out of credit on it. He also showed me the bank and a good place for breakfast. I duly did the eating and the bit of shopping and then went to look at the boats and the river. The boats were absolutely bristling with fishing rods. Some of them must have had a dozen or more and how any three or four people who would go out on them could use so many was beyond me. Clearly also there was some very big tackle, a few had rods that were bolted to the sides of the boat and massive gaffs which looked as if they could land a shark. The Americans take their huntin’ shootin’ 
and fishin’ VERY seriously. To them these are absolutely sacrosanct activities, in every respect, associated with their outback and pioneering ancestors’ pasts, and virtually every adult male who can walk participates in some way or another. The right to bear arms, any sort of weapon, is only perhaps secondary only to their right to marry and have a family. Not very deep inside the majority of American men I have met, is a sort of alter-ego identification as a backwoodsman. Camping is one part of this identification, about which, more some time in the future, but their rights to hunt certainly seem foremost in the minds of most that I have met so far. Identification of species is pretty good on the whole, but, in general, appreciation of wildlife is limited to whether they have ever shot or eaten it and how good it was, where, and how many, they shot or caught, how they skinned it, stuffed, smoked it, froze it, made it into a hat, a wall mount, a coat, burgers or sausages, or cooked it, and what weaponry they used to get it! Actually just looking at wildlife per se, as I do, is rather rare. I was sold a phone card top up for $50-00 and then found out that AT and T don’t have a service in may States and Michigan is one of them. So, all the time I am here, I can’t use it, but they will deduct their dollar a day charge from my credit. I was a bit cheesed off.
About mid morning, I set off again up the 22 through glorious wooded country and open clearing, within about a mile of the lakeside all the way. Past Alberta, Frankfort, and the Crystal
Lake, where I stopped off for the afternoon at the beach to swim and "catch some rays". It was my first experience of swimming in a freshwater lake, as so vast that , with the waves, the sand and the inability to see any opposite shore, one could have been forgiven for thinking one was at the sea, but no, fresh water, and (within the bounds of little boys swimming) quite drinkable. It felt very strange. Towards evening, I arrived in Empire at the Visitor centre. This part of the drive was taking me up a peninsula about two thirds of the way north up the eastern shore, called Sleeping Bear Dunes. I called in to the desk and found a very interesting centre, documenting the geology, topography and animal and plant life of these dunes. They are about 4 miles long, and three to five hundred feet high, and in the old days, their top was covered by a very dark coniferous forest, probably mostly of pine and junipers. The lovely story goes that the Indians named the place after a legend, where a mother bear had swum across the lake with two cubs. When she reached the shore exhausted, she climbed the dune to look for them, but they were gone. She laid down on the top of the dune and rested, always watching out to the big water for them to return, but they never did. She became the great forest, dark and stretched on the top of the dune, sleeping, and her cubs became the two islands off shore, of North and South Manitou Islands. Most of the forest has now been blown away or eroded, but it is still possible to see some of the outline which forms her head and front paws.
I decided to see the dunes, and booked in at a camp, “Sleepy Bears” campsite, a few miles away.
In the wooded camp area, I was next to a pleasant couple, I shall call them Daniel and Josie, and their three children. He was a teacher at a school on Mackinac Island ( still pronounced
“mackinore”) After I had eaten, he came over and asked if I wanted to join them for some more. I told him that I was already well fed and thank you, couldn’t manage anything else. “Nope, s’mores” he said, “D’ya wanna join us for s’mores?” Well I didn’t quite know what to say. I almost felt a bit embarrassed because the American food serving is generally about twice what I would normally eat, and I was already full. He seemed quite insistent. “Well I don’t know if I can manage any more, but, since you’re inviting, I’d love to,” so I went across. As soon as I arrived, it was obvious that there wasn’t much, if any, food left, but they were toasting marshmallows on a long barbeque fork in the fire pit. I watched as Josie took two small rectangular brown cracker wheat biscuits and laid on them a small matching rectangle of chocolate. On top of this, she put the sizzling marshmallow and then squeezed it flat between the two biscuits and pulled out the fork. She handed it to me and I bit into it. “Wow!” this was seriously good stuff. The sweet sticky marshmallow, the melting chocolate and the biscuits just went together so well. They were really scrummy! The children queued up for them as both parents were now toasting, and I most certainly joined the queue. I ate about four I think, although I rather lost count in their company, enjoying the dessert and the campfire and their hospitality. These little delicacies, it seems, are an old summer camp treat, which children (and this adult!) love. It is they themselves which are called “S’mores” because everyone wants s’more! I shall have to try that one at home on the barbeque some time.
The whole of the Great Lakes were formed in pre-history by the movement and eventual melting of ice caps, formed in prehistoric seas, melting and then being gouged out by residual glaciers. Rocks and pebbles of many areas and different geological layers were carried in them,
and then the predominantly north western winds across the lake had blown, over thousands of years a massive deposit of sand to this one point on the exposed shore of Lake Michigan. The natural history of the dunes and their features are seen best on a circular tour road, called Pierce Stocking Drive, after the man who envisaged being able to show his beloved and well studied dune to greater numbers of people. Here on the walkways, and exploring into the dunes, are the hollows, not of recent storms, but remaining indentations, despite the winds, from thousands of 
years ago, where there had been lakes, whose sides had burst and subsequently drained. All the features of the stabilisation of the dunes are visible if one looks, first the scrubby grass, then the development of mixed grasses with enormous superficial 
root systems which tie it together, Later, small woody plants and shrubs, and then, in stabilised dunes, juniper, silver birch and cottonwood trees. The walking is hard, two steps forward and one back, and it took an hour to walk the mile circular route where these features can all be seen. It was about 90 degrees. The dune is sadly now only about half the size it was, and is still eroding away, faster than it is growing, but their policy is to allow nature to care for it and whatever happens is
an evolutionary process. On the edges of the dune, I saw a huge, basswood tree whose ancient roots were now fully exposed by the wind and rain. Along the top of the dune, near the sleeping bear, a board walk has been placed to 
get access to see the “bluff,” a 450 foot cliff of sand, which one is advised to stay off, but which the foolhardy were sliding down and then climbing up. I was alarmed to hear that the fee from the Rangers for rescue from the bluff is $2500, so even more amazed to see the stupidity of some parents who were doing it with children obviously under 10. All this in blazing open open sunshine and temperatures of 95 to 100 degrees on the sands. I think truly, that, the dune needs better care here than this, and that people should not be allowed to climb on the bluff at all. It is spectacular and already being eroded naturally, without the thrill seekers.
The pictures do not do it justice, as clearly I had to take them down the hill rather than from the side on view.
It was a wonderful place to visit, and I went on to stay overnight in the National Park campsite there.
I had been finding it a bit hard to buy small amounts of stuff at the supermarkets. I guess it’s the same at home really, but one knows where to go to find small quantities. Storage of food on the bike is also a problem. I had bought some minced beef and vegetables two days ago, and the meat really was about on the turn, although I had twice packed ice around it in polythene bags. Tonight then, I would make my stew. I knew it would be too much to eat at once, but if I boiled it up again properly for about 10 minutes on each of the following two days, I thought it should be OK.
The water was about a quarter of a mile away and obtained from a true pump. Pumping the handle as well as holding the water bag under the spout was not all that easy, the end of the massive handle being about 6 inches longer than my span away from the spout, but I gathered about 2 litres and returned to make the stew. It should have had a bit of Oxo or something in it really, and I had no salt and pepper, but I fried the mince, and added, carrots, chopped potatoes,
sugar snap peas, broccoli and cauliflower, and had an entire pan full of a delicious though rather bland stew, and ate about a quarter of it for supper. It was dry night, but with a few bugs, so I put up the mozzie net and laid out in my bag underneath at the edge of the forest on one side of the clearing, and went to sleep about 10.30. I was fast asleep but suddenly woken from my dreams by a clank, and I recognised the fall of the aluminium lid of the stewpot, which I had left on the table. I thought that perhaps the wind had come up, but there was no wind, and in the dim light I could make out shapes on the picnic table in the centre of the clearing, and there was snuffling going on. I lit the torch and shone it through the net. Four bright red eyes illuminated and the outlines of two beasts the size of turkeys,one on the table and one on the bench, both snuffing in my stew! I did not see what they actually were when I first looked, but instinctively shouted “shooo!” in the expectation they would go. But they took no notice at all, the light did not seem to worry them and they continued in the plunder of my stew. I took my sheath knife out, pulled back the net and got up. My metal cup went flying off the table and the camp stove fell to the ground. Two huge racoons, leapt off the table, for the woods, their now clear, black and white, “Davy Crockett” tails flying after them. Boy, they were big beasts . I hadn’t realised that Racoons could be so big. I had thought from the road kill I had seen that they were about the size of a chicken. Goodness knows what I could have done with my knife. I am reminded about my earlier debate as to whether I needed a gun! (Now you see, the hunter thing is catching!) I looked at the last third of my stew. Probably be OK if it’s boiled up I thought, but they’re not getting any more. I took some Gaffer tape out of the pannier and taped the top on the pan. Twenty minutes later there were more scuffles, and the bastards had come back and were taking the tape off the lid. I shouted at them and leapt out of the bivvy and again they disappeared into the woods. The tape was almost off, but not quite. I taped it up again and locked it in the top box of the bike. My bag was on top of that and I locked the box too. The scent should be gone by now and I cleared everything I had from off the table and put it away. I sat at the picnic table and smoked a cigarette, waiting in the dark for any sign of their return. At almost 2o’clock, I turned to cross the 25 yards of the clearing to return to my sleeping bag. The net was pulled back off it, but there, in the dim light was another turkey sized beast snuffling about on it. No red eyes this time and I chased at it, all in underpants and bare feet (Me, not the beast).. A bloody great big porcupine went lumbering off into the woods at a rapid scurry. I have to say now, that I was actually a bit fazed by this time! I decided to stay up for a bit longer; it was too late, yet too early to pack up and move on. The wardens had not said anything about these “critters”, and I was tired and I did not quite know now whether to sit up on guard or go back to bed. I checked to make sure that Porky hadn’t peed on my sack. Thankfully he hadn’t, but sleeping in porcupine pee did not appeal. I wondered if it was anything like skunk? Oh Heavens! What if they’re up here too? You can’t just charge at a skunk ‘cos they’ll spray you first. All these thoughts went through my head. I got through a third cigarette. At least I knew I was not in Bear country. Eventually, I went back to lie down, but it was good hour before I relaxed enough to sleep and an hour and a quarter when I was again woken to rustling, this time from the direction of the bike. I shone the torch. Mr and Mrs Racoon were on the bike, one riding pillion facing backwards and the other stood up on the side pannier, both trying to get into the bag or the top box where they could no doubt, still smell the Racoon equivalent of MacDonalds, a quick take-away. This time I picked up some small rocks near the bivvy and then with my headlight on, and not much else, charged across the clearing at them shouting. They bounced off into the forest, and I threw the stones hard at them catching one. There was a sort of growly scream noise and then silence. It was almost 4o’clock. I pulled the picnic table 
across the clearing to the side of my bike. I put my sleeping bag on the table and curled up, the table was a foot too short. I put my knife alongside the bag, together with some rocks and a hammer I have for my tent poles. “Next time, I’m getting me a ‘coon”. But there was no next time and I woke lying flat on my back with the bag and my knees dangling over the edge of the table at almost 8o’clock with the sun up.. No more ‘coon troubles. I got up and got cramp in my calves. This time I just got a photo of their paw prints on the seat of the picnic table. Next time, I just could become a hunter!
Best wishes,
Doc
Michigan State is a fat, flat, peninsula bordered on the east by Lake Erie, on the west by Lake Michigan and it has a horizontal part in the north, the upper peninsula, just known as the U.P.
which tops Lake Michigan and separates it from Lake Superior. This is connected to the main land mass by the longest suspension bridge in the world, longer than The Golden Gate Bridge, called the Mackinaw Bridge.I have just returned to finish this blog and found that everything I had written yesterday, from here on, has disappeared, as the battery on the laptop ran out before I could save it, so in not the best frame of mind, I shall start again.!
I set off northwards, quite closely following the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. The weather seemed stable at last, and it gradually increased to 85 degrees and humid. The country was gently rolling with scattered farmsteads growing maize (corn) interspersed with open grassland
and copses of trees. The wind on the bike kept the sweat away, but it soon developed when slowing down or walking about. The grassland had large patches of purple where a wildflower like a thornless thistle grew in swathes across it. The scenery was really beautiful, and the farmsteads were different from those I had seen before, in particular, most had bright red painted wooden
buildings, and the barns in particular were stunning. I wished that I had time to sit and draw and paint a little but I had to keep moving, and sadly, although I have the stuff with me, I have still not got round to doing any painting. The trip is huge and time is all too short. The roofs of the buildings 
were double slanted, a flat pitch on the upper part with steep sides and a slightly up tilting edge. In winter they get a lot of snow and these would clearly allow both easy removal of heavy falls and also the ability to pack the barns higher at the sides or to build an extra room space in the house with roof-light windows.The first place of any consequence where I stopped was Holland, so called after the many Dutch who settled here in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. They brought with them windmills and of course bulb fields, but I was disappointed not to see a windmill and the bulb fields were past their flowering time and the bulbs were harvested. Overall, rather boring and I only stopped for a drink and to fill up with “gas”
[Incidentally, you lot at home will be fascinated to know that there has been a lot of protest by the American people recently over gas prices. The poor dears went almost loopy when gas prices hit just over $3-00 a gallon.(£1-50!!!! For almost 5 litres!!!!) Our equivalent is that we pay $9-60 a gallon. They can’t believe it. I have been paying about $3-20, which is £1.60, or 42pence a litre. How do the U.S.A. get away with it? I really don’t know, but there will be an article on American attitudes later on I feel sure, when I have seen and met many more people and got the balance right.]
I continued north to Muskegon, where I had planned to spend the night. There were a lot of bikes about and people asked if I had been to the rally. Apparently there had been the second Muskegon bike rally that weekend, and of course, I had missed it because I didn’t know. I arrived at the town campsite, near an industrial plant on the estuary, and found at 7.30p.m. that it closed at 5.00 and would not open the office again until 10.00a.m.the following morning. There was a chain hanging across the entrance, and a lad with a bike called from a tent on just the other side asked me if I wanted to come in. “Sure thing” I replied, “but I can’t get checked in at the office.” He assured me that all I had to do was come under the chain and he and his girlfriend lifted it up for me while I passed under. He kindly gave me the code for the lock on the “restroom” door and said to camp up anywhere. “Where are you from?” he asked, “Australia?” “No, I’m from North Yorkshire, England” I said. “New England?” he asked. “No, Old England, THE England,” I answered gently but firmly. “ No shit! That’s ‘aw-sum’ was the response, “did you do the show? “ No, I didn’t know it was on, or I’d certainly have been there” “D’ya wanna get to the stage show tonight? he asked. I politely declined. I was tired and just wanted to get dinner on and my tent up.
I rode over towards the shoreline and next thing I knew was the grass which had started hard , had turned to dunes and my back wheel was stuck. The weight of the bike was sat in it just as if embedded in cement and each time I tried to ride forward it dug in deeper. I got off, leaving it stood in the sand and went back to find the guy who had let me in. He and three mates came over and pulled and pushed the bike out. “Shoulda toldja ‘bout them doons” he laughed. “stick on the grass over there and you’ll be fine”, he pointed. At least I hadn’t dropped it!
It was getting dark and the music from the show was bouncing across the estuary. I set up a mozzy net and bivvied under it, I couldn’t be bothered with the tent. I had a can of ravioli and meatballs and a can of root beer and had them both straight from the cans and turned in. I was bushed..
I woke with the sunrise at about 5.50. I had slept well and coffee was soon on, and then I packed up. It was going to be almost 4 hours before the office opened, so I set off to walk around the camp for a while and take a shower. An R.V. went past me to the other end of the camp, it couldn’t be coming in. It must be going out? It approached a gate at the far end of the drive and it opened automatically and the R.V. left. I wondered if there was a radio control or electronic key. Further on I met another tent camper. I asked him and he replied that it was on a pressure sensor in the road, and that it would open for his bike, so I had my shower, returned to the bike, drove at the gate and left by 7.00 on a free nights camp.
By 9.30, I had arrived in the lovely lakeside town of Manistee. This town’s “Historic
Centre” (they all have “Historic Centres” which usually means the few brick built houses built about 1900 at the centre of the town which have not been bulldozed or burnt down) was actually really 
pleasant, not because it didn’t fit all of the above description, because it did, but because it was along the south side of the estuary of the Little Manistee River and all along the shore, behind the turn of the century brick buildings was a Boardwalk and marina. The actual 100 yards or so of the “historic” centre (center?) was also well kept attractive , well repaired and had a quite nice selection of 
small shops. I met a chap from the organic food store who was on his was to the bank. “You from Australia?” he asked. I put him right. “Ah-sum!...d’ya ride over or rent it?” “I rode down from Montreal”, I said, “I’m on a 14,000 mile road trip of the States” “Man, that’s just ah-sum” he again exclaimed. “Where ya goin’? I outlined my trip to another “ah-sum”. He was very friendly and welcoming and clearly and rightly proud of his town centre. He told me where to get my phone card charged up as it was no longer working and I assumed that I had run out of credit on it. He also showed me the bank and a good place for breakfast. I duly did the eating and the bit of shopping and then went to look at the boats and the river. The boats were absolutely bristling with fishing rods. Some of them must have had a dozen or more and how any three or four people who would go out on them could use so many was beyond me. Clearly also there was some very big tackle, a few had rods that were bolted to the sides of the boat and massive gaffs which looked as if they could land a shark. The Americans take their huntin’ shootin’ 
and fishin’ VERY seriously. To them these are absolutely sacrosanct activities, in every respect, associated with their outback and pioneering ancestors’ pasts, and virtually every adult male who can walk participates in some way or another. The right to bear arms, any sort of weapon, is only perhaps secondary only to their right to marry and have a family. Not very deep inside the majority of American men I have met, is a sort of alter-ego identification as a backwoodsman. Camping is one part of this identification, about which, more some time in the future, but their rights to hunt certainly seem foremost in the minds of most that I have met so far. Identification of species is pretty good on the whole, but, in general, appreciation of wildlife is limited to whether they have ever shot or eaten it and how good it was, where, and how many, they shot or caught, how they skinned it, stuffed, smoked it, froze it, made it into a hat, a wall mount, a coat, burgers or sausages, or cooked it, and what weaponry they used to get it! Actually just looking at wildlife per se, as I do, is rather rare. I was sold a phone card top up for $50-00 and then found out that AT and T don’t have a service in may States and Michigan is one of them. So, all the time I am here, I can’t use it, but they will deduct their dollar a day charge from my credit. I was a bit cheesed off.About mid morning, I set off again up the 22 through glorious wooded country and open clearing, within about a mile of the lakeside all the way. Past Alberta, Frankfort, and the Crystal
Lake, where I stopped off for the afternoon at the beach to swim and "catch some rays". It was my first experience of swimming in a freshwater lake, as so vast that , with the waves, the sand and the inability to see any opposite shore, one could have been forgiven for thinking one was at the sea, but no, fresh water, and (within the bounds of little boys swimming) quite drinkable. It felt very strange. Towards evening, I arrived in Empire at the Visitor centre. This part of the drive was taking me up a peninsula about two thirds of the way north up the eastern shore, called Sleeping Bear Dunes. I called in to the desk and found a very interesting centre, documenting the geology, topography and animal and plant life of these dunes. They are about 4 miles long, and three to five hundred feet high, and in the old days, their top was covered by a very dark coniferous forest, probably mostly of pine and junipers. The lovely story goes that the Indians named the place after a legend, where a mother bear had swum across the lake with two cubs. When she reached the shore exhausted, she climbed the dune to look for them, but they were gone. She laid down on the top of the dune and rested, always watching out to the big water for them to return, but they never did. She became the great forest, dark and stretched on the top of the dune, sleeping, and her cubs became the two islands off shore, of North and South Manitou Islands. Most of the forest has now been blown away or eroded, but it is still possible to see some of the outline which forms her head and front paws.I decided to see the dunes, and booked in at a camp, “Sleepy Bears” campsite, a few miles away.
In the wooded camp area, I was next to a pleasant couple, I shall call them Daniel and Josie, and their three children. He was a teacher at a school on Mackinac Island ( still pronounced
“mackinore”) After I had eaten, he came over and asked if I wanted to join them for some more. I told him that I was already well fed and thank you, couldn’t manage anything else. “Nope, s’mores” he said, “D’ya wanna join us for s’mores?” Well I didn’t quite know what to say. I almost felt a bit embarrassed because the American food serving is generally about twice what I would normally eat, and I was already full. He seemed quite insistent. “Well I don’t know if I can manage any more, but, since you’re inviting, I’d love to,” so I went across. As soon as I arrived, it was obvious that there wasn’t much, if any, food left, but they were toasting marshmallows on a long barbeque fork in the fire pit. I watched as Josie took two small rectangular brown cracker wheat biscuits and laid on them a small matching rectangle of chocolate. On top of this, she put the sizzling marshmallow and then squeezed it flat between the two biscuits and pulled out the fork. She handed it to me and I bit into it. “Wow!” this was seriously good stuff. The sweet sticky marshmallow, the melting chocolate and the biscuits just went together so well. They were really scrummy! The children queued up for them as both parents were now toasting, and I most certainly joined the queue. I ate about four I think, although I rather lost count in their company, enjoying the dessert and the campfire and their hospitality. These little delicacies, it seems, are an old summer camp treat, which children (and this adult!) love. It is they themselves which are called “S’mores” because everyone wants s’more! I shall have to try that one at home on the barbeque some time.The whole of the Great Lakes were formed in pre-history by the movement and eventual melting of ice caps, formed in prehistoric seas, melting and then being gouged out by residual glaciers. Rocks and pebbles of many areas and different geological layers were carried in them,
and then the predominantly north western winds across the lake had blown, over thousands of years a massive deposit of sand to this one point on the exposed shore of Lake Michigan. The natural history of the dunes and their features are seen best on a circular tour road, called Pierce Stocking Drive, after the man who envisaged being able to show his beloved and well studied dune to greater numbers of people. Here on the walkways, and exploring into the dunes, are the hollows, not of recent storms, but remaining indentations, despite the winds, from thousands of 
years ago, where there had been lakes, whose sides had burst and subsequently drained. All the features of the stabilisation of the dunes are visible if one looks, first the scrubby grass, then the development of mixed grasses with enormous superficial 
root systems which tie it together, Later, small woody plants and shrubs, and then, in stabilised dunes, juniper, silver birch and cottonwood trees. The walking is hard, two steps forward and one back, and it took an hour to walk the mile circular route where these features can all be seen. It was about 90 degrees. The dune is sadly now only about half the size it was, and is still eroding away, faster than it is growing, but their policy is to allow nature to care for it and whatever happens is
an evolutionary process. On the edges of the dune, I saw a huge, basswood tree whose ancient roots were now fully exposed by the wind and rain. Along the top of the dune, near the sleeping bear, a board walk has been placed to 
get access to see the “bluff,” a 450 foot cliff of sand, which one is advised to stay off, but which the foolhardy were sliding down and then climbing up. I was alarmed to hear that the fee from the Rangers for rescue from the bluff is $2500, so even more amazed to see the stupidity of some parents who were doing it with children obviously under 10. All this in blazing open open sunshine and temperatures of 95 to 100 degrees on the sands. I think truly, that, the dune needs better care here than this, and that people should not be allowed to climb on the bluff at all. It is spectacular and already being eroded naturally, without the thrill seekers.The pictures do not do it justice, as clearly I had to take them down the hill rather than from the side on view.
It was a wonderful place to visit, and I went on to stay overnight in the National Park campsite there.
I had been finding it a bit hard to buy small amounts of stuff at the supermarkets. I guess it’s the same at home really, but one knows where to go to find small quantities. Storage of food on the bike is also a problem. I had bought some minced beef and vegetables two days ago, and the meat really was about on the turn, although I had twice packed ice around it in polythene bags. Tonight then, I would make my stew. I knew it would be too much to eat at once, but if I boiled it up again properly for about 10 minutes on each of the following two days, I thought it should be OK.
The water was about a quarter of a mile away and obtained from a true pump. Pumping the handle as well as holding the water bag under the spout was not all that easy, the end of the massive handle being about 6 inches longer than my span away from the spout, but I gathered about 2 litres and returned to make the stew. It should have had a bit of Oxo or something in it really, and I had no salt and pepper, but I fried the mince, and added, carrots, chopped potatoes,
sugar snap peas, broccoli and cauliflower, and had an entire pan full of a delicious though rather bland stew, and ate about a quarter of it for supper. It was dry night, but with a few bugs, so I put up the mozzie net and laid out in my bag underneath at the edge of the forest on one side of the clearing, and went to sleep about 10.30. I was fast asleep but suddenly woken from my dreams by a clank, and I recognised the fall of the aluminium lid of the stewpot, which I had left on the table. I thought that perhaps the wind had come up, but there was no wind, and in the dim light I could make out shapes on the picnic table in the centre of the clearing, and there was snuffling going on. I lit the torch and shone it through the net. Four bright red eyes illuminated and the outlines of two beasts the size of turkeys,one on the table and one on the bench, both snuffing in my stew! I did not see what they actually were when I first looked, but instinctively shouted “shooo!” in the expectation they would go. But they took no notice at all, the light did not seem to worry them and they continued in the plunder of my stew. I took my sheath knife out, pulled back the net and got up. My metal cup went flying off the table and the camp stove fell to the ground. Two huge racoons, leapt off the table, for the woods, their now clear, black and white, “Davy Crockett” tails flying after them. Boy, they were big beasts . I hadn’t realised that Racoons could be so big. I had thought from the road kill I had seen that they were about the size of a chicken. Goodness knows what I could have done with my knife. I am reminded about my earlier debate as to whether I needed a gun! (Now you see, the hunter thing is catching!) I looked at the last third of my stew. Probably be OK if it’s boiled up I thought, but they’re not getting any more. I took some Gaffer tape out of the pannier and taped the top on the pan. Twenty minutes later there were more scuffles, and the bastards had come back and were taking the tape off the lid. I shouted at them and leapt out of the bivvy and again they disappeared into the woods. The tape was almost off, but not quite. I taped it up again and locked it in the top box of the bike. My bag was on top of that and I locked the box too. The scent should be gone by now and I cleared everything I had from off the table and put it away. I sat at the picnic table and smoked a cigarette, waiting in the dark for any sign of their return. At almost 2o’clock, I turned to cross the 25 yards of the clearing to return to my sleeping bag. The net was pulled back off it, but there, in the dim light was another turkey sized beast snuffling about on it. No red eyes this time and I chased at it, all in underpants and bare feet (Me, not the beast).. A bloody great big porcupine went lumbering off into the woods at a rapid scurry. I have to say now, that I was actually a bit fazed by this time! I decided to stay up for a bit longer; it was too late, yet too early to pack up and move on. The wardens had not said anything about these “critters”, and I was tired and I did not quite know now whether to sit up on guard or go back to bed. I checked to make sure that Porky hadn’t peed on my sack. Thankfully he hadn’t, but sleeping in porcupine pee did not appeal. I wondered if it was anything like skunk? Oh Heavens! What if they’re up here too? You can’t just charge at a skunk ‘cos they’ll spray you first. All these thoughts went through my head. I got through a third cigarette. At least I knew I was not in Bear country. Eventually, I went back to lie down, but it was good hour before I relaxed enough to sleep and an hour and a quarter when I was again woken to rustling, this time from the direction of the bike. I shone the torch. Mr and Mrs Racoon were on the bike, one riding pillion facing backwards and the other stood up on the side pannier, both trying to get into the bag or the top box where they could no doubt, still smell the Racoon equivalent of MacDonalds, a quick take-away. This time I picked up some small rocks near the bivvy and then with my headlight on, and not much else, charged across the clearing at them shouting. They bounced off into the forest, and I threw the stones hard at them catching one. There was a sort of growly scream noise and then silence. It was almost 4o’clock. I pulled the picnic table 
across the clearing to the side of my bike. I put my sleeping bag on the table and curled up, the table was a foot too short. I put my knife alongside the bag, together with some rocks and a hammer I have for my tent poles. “Next time, I’m getting me a ‘coon”. But there was no next time and I woke lying flat on my back with the bag and my knees dangling over the edge of the table at almost 8o’clock with the sun up.. No more ‘coon troubles. I got up and got cramp in my calves. This time I just got a photo of their paw prints on the seat of the picnic table. Next time, I just could become a hunter!Best wishes,
Doc
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