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September 8 Thursday Bicycle touring from Bay City Michigan to Vasser Michigan Sharon phoned home last night at 11 PM to get the cheaper rates. It is only 9 in Alberta. I was lying in the tent writing in my Journal and, of course, she had to drag me along for company. I was thirsty anyway, so I got up and grabbed a huge can of ice tea from my pannier that Mr Holland of IGA fame had given us earlier. During our phone call home we found out that an offer is pending on our house, awaiting our instructions. We would net a nice bundle before the lawyer's fees. Faye, Sharon's youngest sister and our power of attorney, called our real estate salesman a weasel that she can't stand. She says he even drove out to talk to Sharon's dad one day, pressuring him to accept the offer. Sharon's brother, Murray, leaves to play hockey in Germany, September 18. Faye is taking business night courses at NAIT and working during the day for Darrell, Sharon's oldest brother. Danny, Sharon's youngest brother, is playing hockey for the St Albert Saints and is the team captain while taking five courses in Business at the University of Alberta. Shauna, Sharon's cousin, is writing the Chartered Accountant's UFE and is all stressed out. Sharon's mom says she can't believe how tough the UFE is, even though Sharon wrote it a few years ago and was trying to tell her that. In the morning, since we were camping legal and all, I tried to sleep in. Last night, some Harleys drove in and woke us up. Then some camper with his car lights on high beam streaming straight into our tent showed up. He spent half an hour slamming his car doors. I swear it was a twenty-seven door model. Of course, he left early this morning, slamming all twenty-seven doors again. I'm sure I sleep more peacefully in the forest with no one around. I had a shower, ate breakfast, and then packed up our dry tent (which has been a rare occurrence ) before bungeeing it on the back of my bike. We cycled south out of Bay City. The road was four lane divided. But the surface was the pits with lots of cracks and potholes. It's the worst we've been on in a while. There is no shoulder, but luckily there is not much traffic. We are riding in one of the lanes, while trying our best to avoid the worse cracks and potholes. I am not always successful. Usually, the traffic pulls over into the other lane to pass us. It is flat and straight, so they have no problem seeing us for a long ways off. Everyone did fine except for one obnoxious truck driver. He came up behind us and blasted his air horn. Then he motored by without slowing down, a couple of inches from my elbow. What do some of these people think? Sharon says she won't have to shave her legs for a while now. He came close enough to do it for her. The guy didn't move over one inch. His motto must be: Might is right. Death to all bicyclers. As we pedal our loaded touring bikes toward Frankenmuth, the Bavarian capital of the US -- minus the Alps -- the road improves a bit. It is still flat corn country around here. We also see fields of lettuce, beans, Swiss chard, and tomatoes. We saw a load of cucumbers go by in the back of a truck on its way to market. In Frankenmuth we bought some popcorn and then walked around to see the lovely tourist trap. There are even some tourists speaking German. We see scads of retired folks happily munching on yogurt cones. A covered bridge at the edge of town is charming. There is even a paddle wheeler which takes tourists up and down the river on a mini cruise. We cycled out of town onto a backroad to Vasser and ate supper in the town park. Sharon scouted out a tent site at the back of the park. We pushed our bikes down a narrow trail into the leafy growth. It turned out that car headlights from down the street shine right into where we wanted to set up our biking tent. It would be like sleeping in a roving searchlight beam all night. There is a slow moving river on one side down a steep bank, so there is no hope of finding a spot down there. I took the flashlight and went to look down the opposite side of the path. There is a steep bank which goes down into a proliferation of weeds, rocks, and sticks. It didn't look feasible to get the bikes down into that and then still not have a good spot to set the tent up on. We decided to push our bikes back to the park and go behind a storage building on the side of the park. As we were pushing our bikes back out into the park a couple of teenage kids showed up at the picnic shelter where we ate supper to smoke and swear. Unobserved, we laid our bikes down on the grass and then we laid down beside our loaded touring bikes to wait in the shadows for them to leave. Bicycle touring sure is fun. They couldn't see us back in the dark trees. We were hoping they would leave soon, but some more kids arrived in a car and another one pulled up on a bike. Now there were seven in all. They decided that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were what they want to be when they were all growed up. They proceeded to kick over a garbage can, strewing its guts all over the grass. Not quite satisfied by what they had accomplished, they then took turns kicking over the barbecues that were anchored in cement pads and set on pedestals. Finally, having convinced themselves that their testosterone levels were high enough, they left. I presume they had to be home in time to catch a Ninja Turtle rerun. We pushed our bikes through the now dewy grass. Between two trees, which were casting a dark shadow from the spot lights in the park, we set up next to the building wall. There are lots of stars on this clear night with just a sliver of moon to be seen. |
