Facing Sunset: 3800 solo miles; a woman's journey back and forward

By Patti Brehler

Facing Sunset; a woman's journey back and forward, is a coming-of-a-certain-age memoir framed within sixty-year-old patti brehler's 2016 bicycle tour between her home in northeastern Michigan and Missoula, Montana.

Forty years earlier, patti brehler was one of more than 4000 bicyclists taking part in Bikecentenn

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lilith House Press
• Release date: Jun 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735338774

Patti Brehler

patti brehler is young-at-heart enough to bicycle 3800 miles solo, crazy enough to write a book about it, and old enough that her adventure-travel memoir is a “coming of a certain age” reflection of her life lived as art. Her story illustrates how calculated risks foster extraordinary synchronicity within her universe.Now retired from freelancing for a small Michigan newspaper, patti has been a record-setting ultra-marathon bicyclist, journeyman machinist, massage therapist, adventure coach, bicycle store owner, dog trainer, and amateur death doula for her parents. Somewhere in there was a short stint as a railroad conductor.Facing Sunset is her first book. She is one of thirty-three contributors to the anthology of women’s voices, What She Wrote, (published by Lilith House Press in 2020), and has essays published in the Massage Therapy Journal and the International Association of Assistance Dog Partners.patti lives in her beloved “patch” with her husband, Andy Andersen, and their two black labs, Gus and Aero (“career-changed” from Leader Dogs for the Blind). Her new adventure? During the 2020 Covid-shutdown, she bought a horse—a tri-colored Overo paint mare, aptly named Crazy Horse.

Book preview

Facing Sunset

3800 solo miles; a woman’s journey back and forward

patti brehler

Lilith House Press

Estes Park, Colorado

Copyright 2021 by patti brehler

All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the copyright holder, except in the case of brief quotations in a review. For information, please contact the author at [e-mail].

ISBN 978-1-7353387-6-7 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7353387-7-4 (e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021904440

The stories in this book reflect the author’s recollection of events and dialogue has been re-created from memory. Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of those depicted. All photos not taken by the author are used with permission by the Adventure Cycling Association, Robin Heil, and Karen Voss.

Cover and e-book design: Jane Dixon-Smith at www.jdsmith-design.com

Paperback interior design: Theresa Edkom

Editing: Elisabeth Kauffman at www.writingrefinery.com, Angela Mac, MaxieJane Frazier at www.birchbarkediting.com.

Cover and author photos: patti brehler

Logo of Lilith House Press, a drawing showing the top of a donkey's head and ears, with a thistle plant on the right.

For Andy.

For Mom and Dad.

For that marvelous machine, the bicycle.

BICYCLIARY

R. Brooks

The bicycle is naturally singular,

Avoids ideology, does not confer

Virtue or signal the millennium.

It forces respect for equilibrium.

As technology, it falls somewhere between

The eggbeater and the sewing machine.

It is my size. It does not overbear.

It teaches attention to winds and the slope of the earth,

Loose stones and puddles, dogwood, a crooked path.

It asks me to get it from here to there

With competence and economy.

It is some pleasure to reply.

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it,

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it

-John Anster, inspired by the words of Goethe

"What’s the worst that could happen? I might die? Well, we are all going to die, no sense worrying about it.

What’s the next worst thing? I’ll be homeless and have to live under the bridge? No big deal, I have a sleeping bag.

What’s another? That I might get attacked or raped? Well, then I might die, because I’ll go down fighting."

-patti brehler

Contents

Forward

Facing Sunset

1 A Chance at Being Done

2 Yes, I am Alone

3 Headwind Queen

4 Hitchhiker

5 Hills, Hills, Hills

6 Chores

7 A Quarter Short Braggart

8 A Week to get Into the Groove

9 Ignoring my own Advice

10 A Stranger, Better Day

11 With a Little Help

12 Rail Trails and Trains

13 Shifting to Life on the Road

14 Deadline Day

15 Limited Services

16 Remembering the Ride of my Life

17 Surfing the Plains of North Dakota

18 Gone With the Damn Wind

19 Chance Meetings

20 And Here I Am

21 Welcome to Montana

22 It’s not Montana if it Isn’t Windy.

23 Indecision

24 Noticing

25 Beautiful and Terrible Things Will Happen.

26 Quantum Tricks

27 Shifting

28 Only by Moving

29 Stark Reminders

30 Floating Into Battle

31 Busted

32 Firecracker in a Calm Pond

33 Unexpected Counsel

34 Stranger in Town

35 Soldiers of the Sorrowful River

36 Nudged to Share

37 Until This Moment

38 My Tribe

39 Extended Reunion and a Kindred Spirit

40 Getting my Groove Back

41 Delirious Murmurations

42 Hard Side of the Tracks

43 Keeping up the Good Ride

44 Wind and Whistles

45 Guidance Guises

46 Food Angels

47 Easier to ask Forgiveness

48 Moving From Montana Soon…

49 Specters

50 To be Remembered

51 Absolution

52 Allies

53 Like Being Reborn

54 And Sometimes my Stories are True.

55 Absence Shows the Heart

56 A Certain Freedom

57 On my own Route

58 Between my World and This

59 Halfway House

60 Mission Accomplished

61 Once Again Comrades

62 Hey, Everybody Poops!

63 My Previous me Doppelgänger

64 Center of my Universe

65 Embracing Sunset

Afterward

Appendix

Bike and Gear List

UP Pasties: A Taste of my Childhood

Acknowledgements

Author Page

Forward

The author is an extraordinary, ordinary woman. Born and raised in Detroit, her education and experiences appear blue-collar-ordinary. She would have herself viewed that way, but this book will tell a different story.

Raised in the Catholic faith, the church’s curious restrictions on women soon pushed her away. A talented student who earned the Valedictorian title at a large suburban high school, she spurned college to work in Detroit’s manufacturing sector. Typical of her, she rose from performing rote assembly of minor car parts to journeyman machinist in an aerospace manufacturing company.

She has worked as a writer and photographer for a small, rural paper and rose to edit another such publication. At one point in her work life she ran away to work on the railroad. She successfully completed the strength-based training, but the male-dominated work environment frustrated her, and so her railroading career was short lived. Otherwise, she has asserted herself in the working world of men long before cultural change was there for support, and she earned respect from managers and (perhaps more significantly) her male co-workers.

During her early work life, she compartmentalized her employment to support her true passion: riding the open road on a bicycle. Before the ink was dry on her high school diploma, she was touring the roads of Michigan. Patti first rode her bike coast to coast when her young age still required written parental permission. Later, she competed in many cycling endurance events and set records in the USA and France, some of which stood for years after she no longer competed.

Unlike some endurance athletes, for her, once it was over, it was over. To fill the void created by the end of her competitive riding career, she turned to other interests. A lifelong cross-country skier, Patti plied the trails of where? The urban ski trails of Metro Detroit? Not a chance. She traveled beyond the reach of the electric grid into Canada to find a place of white magic. She also trained as an adult leader in Michigan’s 4H Challenge Program, specializing in outdoor activities and winter survivor skills. And all through her life, writing about and photographing the miracles of life have been a constant.

Her friends (and I) affectionately describe Patti as more than a little crazy. She raced her mountain bike on the Alaskan Iditarod trail, in February. For Patti, camping in the winter snow with no more than a sleeping bag for warmth is fun. In the building which is now the headquarters of General Motors in Detroit, she set a world record for climbing stairs for twenty-four hours (just shy of 70,000 steps). A fund-raiser for the American Heart Association, her climb was an inadvertent protest of inattention to women’s heart health studies.

While she never wanted to be the center of anything, when she saw a need, that’s where she went. A trained massage therapist, Patti volunteered her services with Hospice. For a decade she raised puppies for Leader Dogs for the Blind. For several years she volunteered inside the Michigan prison system, helping selected inmates develop skills to raise Future Leader Dog puppies.

Throughout her life of competing and giving she was a friend and role model for women, young and old. She intended not to preach a message, but to live it. You can be who you want. You can do what you want. You can lead the life you want. Finally, she saw it as her task to help both her parents on their journey from this life to the next.

One wouldn’t think there was much room left in her life, but when Patti was in her late thirties, we stumbled into each other’s lives. I had been a failure at marriage, twice; she had never felt a need for a lifelong partner. Credit me for keeping trying; credit her for taking a risk. That was twenty-five years ago. For two-and-a-half decades I have watched and wondered at this extraordinary, ordinary woman. Her bike ride to Missoula, Montana and home again is a metaphor for her life. I wonder what’s down that road, she would say. Thankfully for me, I was down one of those roads.

Andy Andersen

2021 the patch, Lupton, Michigan

Facing Sunset

A woman sits on a long-wheel-based recumbent bicycle and waves at the camera. She is wearing a helmet and sunglasses. The bicycle is loaded with camping geaer, and has a plastic fairing attached to the front.

Leaving St. Ignace, Michigan, June 9, 2016.

Editorial note: to orient the reader to the author’s structure, point of view, and tense in this book: the italicized chapter openings depict the author’s growing-up memories written in third-person, past-tense; the narration of the author’s ride is in first-person, present-tense; and other author’s memories within said narration is delineated by a bicycle wheel, written in first-person, past tense. The italicized Postcards From the Road at the end of some chapters are actual Facebook posts the author wrote during her 2016 ride.

1

A Chance at Being Done

Thursday June 9, 2016

St. Ignace to Hog Island State Forest Campground, Naubinway, Michigan

His smell—cutting oil and grinding dust—brought the toddler running. Daddy!

The father eased himself to the shag carpet. Shirtless, his arms angled at the elbows like chicken wings. He clasped his grease-stained fingers and bowed his forehead against them as if he were praying. Walk on my back, Pat.

The girl loved this game. Could she step from squishy butt to neck without falling? She waved her arms wide, one bare foot over each pocket of his navy blue shop pants.

Ugh. Keep moving.

Toes curled at his belt. Tiny tot steps stuttered to catch balance, leaving white marks that turned red with passing. His tanned skin felt as hot as a cement sidewalk in June. The girl didn’t realize she held her breath as she rocked her weight up either side of his spine.

Yes…that’s it.

Where his back widened, she connected. Moans and giggles mingled.

Warrior-child, dancing on daddy’s back.

____________________

My heart skips. The first view of the Mighty Mac comes at a curve on northbound I-75, between mile markers 334 and 335—stark, carcass-white spires thrust above the forest canopy. The Mackinac Bridge, a five-mile span connecting the lower peninsula of Michigan with the upper (the UP), the longest suspension bridge in the western hemisphere, signals a leap from home.

Before cables connected the roadway to the 552-foot towers, we had to take a ferry across the straits. Mom cradled me in her arms on our way to visit her folks. In memory, her voice singsongs names of UP towns: Naubinway, Manistique, Munising, Ishpeming, Negaunee, Ontonagon, Calumet. I loved her stories of growing up in Harvey, a small town east of Marquette on the shores of Lake Superior.

After the bridge opened to traffic the sprawled-on-my-back view from the rear seat window of our family’s Chevy left me awestruck. Cables shadowed like a broken reel of Super 8 home movies. Sunshine washed either end of the span, and rain poured between the cloud-shrouded towers.

The Mighty Mac, a siren calling to adventure.

A drawing of a bicycle wheel with a line trailing to the right

My adventuring started at age five on a bicycle; my first foray to follow the road was the summer of 1974. Fresh out of high school, my friend, Robin, and I took three weeks to pedal from Detroit to the base of the siren bridge. Restricted from riding across, we squeezed into the cab of a Bridge Patrol pickup, our loaded, ten-speed Raleighs resting in its bed.

I yearned to keep on, but we had a week to get Robin home for her brother’s wedding. Au revoir, I whispered to the Mighty Mac from a ferryboat hauling us back to the lower peninsula after a day’s respite on car-less Mackinac Island. I’d ride back to the city with Robin, but I was not done living life from the seat of a bicycle. After resting a few days, I planned to empty my meager bank account and continue pedaling to Colorado, the place to be.

Sprawled out on my parent’s hulking, Naugahyde reupholstered chair, I thumbed through the Detroit Free Press. An article caught my eye. Look at this, Mom! These two couples are biking from Alaska to Argentina. When they get back, they’re going to organize a ride across the country to celebrate the bicentennial year.

Better than going on your own.

Scrap Colorado, I had a new plan. I wrote to Dan and Lys Burden and Greg and June Siple, the riding couples noted in the article, for information about their brainchild: Bikecentennial ’76 (B’76). In the meantime, I went to work in a factory making electric trunk releases and motorcycle carburetors—money for new camping gear. The summer of 1975 I dragged my almost-fifteen-year-old brother, Jim, on a two-week shakedown tour to Lake Michigan and back. I was ready.

In 1976 I cycled 4250 miles from Oregon to Virginia. Afterwards? Forced home by a prepaid airline ticket, I still didn’t feel done.

I got a better job in an aerospace manufacturing factory, with vacation time for shorter tours. Weekend rides found me exploring Ontario. One summer I rode six days across Wisconsin. I even took several more pedals to the Mighty Mac. They were not enough. I turned to ultra-marathon bicycle races, condensing weeks of miles into twenty-four hours or multiple days. Not the same. My heart lusted for an open-ended life on the road.

A drawing of a bicycle wheel with a line trailing to the right

Today the sun shines end to end as Andy drives me and my loaded Tour Easy recumbent across the Mighty Mac. Today, on the north side, I begin my lifelong dream of riding until I am done. I named this desire my Forrest Gump ride, after watching Tom Hanks run back and forth across the country in the 1994 movie by the same name. Hanks’s character got up from his porch, and for no particular reason ran to the end of his road.

What stuck with me? He kept running until he was done.

Oh, to pedal where whim takes me, pushing rubber to the next turn. Bicycling: an elegant blend of body and machine is a force in my life I cannot deny.

Another fine mess I’ve got myself into, I say to Andy on the north side of the bridge, clipping my right shoe into my pedal.

Well, what can you do now?

Through the lump in my throat I croak, Give it my best shot.

He squeezes my shoulder. Failing that you can call the ERD.

ERD?

Emergency Recovery Department.

I give him a sidelong glance and smile. Poor guy. Hasn’t twenty-two years of marriage taught him anything? The man has listened to me for years: One day I will ride until I am done. He knows that, beyond a catastrophic physical failure, I will not ask for rescue. Can’t fault him for trying.

The sun is high, west winds low in my face. It is June 9, 2016, and I have five weeks to ride from St. Ignace, Michigan to Missoula, Montana. And however long I want to get home.

I take a quick glance at the mirror sticking out from the left side of my helmet. Andy drops his hand after waving me off and turns back to the van. His head and shoulders droop. I imagine him saying to himself, It’s going to be a long summer. I am glad for the eight-foot shoulder on US 2 when tears break out, taking me by surprise, just as Andy did when he walked into my heart.

A drawing of a bicycle wheel with a line trailing to the right

My back had been killing me for weeks. That’s what a job that doesn’t fit can do to a person. In mid-step, gimping through the office hallway toward the factory floor, I thought, I gotta quit. Before my foot hit the floor, all pain disappeared. I handed in my resignation letter.

My boss (president of the company) asked, What will you do?

I don’t know, it just can’t be this.

You’ve done a good job for us. I make it a practice to treat my staff to a thank-you dinner when they leave.

He came from work to pick me up. When I stepped in to control the exuberance of my two mutt dogs, he brushed me away. No mind to the black and yellow fur sure to adhere to his expensive suit, he dropped onto hands and knees to wrestle them.

Who is this guy?

This guy was Andy.

I worked at that aerospace manufacturing firm for seventeen years, fifteen of them as an O.D. (outer diameter) grinder. Looking for a change, I applied for and landed the company’s new training coordinator position (with a requirement to go back to school for a degree). Even after I secured an almost half-million-dollar government grant to retrain the workforce, business tanked. Necessity shifted me from training coordinator to afternoon shift floor supervisor, not a job I wanted and the one that blew out my back.

Andy was incredulous. Most people line something up before they quit. Or have a plan of some sort.

I’ll continue with school. I have a massage therapy side gig and hope to grow my client base.

He had no idea about the crazy person who worked for him. I admit to a bit of fun, at his expense, filling him in. Hadn’t he ever met a woman like me? As president of the company, Andy represented the establishment; I was a factory-rat at heart. He said it himself: I don’t understand you. But my free-spirited approach to life and stories of my adventures piqued his interest. By the end of dinner, after he professed a bucket list wish to hike the Appalachian Trail (but no idea on how), we agreed I’d help him train for a week-long hike.

I called him the next morning. You gave me an idea to start an adventure coaching company. Will you be my first client?

A year later, my life forever changed. Andy and I finished a six-day hike from the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, came home to buy a bicycle store together, and got married.

A drawing of a bicycle wheel with a line trailing to the right

And now I’m leaving him, the guy who made it his purpose to make it so when I first bridged taking another long bike ride. He pretended not to notice my warning, The Pacific Ocean isn’t that much further, I might want to keep riding west once I get to Missoula.

I’ll be fine. Just come back to me.

Unlike my mother, who frowned a tease: Do I have to sign for you to go like you tricked me into doing before? If I knew back then you couldn’t go without my signature, I wouldn’t have signed.

At age twenty, I needed a parent’s signature to sign up for B’76. I didn’t trick her. Mom knew full well her signature would be authentic or forged. She signed. What she probably doesn’t want to know now is she sparked the idea for what I am about to do.

Mom managed the family finances, filing every bill. In her organized way, she shredded every piece of paper with Dad’s name on it after he passed. Seemed normal to me, she worked that shredder hard every year. It’s what she said that struck me: It’s like he didn’t even exist. I tell you, if you want to do something in life, you’d better just do it.

Did she have regrets? Or was she warning me? Was she aware of my itch for the open road and hinting for me to go?

Not a newspaper article this time, but a Facebook post about the fortieth anniversary of B’76 pricked my fire. Dad was gone, Mom appeared healthy, and I wasn’t getting any younger myself. It was a perfect storm of opportunity.

I took Mom to her doctor’s appointment, the doctor that signed Dad into hospice care. Doc, I’m planning a three-month-long trip this summer. Think that’s okay?

He winked. Sure.

Now I’m just doing it. Pedaling free. The open road a strip of circumstance luring me along the northern edge of Lake Michigan. Who cares about oceans when we have the Great Lakes? My tears are not enough to salt the sparkling expanse.

A highway sign: eighty miles to Manistique, tomorrow’s destination. Tonight, I shoot for Hog Island State Forest Campground, a few miles east of Naubinway, thirty-five miles west of the Mackinac Bridge. A drumbeat lifts in the back of my mind to match my pace. Laurie Anderson’s Ramon, from her album Strange Angels, burrows a worm. A song I first heard more than twenty years ago, on a playlist my brother made for his dying wife. We played the tape while I massaged her.

With memories of helping Liz on her last journey, tears well again, a little harder as my thoughts turn to Dad. Funny how the memory of one loss causes memories of other losses to surface. I cry for the cycle of life, for those I’ve lost, for those I’ve yet to lose. I cry and pedal on.

At Hog Island, fifty rustic sites along the flat dirt road of the campground are empty. I choose a spot on the shore of Lake Michigan in hopes the lapping water might drown out traffic noise from US 2. It might be the exact spot where Andy and I stayed eight years ago. We were heading home on our bikes after visiting his son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Another bucket list item for him. On our way we crossed the big lake on the Badger, a ferry from Ludington, Michigan to Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Our return took us north to visit Andy’s brother in Marinette, Wisconsin before crossing the UP east, and a Bridge Patrol truck ride across the Mighty Mac.

Hey, I said to Andy as we left his brother’s. What do you think about swinging north to Marquette first?

No.

I didn’t think he could smell home from there, but he did. For me, the urge to keep going was stronger than ever. I still was not done.

At the end of this emotional day I should cry over my dinner too. Not many choices in the scruffy convenience store in Epoufette a few miles back. Turns out a can of tomato paste mixed with water and spices does not make a tolerable sauce for the pasta stashed in my kitchen pannier. The disaster reminds me of a phrase Andy stole from a Garrison Keillor character whenever I concocted a meal that wasn’t quite great. I ate it, didn’t I?

Tucked in the same down sleeping bag I used in 1976, I toss and turn. Am I up to this? Can my body handle the stress? Do I really think I’ll keep riding after Missoula? Andy has always encouraged me to go; why did I need the reunion as an excuse? My mind races against my heart like the moments leading up to the start of a race, or a new job, or a first date.

By 2:00 a.m. my bladder needs attending. Now I need the gumption to give up the warmth of my bag and hike to the vault toilet. Ah, well. Zip. Or rather, unzip. Tent door, vestibule door. Zip again to close against mosquitoes. I stumble out.

It is not the chilly UP air that forces a gasp. The Milky Way shouts its existence in reflection over calm Lake Michigan waters. I hover among stars at the brink of earth and water, existing in human form this brief moment of time, occupying a nano-space of no consequence, at once all and nothing.

STATS (From my CatEye cycle computer.)

35 miles, max speed 37.5, ride time 2:48, average speed 12.7, TOTAL 35

An old photo of a smiling man holds a smiling baby in a bonnet.

Dad and me.

2

Yes, I am Alone

Friday, June 10, 2016

Hog Island to Indian Lake State Park in Manistique, Michigan

The girl was yet another sister (the third) to Rick, the oldest. He dragged her around as if she was a brother. Good thing you’re smart, he said. By age two, she knew right from left.

Rick and the neighborhood boys built plywood go-carts to race. They nailed metal roller skates to two-by-fours for axles and attached the front steering axle with a large bolt and washers through an oversized hole. Drivers steered with their feet and pushers ran behind with a broom handle wedged against the seat back.

Except for her short legs, the tiny girl was perfect. Rick nailed two lengths of clothesline to the front axle for her to steer. All he had to do was yell left or right.

Wheels clack, clack, clacking on sidewalk cracks, the brother/sister team was unbeatable.

____________________

Gentle mourning dove coos wake me back to earth. A tap on my FitBit glows the time at 5:41 a.m. Good, I want an early start. Pancakes and peaches fill the hole from last night’s dinner, but even with the early up it is almost 8:00 before I get everything packed. Ready to roll, I skate free. No forest ranger ambles up looking for the $13 camping fee I should have dropped through a self-serve slot in a steel post at the entrance. With nothing smaller than a $20 bill, I took a chance. Happy to pay, disinclined to deplete my limited cash with a tip.

Andy was right. Use the debit card, but you’d better bring some cash, too. It might come in handy.

Forty years ago, I bought $1000 in traveler’s checks as a safe way to carry money for extra snacks, and souvenirs and postcards to mail home. Using cash these days is like shooting film. Who does that anymore? The St. Ignace Truck Stop Restaurant for one, it turns out. No credit cards accepted. I paid for our lunch and the bridge tolls yesterday, as Andy brought no cash of his own.

After an hour of riding I pull into a rest stop teeming with vacationers. Lake Michigan waves roar wild. The only water I’m interested in comes from the water fountain—to fill my bottles. Good fortune, underneath it is an electrical plug. I worry about keeping my iPhone charged. After reading tips on bicycle touring blogs about guerrilla phone charging (vending machines often have open plugs behind them, for example), I decided against bringing a portable charging pack.

I linger long enough for a half-charge. When I return to my bike, it is lying on its side. Was I careless leaning it against the walkway railing? Did someone knock it over? Nothing seems amiss. A gray-haired couple grip the handrail as they shuffle to their car. They pause. Where are you going?

Missoula, Montana.

What for?

A fortieth anniversary party. In 1976 a bunch of us rode across the country to celebrate the bicentennial year.

That’s a long way just for a party.

I grin. It might be quite a party. More than 4100 people cycled that summer, from either coast or shorter portions. I thought it’d be neat to ride there, while I still can! I don’t bother to tell them how the Burdens and Siples kept on with their B’76 organization and developed bicycle routes all over the country, or that they eventually changed its name to the Adventure Cycling Association (ACA).

Are you alone?

Yep.

The man’s eyes widen. His wife breaks into a Mighty-Mac grin. Good for you! I wonder if she has ever yearned for a similar adventure. Then I wonder if I’m setting myself up. Should I not admit I’m alone? Maybe I should answer, For now. I’m meeting up with some friends. Not a lie, I am meeting fellow B’76 riders in Missoula.

I point my rig west onto US 2.

As if on cue, Ramon starts right up. Curious. If the song hadn’t popped in my head yesterday, I would say last night’s stars bring it to mind today—Anderson’s kerjillions of stars rising like angels. I relax into a light tailwind and a gentle, familiar road. My muse on her lovely lyrics, about connection and not knowing, is interrupted by an Eastern Massasauga rattler stretched halfway across the shoulder. Its head tickles the gravel edge, there is no flat spot on the body or evidence of body fluids. Is it dead?

I swing a wide berth.

Halfway to my destination at Indian Lake State Park west of Manistique, I stop at a lone gas station for lunch. In line to pay for a red Gatorade and Lays potato chips to compliment a peanut butter sandwich, two women ask about my bike and where I’m going.

It’s a recumbent. I launch into my anniversary spiel.

Are you alone?

I try out my new response. For now. I’m meeting some friends.

Where are you meeting them?

I can’t lie. In Missoula.

Well, you are alone then.

Scrap this idea.

The road turns south and with it the wind. A crashing in the woods is louder than the wind noise now blasting through my helmet. A deer bounds, escapes whizzing traffic, and disappears. I glance right, expecting a second. What I see instead makes me wonder if lunch hasn’t kicked in yet. Crouched in the overgrown yard of a tumble-down cabin is a green frog as big as a Volkswagen. The frog faces the house, poised like a football center about to make a snap. It wears painted-on blue jeans and what appears to be a real black fleece vest and knit winter hat.

Not much further on I pass a discarded oil furnace tank painted white and black to resemble a cow, with a stovepipe neck and bucket head. A bearded, long-haired dummy-man, wearing a weathered leather coat, leans against it. He has aged since Andy and I saw him eight years ago. I swear his head turns slightly to watch me pedal by.

Only my second day on the road. Should have taken photos as proof I’m not hallucinating.

At a gas station in Gulliver for a potty break, two men drive up and park. The driver helps a frail woman get out of the back seat. She’s dressed in a light cardigan and long pants of purple, yellow, and green pastels; a bejeweled butterfly broach flutters over her heart. A bit disheveled, she looks like a wilted, late-spring lilac bush. The men are clean cut, wearing khaki shorts and polo shirts. Are they brothers? Or lovers?

The woman totters past me. I like your bike. The man straightens her cardigan, she mumbles something else.

What did you say?

She flinches. She took my clothes! The man hurries her into the station.

The woman’s swift reversal reminds me of Mom, how her sharp criticism has inured me and yet there are times she catches me off-guard with encouragement. Years ago, when financial difficulties at the bike store forced Andy and I to sell our house, I showed Mom and Dad the low-income townhouse Andy found for us. I expected some snide remark. Instead, she said, That looks nice!

I think of Mom living alone in Parkplace Heritage Village and the elderly residents I’ve gotten to know since she and Dad moved there two summers ago. The senior living apartments are a wonderful place with meals and cleaning, and activities if so inclined. When Dad needed more around-the-clock care, they hired aides from a home-health-care provider on site. Gives me peace of mind knowing she’s in a safe place, even if that place isn’t with me or my other siblings.

By 2:00 p.m., I cruise up to Jack’s Fresh Market in Manistique feeling strong. Should I push on to Escanaba? That would more than double my mileage today. Better not, I need to ease into this.

The market is a far cry from yesterday’s dinner shopping. Overwhelmed, I crave everything. I settle on a skinless chicken breast and a softball-sized head of cauliflower, bound to be 2000 times better than last night’s fiasco.

STATS

61.14 miles to Indian Lake State Park, max speed 32, ride time 4:36 (lots of stops), average speed 13.3, TOTAL 96.91

A picnic table is cluttered with camping cooking gear. A fry pan with pieces of chicken and cauliflower is in front.

Indian Lake dinner.

3

Headwind Queen

Saturday, June 11, 2016

Manistique to Escanaba, Michigan

The father built the rink in the backyard because his wife loved to ice skate as a kid. He stamped snow to form dams. Evening after evening he sprinkled water to freeze in layers overnight until a smooth, thick surface hardened like glass.

The mother twirled on the ice, her face framed by the fur on her hood. The girl thought the image magical; she longed to glide so effortlessly. Bundled head-to-toe she faltered, barely able to balance on her double-bladed skates.

Take my hands, Pat. Her father’s strength and confidence surged through her mittens. It felt like flying.

____________________

Eleven more days. Andy’s voice in my ear, me still snug in my sleeping bag. Indeed, a cell phone is nice to have along. In 1976 I hoped my folks would accept charges when I called home. Could I even find a pay phone today?

You’re counting down the days?

Yep. Days to my self-imposed deadline. He knows my Forrest Gump dream ride needs to be at least two weeks long—one week to beat myself into shape and the second week to adapt to the touring lifestyle. He must realize I’m committed to reaching Missoula, having paid $76 for the Friday night reception and Saturday night dinner. After that, well, could I be done? Or, like Forrest Gump, who just felt like running, would I keep on riding?

By the time I leave Manistique it is 9:30 a.m. I find a paved side road leading back to US 2, the main east/west thoroughfare across the peninsula. A short downhill curve swings past a two-story farmhouse. It has no siding except for a thick growth of ivy. A dusty white patio loveseat on the wraparound porch catches my eye.

Is someone lying there? I brake, giving up momentum to verify what I think I see. Yes. A skeleton lies shrouded in a dank sheet, as if the lady of the house died there waiting for her lover to return. Paved roads might be rare in the UP, but curious yard art seems to be a thing.

At the turn onto the highway, a gust of wind catches my fairing and again I am glad for the wide shoulder. Looks like this headwind is here to stay. Good thing I made peace with it years ago.

In 1985, my tandem partner, Lou, and I entered the John Marino Open in Illinois, a Race Across America (RAAM) qualifier. We needed to complete 700 miles in seventy-nine hours. We managed 500. Even with the power of two presenting a single front against a thirty-five miles per hour headwind, it was a battle to manage thirteen. I’d be thrilled with that speed today. On a tandem, it was pathetic.

Ignoring my lack of double-digit speed, I pedal on and smile at the memory of the two of us sprawled in a grassy ditch, the only place of refuge from the incessant wind. Our bike didn’t crash. We did.

I pedal on and try to muster the forty-years-ago enthusiasm fighting a horrific cross wind in Wyoming during B’76. Eight of us hung together for solace, leaning sideways to keep upright. Our unstable pace line wavered. I took the rambling lead. Welcome to the Wind River Reservation! Keep two inches between the wheel in front of you and you’ll be fine. I’ll be your tour guide today, so relax and enjoy the ride. I sang into the gusts long enough to displace my riding partners’ wind worries and for