The Many Faces of Michigan

It has been a hectic past few days.  Ever since our 100 mile day on 5 hours of sleep we have been perpetually tired.  The terrain has been flatter so our days have been longer, and we find ourselves struggling to stay awake past 10:30pm and barely able to get out of bed in the morning.  Nevertheless, we have made it to our destinations some way or another each night.  So far we have completed 940 miles on our trip over 18 days, including 2 rest days.  I'm not sure exactly, but I think we are about 1/5 done with our trip.

Michigan is beautiful.  It has a little bit of everything: farms, forests, hills, lakes, cities, shorelines, islands, wilderness, wealth, poverty, industry, former-industry, and everything in between.  The biking has for the most part been flat and easy, with some rolling hills interspersed.  Maybe it is because the hills are shorter and more gradual, or maybe it is because I am more in shape, but I can now go up hills without changing gears and at a much faster pace.  It is a great feeling to see your abilities improve as you work hard each day!

On Monday we crossed into Michigan- we were on a residential street in a suburb of Toledo, so there was no grand "Welcome to Michigan!" sign like the tourist in me had hoped.  The day was flat and the scenery enjoyable, until the sky became unusually dark.  I didn't think twice about it, but as we were heading north towards Dundee, MI, a man in a pickup slowed down and told me that there were tornado warnings in the area and we should get off the road immediately.  Once Zoey caught up to me, I relayed the news, and she did not seem surprised.  From going to school in the midwest she has seen skies like this before and knew that they mainly result in huge thunder and lightning storms.  So we turned around swiftly and biked back less than a mile until we found a commercial building, and we went inside and asked if we could wait out the rain.  It was a wholesale auto parts company, and they graciously let us stay.  And then it started- thunder, lightning, and sheets of rain.  We waited for over an hour, munching on trail mix while we kept checking the weather on my phone.  We finally left around 3 pm, with a lot of miles left to go until Ann Arbor.  We arrived in the city around 7:30pm via a bike path.  Our welcome sign was the large blue and yellow "M" outside the football stadium.  We had a few errands to run in the city- we picked up more stove fuel at REI in anticipation of our time in the UP, and bought granola bars and trail mix at whole foods.  In Ann Arbor we stayed with Clarissa F. and her boyfriend Conrad.  They both went to Oberlin and I know Clarissa from playing soccer with her for many years in NYC.  We ate burritos, crashed on the floor of their apartment and ate dumpster oatmeal for breakfast.  They were awesome to hang out with and we had a lot of fun biking around the city with Clarissa looking for a place to eat that was open after 9pm.  Ann Arbor was very cute, and was an awesome college town.  It had a bustling main street with lots of shops and restaurants, and college kids biking and walking everywhere.  I could tell I felt very comfortable there.  It was one type of city I am very used to, compared to the types of cities we would see over the next few days.

Tuesday was hot.  95+ degrees, and we got a late start.  We didn't drink enough water and I felt like I was melting.  It also had rolling hills, which wouldn't be that bad on a normal day but were too much for us to handle in the heat.  We made it to Felton by 4, which is a wealthier suburb 15 or so miles south of Flint.  We stopped to refill water, and gave Cade, our couchsurfing host, a call.  We told him how we were feeling and that we probably wouldn't make it without a cab.  He paused for a moment, and then proposed that he give his roommate Devin a call.  Devin works in Fenton and was able to give us a ride to Flint on the way back from work.  It was perfect timing and we were so appreciative.
Flint has been my favorite place to visit so far because I found its story unbelievably interesting.  On our drive up Devin started telling us a bit about Flint history- which is intertwined with the company policies and decisions of General Motors.  A city that was once 200,000 people strong in the 40's, 50's and 60's is down to less than 100,000 now.  At its peak GM employed 80,000 people (almost half the city) and now it employs 8,000.  The city has been run down since the 70's when GM left and took its jobs overseas.  I have so much to say about it, especially after seeing so much from Cade's awesome walking tour.  Cade is studying urban planning at U of M- Flint and is working through Ameri-corps at a non-profit in Flint that is trying to revitalize the park in downtown.  He was a perfect host for us, and despite all the bad things that had happened to the city, had a very hopeful outlook on the future.

Flint is a prime example of what happens when a city exists on a homogenous economy.  Everything was GM- the jobs that they didn't provide directly were jobs that existed to to serve the population that was employed by them.  They funded the city in so many ways.  Walking down Main Street I can envision Flint 50 years ago with a bursting downtown set back from the looming assembly plants.  As Cade explained, GM had such an influence that the city turned a blind  eye to all the pollution and detriment they did to the city while they were here.  They did not clean up after they left either.  They tore down all the buildings and left the sites to deteriorate, just miles and miles of concrete slabs called brownsites.  The largest brownsite is the old Buick plant, 3 miles out of town.  The one we saw is an old Chevy plant that is nicknamed "Chevy in the Hole".  It is next to the Flint River and is literally a huge concrete wasteland with toxic soil beneath it.  These sites really represent the downturn of the city- a place left to die once its use was done, with no consideration for the people and their quality of life.  The city has gotten funding recently to plant fast growing trees that absorb many of the toxins in the soil, which is a cheap way to hopefully clean up some of the pollution at these sites so they can be used again.

The Juneteenth Festival was going on in downtown when we were there- it is actually one of the largest in the country.  There was a live singer and at several hundred people watching.  The park it was in is the one Cade is working on revitalizing; It was built in the 70's just as GM was leaving as a way to bring the city back to life.  The whole park is an elaborate sculpture with fountains and channels built in to direct the river flow between pathways.  Unfortunately, the dam is keeping the river too low, so the channels have become marshes. The fountain is too expensive to run all the time so it is only on one or two times a year.  The rest of the time it looks like a giant concrete art installment that takes a certain type of person to appreciate.  The city had so many buildings, yet so many were empty.  The streets were pretty empty too.  Cade was saying Flint is like detroit but on a much smaller scale.  I can't even imagine.

On the other hand, places like flint and detroit provide an amazing opportunity.  The real estate is dirt cheap, and it is a place even low income people (like college students) can afford to own a nice home.  If younger people start moving in and starting businesses the city can rebuild.  U of M- Flint, has been a commuter school since it began.  Recently, however, they built their first dorm.  A private company converted a hotel into more dorms.  During the year those dorms are full of students, which has brought more life to downtown.  The college will be a big part of the revitalization of Flint. 
People always ask us why we are doing this trip.  Our usual answer is simply that we wanted to get out of the bubble we created for ourselves and see the country.  We want to really see the country, in all its fame and desperation, and that is why we went through flint.  Flint is America as much as New York is.  I'm really glad I saw it.

Next we rode to Midland, an equally hot day but much better planned on our part.  We started earlier, took more breaks and drank more water.  Also, the headwinds saved us.  Whenever we rode west we had a constant fan blowing in our faces.

Midland is exactly like Flint was in its glory days.  The city is h ome to DOW Chemical, the largest chemical company in the US.  Everything is funded or connected to DOW in some way- the parks were funded by the company, the buildings were designed by H.H.Dow's son, the Dow family gardens are open to the pubic, the museum, the jobs, the high schools.  The city wouldn't exist without it.  On our way in we rode past all the reactors- thousands of interwoven pipes and reactors, all kind of scary looking.  What does Dow Chemical make, we wondered.  The answer is everything.  Polymers.  All sorts of plastic that is used in everyday items.  They make the raw materials, so in that sense the industry is much more stable than the automotive industry.  We stayed with my friend Steven's family, Tracy and Fagen.  They are both chemists- Fagen works for Dow testing pestiside formulas and Tracy works for a foundation connected to Dow.  They cooked us a delicious meal of chinese and indian food and set up beds for us in the basement.  They gave us the grand tour of Midland, taking us downtown and to all the tourist spots.  They were outstanding hosts and such kind people.
 
Today we rode from Midland to Houghton Lake, another mostly flat day.  Our first 20 miles were on a cool bike path that went from Midland to Clare.  It was sunny but cool, for a change.  I ,sent  another 5 pounds worth of stuff home to lighten our load, and while we were at the post office it started down-pouring.  We started talking to a nice lady, Ann, who offered to treat us to lunch after hearing about our trip.  We declined unfortunately, as we were not done with half our day yet and we got a late start.  It rained for a bit but after it cleared up it was the most beautiful w eather i have seen yet.  Sunny and breezy, 75 degrees.  We rode on a rode through a gorgeous state park, staring up at the expansive blue sky.

We are staying with Arvid and Irena from couchsurfing tonight, and they live on the lake in a house they built all by themselves.  We have a whole apartment to ourselves!  Tomorrow we will bike by many more lakes on our way to Gaylord, MI.  In two days we will be in Mackinaw City, and then on to Mackinac Island and the UP, which everyone we talk to is raving about.  It should be an exciting week!

Wild lillies that are abundant on the side of the road in the midwest

Lillies Up Close

The Fountain in the Park in Flint

Zoey and Cade look towards the brownsite "Chevy in the Hole"

On the other side of the river is the brownsite "Chevy in the Hole"

The Sky starts to get dark before the tornado

The massive tornado rain

Ann Arbor and U of M

Zoey and I  in front of the first GM carriage factory in downtown Flint

The dam in Flint

3 point bridge and the midland waterfront park

Zoey, me, Tracy and Fagen in Midland

The beautiful sky

The sunset from Arvid and Irena's balcony over Houghton Lake