Insight Out

Unraveling while traveling

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Sep 13 2010

Stalled in Stalwart, MI, and loving it

Unmatched as a trite cliché, The Road Less Traveled, is a shallow description for the experienced warrior, but hang on to little Willie for this one.  Several years ago, the Detroit Free Press featured the least traveled state highway in Michigan, the upper peninsula’s very own M-48. Stretching 22 miles (roughly the distance from San Clemente, CA, to Catalina Island only without the water) M-48 begins at a T-intersection, south of nowhere at M-134, meandering along a twisted pathway and terminating, northwest of nowhere at M-129.

Those DOT counters, the dual black rubber hoses stretched across the highway, calculated the high number in the summer, upward of 200+ vehicles a day.  Conversely, the low number during the desolate frigid winters, as low as 20 per day.

Think about it, less than 1 car per hour on a major highway.

Two ‘communities’, Goetzville, MI ( pop. 47) and the nearly extinct Stalwart, MI ( pop. 9)  are dots on the bucolic landscape; rolling hills, cedar forests, abandoned outbuildings, centennial homes, wild turkeys,dscn5442.JPG

Two Toms, roadside, in a dominance display

and endless cylinders of harvested timothy haydscn5454.JPG

The hay, prized feed for Florida’s thoroughbred horse industry, has high nutrient, mineral, and fiber content with little moisture = healthy nutrition and manageable manure output.  No B.S. here.

Agriculture is harsh and unprofitable, north of 45° parallel due to

  • short growing season
  • near zero topsoil
  • substrate of limestone

Fishing (salmon and whitefish), the hay, and cedar lumber remain the staple agronomy.

We rode today to the traditional Thanksgiving dinner presented by the Presbyterian Church women anddscn4010.JPG the rural Stalwart Fair, highlighted in a 2009 entry accompanied by the first family of Airstream.

The 105 year tradition is endearing for its simplicity.  No irritating calliope carnival midway noise pollution, youngsters quietly display poultry, rabbits, bleeting goats, beef and dairy cattle.  Green thumbs thrive on the vegetable competition and elderly ladies handcraft quilts, crafts, homemade cookies, pies, and jams.  Horseshoe tournament, pet show, and draft horses pulling three ton sleds,dscn3997.JPG

Tension and drama on the prairie

it could be, with little imagination, September 1910. Stalwart once had 2 grocery stores, a post office, and 3 schools.  Now the small fairground, the church, abandoned post office and cemetery, and a few scattered houses are all that remain.

Scenes along the waydscn5439.JPGdscn5457.JPGdscn5465.JPG

Fixer uppers and an entry greeting to a centennial farm

The people who have endured farming here for more than a hundred years deserve much more than a plaque. And, below, as always, hidden partially by overgrown brush, vintage aluminum awaiting reincarnation.

dscn5463.JPG

Needs attention and a little TLC

Written by InsightOut · Categorized: events, unraveling

Sep 07 2010

The Gogomain Bridge Walk, XIX Edition

Most of us practice local holiday traditions, often unpublicized and relatively obscure, that enrich an otherwise mundane existence.  The annual Labor Day Walk over the Gogomain River Bridge is no exception.

Begun in 1991, as a stylistic parody of the more pompous, famed Mackinac Bridge Walk, which, on the same day annually draws participants in the tens of thousands, politicians, media and other undesirable elements like people from Ohio, Arkansas, and Canada.

The Gogomain River (the Michigan DNR defines it as a swamp) bridge, 150′ in length, is isolated in a nearly uninhabited area, Raber Township, ten miles from the nearest “town”, Goetzville, MI ( pop. 47).

View looking east

On this Monday, for the 19th year, nearly 200 walkers (including dogs), prompted by the roar of a cannon shot at precisely 12 noon, embarked, enthusiastically, the entire length of the bridge.

Big boom in a small package

The walk finished at 12:05 PM.

The entire event is high-spirited; neighbors, families, and friends enjoying a tradition that is not exhausting or laborious, with no commercial interruption.

An unidentified Dad and a freeloader

Pre walk conference

Celebrities from upscale DeTour

No entry fee, no age limit, and the event organizer, the locally popular Petersen’s Country Store on the north Raber Road

offers classic art-deco commemorative T-shirts for only $12.  You can’t buy one unless you cross over the bridge…and leave your reckless life behind you. Everyone receives a certificate of participation, suitable for framing, at no charge,

L-R Jean Petersen & a customer, Lynn Spiher

From DeTour Village, Rene and Chad’s landmark, The Garage, provides a hot dog AND a 6 ounce Coke for only fifty cents.

Not a misprint, $ 0.50, no need to check your credit score here.

No Al Roker, no CNN, no Oprah, here they come, step aside.

This is not the Mardi Gras with beads and drunken frontal nudity. Nor Sturgis, SD, where tattoos outnumber teeth and Harleys.   Or the high-end cliff walk in Newport, RI, glamorized in another blog.  If moderately civil, you are welcome to join in 2011, the 20th anniversary, but don’t tell your friends. Let them live through you, vicariously, or it might become unruly, perish the thought.

The walk is just the salvo pre-empting next week’s highly anticipated Stalwart Fair, the Presbyterian Church turkey dinner, and draft horses pulling 7000 pound sleds.  It doesn’t get more exciting than this, and I only have one tattoo.

Written by InsightOut · Categorized: events, on the road

Aug 04 2010

Cape Cod vs. Cape Odd

Bayfield, WI * is the drop point for the ferry to romantic Madeline Island, queen of the Apostle Islands in Chequamegon Bay, south shore of Lake Superior.Bayfield has that Cape Cod feel; gifts, galleries, groceries, and gulls.  Minus the arrogant east coast snobbery, i.e., noses lifted to the smug level, arrogant accents, and the compulsory upscale casual dress to emulate the impression of New England “old money”.

I did, however, see one Izod polo shirt being worn by a mid-30s woman with a very attractive figure, although I was only staring at the little crocodile, not the statuesque bosom on which it was conveniently mounted.

Honest.

dscn5206.JPG

Everything but sand dunes and salty airdscn5208.JPG

Popular hotel; typical architecture 

Tiring of the tourist trade, we head south to Cable, WI,

dscn5229.JPGCan Direct TV,WI, or Dish Network, WI, be far away ?

so Lynn can enjoy a quilt show as I watch the midway point of a 50.5 mile bicycle race in progress.  These boys were serious; shrink wrapped in Del Monte fruit cocktail colors, pointy helmets, aerodynamic drafting.  Happened so quickly one could feel the breeze.  And smell the maraschino cherries.

dscn5233.JPG

The Peleton passes, Le Tour de Cable

Hayward, WI, is home to the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame, a two acre landscaped testimony to beer drinking, tieing flies, and telling lies.  The featured artwork, a seventy foot muskie that invites you to climb through its intestines to intimately examine fish dentistry, is too much to resist.

dscn5245.JPG

Enjoying fish saliva, up close and personal

Like many attractions, photo-ops abound, as Lynn lands a 300 lb. water-extended polystyrene bluegill.

dscn5247.JPG

We’re going to conclude this day having dinner at the original location of Famous Dave’s @ Round Lake, WI. for ribs.  With nearly 150 locations nationwide, we haven’t been so honored since we dined at the original KFC in Corbin, KY, in 1998.

* from the Ashland, WI Daily Press, 30Jul2010,

the Bayfield County Sheriff report:

  • 8:08 AM, report of fire under vehicle
  • 8:11 AM, report of vehicle in ditch
  • 8:19 AM, report of large trees down on side of road
  • 9:01 AM, report of three y/o female at her dad’s house involved in a 3-wheeler accident and not taken to the hospital until picked up by her mother more than 12 hours later
  • 9:07 AM, report of a cat bite
  • 9:36 AM, vacuum cleaner found on side of the road
  • 9:53 AM, report of signs saying ” NO ATV’s ” at gravel pit being shot by shotguns

How would you liked working the first shift that morning ?

Absolutely certain that it was a crocodile on that magnificent, perfectly shaped breast, I’m now having a second thought….maybe, just maybe, it was a polo pony.

I’m going back to check.

Written by InsightOut · Categorized: events, on the road

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