Twelve, The Most Beautiful Place To Cycle by Marty

That’s a strong comment to make. The MOST beautiful? ANYWHERE? Well let me qualify that: The Most Beautiful week-long trip within a day’s drive. How’s that? More importantly, Where’s that?

The first week in June Edie and I drove up to Traverse City, Michigan and cycle-camped the Leelenau Peninsula. It’s about 20 miles wide at the widest, by 40 miles long, tip to bottom. It’s surrounded by water, that’s why it’s called a Peninsula, although you’d wonder about the word when you think of our nearby town in the Cuyahoga Valley. The Leelenau is truly a peninsula, with Grand Traverse Bay to its east and Lake Michigan to the north and west. The protected waters of the Bay offer small towns like Sutton’s Bay and Northport with pretty harbors and lots of boats, including several tall ships that occasionally make their way to Cleveland, but whose home ports are here. Lake Michigan presents a different shoreline. Miles of sand dunes sculpted by the prevailing westerly winds picking up sand left by the glaciers and depositing it in dunes up to 400 feet high. And from those dunes are towering views of the coastline and offshore islands that themselves have towering dunes. Quite a change from Lake Erie.

Another change from our area is the northwoods feel. The terrain is glacial, rocky, rolling (am I making a pun?), not hillier, but more intimate. Trees abound and those trees are from the northwoods: spruce, cedar, birch, pine. The latter, when in sunlight exudes an aroma that fills me with longing for the North. And there’s lots of sunlight. Clear, bright sunlight. From the Canadian high pressure system that lingers over the area, yielding beautiful, warm, dry sunny weather most of the summer, without the hazy humidity we’re used to. Of course in winter they get about 500 feet of snow, but you’re not up there cycling in the winter, are you?

This is vacation territory for Detroiters and Chicagoans and has been for a century. Hemmingway’s family vacationed up here, as did Henry Ford and many others. Not that they necessarily cycled, but they did lend a pedigree to it, that’s still there in the care and attention paid to the landscape and the houses. The mix of northwoods and open meadows are wonderful to behold. The old homes are stately, and the new ones, to our amazement, transcended the McMansion look and generic taupe colors so prevalent in the typical upscale housing developments we cycle past elsewhere. The new homes looked, well, almost nice. Some, really nice. Trees were spared. Houses were nestled. Someone cared.

Strip malls, franchises, grease pits, and the like; where were they? Banished by local ordinance or common sense and custom. Edie, who owns a local art framing shop, is sensitive to generic franchise stores. Most everything we saw was locally owned, from restaurants to knick-knack shops, and tastefully done. The buildings looked like they belonged. And from this, we felt we belonged too.

We got no flats on this trip. It could be plain luck. But it could be that recycling law Michigan passed 30 years ago where shops are required to take back glass and aluminum beverage containers and pay the refundable recycling fee. Without that litter on the ground, other litter was absent too. No Mc….. wrappers, when there’s no Mc……

You could cycle from B&B to motel or you could camp like us. There’s campgrounds everywhere. Private ones, State Forests, State Parks and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park. They were nearly deserted in early June, which they won’t be by now. But even if full the State Parks have a rule that backpackers and cyclists who come in near dark are guaranteed a site, regardless. That’s comforting to know. So if you’ve got a week free and even a minor sense of adventure, you might want to look about 8 hours north.

We did and we loved it.

Marty Cooperman

Eleven, Marty's version "Quirky"

Last entry I wrote about a cycle camping trip Edie and I took to the Traverse City area of Michigan. I wrote about how pretty it was, how pleasant we found the scenery and how nice the roads were. But did I mention the people?

I would not characterize the people of that area as pretty, pleasant or nice. Not that they were ugly, unpleasant or nasty. But this area is peculiar, distinctive, unique. And the folks we found up there could be described the same way…in a word...quirky.

The little village of Northport is nestled on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay. We passed it on our way north in a hard rain, parking our bikes under the overhang of a closed bakery as we scrambled to find warmth in the nearby grocery. We returned the next day in bright sunshine to find the bakery open and welcoming. Photos on the wall depicted some place European and yet, Middle Eastern.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘Turkey’ came the reply.
The owner had traveled to Istanbul when she was young, fell in love with the city and bought an apartment there. Thirty years later she divided her time between her Northport bakery in the summer and Istanbul in the winter. In a separate room were Turkish rugs for sale. You won’t see many bakeries selling Turkish rugs on the side.

Near the town of Beulah several days later we were dodging rain clouds, attempting to get back to our campsite at the National Lakeshore when a cyclist greeted us carrying a Yorkshire terrier, Rosie, in a custom-designed handlebar bag. Carol was another of those folks who split her time, the summers and vacations spent near Beulah where she had a home, and the winters spent as a musician in residence at a college in the
Upper Peninsula. Carol was a serious cyclist, commuting to work in snows that measured in the tens of feet. Her dog Rosie was also a serious cyclist. Inviting us to her house a few miles away, Carol warned us of the impending hill. ‘I can make it without walking’, she advised us, ‘but I have to take Rosie out of her carrier to ease the weight and to have her help me climb the hill’. Help her climb the hill? No sooner did we turn a corner and face the hill, then Carol dismounted, placed Rosie on the ground, and attached her leash. Rosie, well used to the drill, lunged ahead and we could see by the tension on the leash that this 6 lb. animal was earning her keep helping Carol up the hill. Half an hour later we were sitting on her dock, her backyard bordering Crystal Lake, admiring her woodpile and her fine garden. Rosie was off chasing voles.

Some of the quirky characters we knew of only by their works. One fellow who owned a farm, painted a tall old silo in huge flowers as though they were growing up the side, cut a window-sized hole near the top and installed a mannequin whose long blonde polyester tresses hung a good one story down from the tower. Rapunzel, Rapunzel…

One of the more startling objects we encountered was a lawn chair. A humble lawn chair startled you, you ask? Yes, and it took a moment to realize that the lawn chair, accurate in every detail from its aluminum frame to its plastic webbing was about 10 times normal scale. I walked my bike down to the lawn and over to the chair, and only then, in close proximity did I realize just how big this thing was.

Marty Cooperman

Ten, Farewell from Duct Work Man

Our final whimsy of this trip was just before our finish:

Nine, Simplicity

What is it I like about these humble structures? Their lack of pedigree? Their age? Is it their elegant, spare proportions? Their use of available , natural materials?
Maybe their symmetry?
Or perhaps their easy, yet respectful relationship with their elaborately embellished natural surroundings?
What do you think?

Eight, Places to Go, People to See

The Leelanau Peninsula was discovered in the early 1900's to have ideal growing conditions for cherries. There are many established orchards as well as this new one on the left.
A view of Grand Traverse Bay through an orchard:
Below: The Bay yet again after, you guessed it, a good climb. That's Traverse City in the distance to the right.
This was poppy season. They were as comfortable in manicured gardens as they were in roadside ditches.

This is a wild, windy day on the shores of Lake, Michigan. Our next stop was up, up, up on the top of the bluff to the left.
AND, as always, a reward at the top- The View! Those are the Sleeping Bear Dunes on the distant shoreline.
Is it time for a new roof? These folks made an interesting choice. Wonder if they're perennials...?
Those dark clouds in the distance finally forced us to rough it in town until the downpour stopped.
Bikes: Not just for commuting!

Meet Rosie. Rosie is a larger-than-life Yorkie who is clearly the boss on this bicycle. Rosie lives in Beulah Michigan with her two-legger, Carol. We met Carol and Rosie literally on the main street of Beulah (as us cyclists do) and she showed us a neat shortcut to avoid some heavy traffic and in the process invited us for a cold drink at her house on the shore of the aptly-named Crystal Lake. Rosie was into cycling for the exercise, too, as she ably demonstrated on the one hill in town.
Carol and Rosie had a well-rehearsed routine: At the bottom of the hill, Carol set Rosie on the ground in front of the bike, leash attached still to the bike. Rosie ran steady, strong and hard up the hill, and as you can see by the tautness of her leash, was doing a fine job pulling her own weight and then some!
Carol said that she indeed felt the pull of her mighty pooch for the entire mile uphill!
And what's not to love about "Bountiful Country Goods in Charming Disarray?!" Take Me To Your Leader!
More whimsy: a flock of flamingoes either harass or worship this polyester duck.

And what flock of mismatched fowl would be complete without a tree trunk teddy bear standing guard?

This was my favorite whimsy of the trip. An ordinary lawn chaise, right?Think again! Marty said it was accurate down to the most minute detail!

Seven, Pyramids, Powerlines and Endless Sunshine

The next day was yet another sunny, gorgeous day, though the wind was picking up. Marty and I explored some of the highlights of The Sleeping Bear Dunes State Park. This is the teaser view from Pyramid Point Dunes. We are hundreds of feet above Lake Michigan.
Breathtaking!

Birch trees are not too common in northeast Ohio, but are plentiful in northern Michigan. I love the texture of the bark.
Ah, another typical view, this time of the Michigan state shrub; Poison Ivy. It was everywhere. This is just off the sandy path. It should be noted that we are still hundreds of feet up- this sandy path is actually the top of a massive sand dune. Marty found an intriguing wiggly line on his map- that usually means a hill or two. We were not to be let down, we climbed this wiggly line to the top, despite it narrowing and steepening and degrading into little more than a gravelly, sandy 4-wheeler track. As always, the reward at the top; LUNCH and a spectacular view! Those are the Sleeping Bear Dunes in the distance.

This the delightful sandy trail that wound its way along the top of this high ridge that we rode after lunch.

The laid-back, mellow vacation mood has finally enveloped us.

A dockside nap beckons. Glen Lake was as clear as it was picturesque.
I didn't resist the urge to nap, though Marty chose to stand and soak up some rays and views. Neither of us knew yet of the ice cream stand just around our next bend. "Laker Shakes" was its name and not deliberately a play on Cleveland's Shaker Lakes, but I was amused anyway and mentally repeated both names in sort of a jump rope rhyme rhythm as pedalled up the next few hills.

Six, Forecast: clear and sunny

The scenery on the Leelenau Peninsula was magnificent. Whadda view!
And not just this road!
Just outside of Glen Arbor and The Sleeping bear National Park.

Cherry orchards

Winery and vineyard.

Our lunch spot overlooking Leland's fishtown.


Fishtown.
Air mail!

The next day was a beautiful as the previous was grim.

We were to ride back down the peninsula to the famous Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Along the way, we were rewarded with one bucolic view after another, more homegrown whimsy and a delicious sandwich lunch overlooking Leland's Fishtown waterfall.

We enjoyed just about all that's good about bicycle-touring that day, from natural beauty to quaint tourist towns.