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Spring Tour 1998
The Second Eight Days Chicago through Michigan Part III; Page Four of Four All through the afternoon we drove west. First along the North shore of Lake Michigan reminding ourselves that just the week before we had been on the other end of the lake over 300 miles to the south in Chicago. We turned north past lower and upper Manistique Lakes and pressed on to Munising on Lake Superior. We were at our most northerly point of the trip. After getting gas and some local delicacies called pasties, which is a meal in a crust basically - 'ummmm', we continued to Marquette on the Keweenaw Peninsula which is also the most Northern point in on the mainland of America, 1,700 miles from Key West, Florida. Did you know which state has the longest shoreline? No, not Florida - it’s Michigan - 1,700 miles of Great Lake shoreline. These are fresh water inland seas actually. Our destination for the night was Ironwood near the Wisconsin border. The park we found was a city park. Ten dollars. We took more showers on this trip than we do at home. Camping is easy for us with the van. It has eveything we need: Comfortable bed, cooking, plenty of food, storage for all our gear. In the back I keep tools and supplies to keep everything running. We have our inverter for the computer and lighting - stereo front and rear with tape and cd. It’s all very comfortable. We’ve been in Michigan eight days and nights without paying the least bit of attention to what day or how many days it was. It was enough. There is a point when you start ‘attaching’ to a place. This was the longest I’ve been here since 1960! And almost equal to the total number of days since then as well. It was a moment to bring the past into the present.. where any lingering visions of returning are actually actied out in minature. It’s where imagination meets possibility. This is me. For rodtney it’s almost totally different because it’s mostly all a first time experience. It’s much harder to move beyond family limitations - even expectations when you stay in the same place all your life. Especially when there are siblings. Especially if you’re first born. I really got caught up in the moras last Sunday morning without even knowing it when I said, ‘there was no place to go’. That was a replay of leaving home in the winter of 1960/61. There just wasn’t any place else to go in Michigan for me. I’ve always felt that Michigan was especially unique in that most people seldom leave the place unless it’s to visit family elsewhere. Being surrounded on three sides by Great Lakes makes the next state seem beyond sight (since you can’t see across the water). And also because the entire eastern border is another Country - Canada. It takes a leap of faith, almost, to leave the state. For some reason too, it was easier for me to go to California than to New York. California offered individuality. New York required that you fit. I knew I didn’t fit. That’s why I was leaving. So now that I’ve returned with my Lover which is something I had promised myself the last time I was there alone in ’92. I needed my own ‘family’. And Leather has provided this. Especially Detroit ICON. Thanks, Gentlemen! (I didn’t meet the female member yet.) I wish you we were all out and open way back then - I might have stayed. But the truth is that now I’ve lived longer in California than I did in Michigan - my entire adult life. So this is pretty much home now. Almost everywhere we travel there is enough beauty to stay in each location - especially Michigan.. But nowhere else on the planet offers so much diversity as California - unless it’s Europe. We’ll find that out just as soon as Spirit shows us the way.
Continues at Phase IV
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