7/24/2010
Patricia calls most of northwestern Michigan “the golden triangle” – a naturalists dream roughly delineated by the cities of Boyne City, Grayling and Manistee. In my research I haven’t been able to find anyone else call it that, so maybe she made it up. That’s fine by me. Her entry focuses on several beautiful rivers that meander through the region – apparently fishing favorites of Ernest Hemmingway (his third favorite pastime after drinking and writing Great American novels.)
Rather than taking a more direct route from Ann Arbor into the triangle we thought it would be more fun to follow one of these rivers – the Au Sable – from its mouth at eastern Michigan’s Lake Huron to its beginning in the town of Grayling. We turned off the GPS (I cried) and just followed the run of the river as best we could, stopping occasionally along the way to splash around.
After a couple of hours we reached Grayling – home of the International Au Sable River Canoe Marathon (the longest non-stop canoe-only race in North America), which strangely Schultz mentions should be avoided since it interferes with the fishing. Patricia – trust your old buddy, Oliver. I feel like after going through 5.4% of your journey I know your tastes pretty well. You would love this!
Yep. The night of the race was when we pulled into town and instead of finding the congested nightmare we expected we found a town in love with this annual event. Although there was a huge crowd, everything was laid back, people were over-the-top friendly, and every business in town seemed involved in helping. Parking was free everywhere, which is almost unheard of at these kinds of events. (In my hometown you have people trying to charge $10 for people to park in their driveways just for high school football games.) Local groups were selling hotdogs for $1 and seemed to be actually interested in people having a good time than – gasp! – ripping off some tourists. A real class act of a town.
As for the race itself, Laura and I got really good seats right on the river. (Some tables and deck chairs had been set up for anyone to use.) It was still a little while before the race was going to begin, so I took Daniel to grab us all some hotdogs. In the few minutes I went to get the hotdogs and when I tried to return to our seats a barrier had been erected, separating Daniel and I from the others. Apparently the barrier had been raised to give the racers a clear passage to run down the street to the launching point. The race began and the racers ran down the street with their canoes above their heads to the cheers of the crowd. One guy close to where I was standing kept catcalling at the female racers as they bobbed down the street. He thought he was really funny. His wife did not.
Once the racers ran past the mob broke through the line in order to get to the river. Like any good mob member I dutifully followed. I was able to get a pretty good view of the canoeists paddling furiously and Daniel got pretty excited at the spectacle. There was still a barrier separating us from Laura and Philip, but we could see each other again. Eventually the Berlin Wall opened up and we were reunited.
On our way back to the car Laura informed me that while we had been separated she had been talking to these two people who had visited many of the places we have and seemed very interested in our trips and the “1000 Places” book. Great! The only two people alive interested in our journeys and a couple of hotdogs kept me from meeting them.
P.S. FROM LAURA:
While Oliver and Daniel left to look around, I took the opportunity to feed Philip, and enjoy the good view we had near the river. We had a whole hour before the race was to start. Strangers tend to be kind and friendly when they see you with a baby, so I struck up a conversation with the couple sitting next to me. Though they were residents of Michigan, but had never attended the canoe race. The husband, in particular, was very excited about the event. He seemed to know a lot about the race, itself. It was natural to ask what had brought us to the event. Of course, I mentioned Patricia Schultz’s book, and why we were there. They seemed most impressed with our quest. I’m very bad at remembering every site we have seen, so I couldn’t delight them with very many stories about our adventures. In fact, I probably gave the impression that I have been comatose during most of our travels, but they were kind not to point that out. They, too, had been to a couple places we had visited, which was fun comparing notes. Being residents of Michigan, they also knew the good places to see throughout the state. They seemed to think that their state was awesome, and I couldn’t help but agree. Michigan is beautiful. It took me back to my old days, when I grew up in Oregon. They even gave me some tips about where to go, and what to see. Most of what they mentioned were in the book, so they seemed to agree with Patricia Schultz. I really wished that Oliver was there with me, as he would have jumped up and down with glee talking to them. As for me, I was more interested in the supersize antique malls they were visiting….. SHOPPING!
After a little while, some people around me decided to smoke. Because I had the baby, I thought it best to move to a different place. While standing under the shade, I was accosted by a grandmother and her young grandson. The grandmother was faintly apologetic, but she explained that her grandson had a sister who was going to have a baby soon and that he was interested in our baby. He asked if our two month old was talking yet. I said, “No. They are too young.” The boy seemed very disappointed and said, “I don’t think our baby will be very interesting.” I promised him that babies grow up, and that he would soon have fun teaching his nephew all sorts of things. The grandson seemed thoroughly unimpressed.
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