I Wanted To Begin This Journal Entry With Reverence And I Have

Wolverine, Michigan
Aug. 20, `82

When the boat docked, the wind didn't seem quite as bad. At times,
while bicycling, it was even at my back. When I arrived in Swift
Current, I was definitely ready to camp, though. When I was sitting
on some steps in front of a store, two bicyclers, a boy and girl,
pedaled up to me. They told me about a free campground three miles up
the road. The guy was having the same kind of knee problems that I was
having, but his were worse. He was in the process of getting a bus
ticket back to Michigan. He also told me that the retail brewery just
around the corner was closing, so if I wanted anything, I'd better
hurry. I thanked him and made it through the door just as it was being
locked behind me.

I rolled into the free campsite about a half hour later. Sure it
was free, but as I looked around and saw all the trash thrown on the
ground, I was not impressed. As it turned out, I found out that the
reason the campsite was free was because the owner of the property
wanted to keep trespassers off the rest of his property. That idea
was swell, but broken glass and beer caps substituted for grass, and
although there were some large poles lying around for firewood, you
needed an axe to cut them up. (The next day I was told they were put
there to keep people from burning the fences.) Anyway, I was not down
on the guy; after all he could have been like everybody else and just
cursed the trespassers.

That morning I was on the road by 7 am. It was cloudy and looked
like rain. Just before the cloudburst, I took shelter in an old
garage. When the rain let up a bit, I climbed on my bicycle and began
to ride. The bicycling conditions were hilly, wet, and windy. By
late afternoon the weather had cleared, but biking was still hard. My
knees had been sore ever since Niagara Falls; a lot of it probably had
to do with the fact that I had been keeping an 80/90-mile a day pace.
Sault St. Marie was now in range.


Michigan
Aug. 21, 1982

Well this is it, the last night of my trip--a sad occasion. I have a
super campsite, however, I'm just south of Wolverine, Michigan, on top
of a hill in the woods with the beautiful view of the sky. Blending
into the horizon there are shades of yellows, blues, violets, and
grays, and in the southwest there is a descending slivered moon. I
passed a lot of good-looking campsites before I found this one. One
was a State Forest Campground, and another was a park that offered
free camping. I didn't want to be around people tonight. Tonight,
it's just between me and Ma Nature and she's quite a lady, and has
been this entire trip. It's getting too dark to write, but I wanted to
begin this journal entry at a time of reverence, and I have. Tomorrow
I will fill in the rest.