Miles from Nowhere - Barbara Savage

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in here and ask the manager if the campground up ahead at Fisher Grove has showers. I got to thinking maybe it doesn’t, and that’d mean another night of sleeping with our sweaty legs sticking to each other and our arms sticking to our sides. If the manager tells us there aren’t any showers up ahead, maybe he’d let us wash up here. I figure a nice cool shower’d pick up our spirits a lot, and this way we’d make sure we got one today. What do you think?”

      The owner of Wilson’s assured us that there weren’t any showers at Fisher Grove. “I don’t usually let people who aren’t stayin’ here use our facilities but since we’re not really set up for tent campin’, and seein’ as how you two look like you could really use a shower, especially after a hot day like today, I’ll do you a favor and let you use our bathrooms for two dollars for the two of you. How’s that?”

      As Larry suspected, our outlook on life took a sharp turn for the better after we got out of the wind and ran some cold water over our burnt, sweaty bodies.

      Real, honest-to-goodness green grass, bushes, and trees covered the campground at Fisher Grove, and we decided to stay there rather than free-camp out on the prairie. The wind was blowing too hard to set up our tent without a windbreak, and here we could pitch our tent behind the shrubs.

      When we checked into the campground, the ranger informed us that the restrooms had showers.

      “Too bad the man at the Wilson Motel didn’t know that,” I shrugged. “He said there weren’t any here, so we paid him two dollars to use his.”

      The ranger shook her head. “Oh, he knows all right. He and his family camp here every year. He just saw an easy two bucks in the wind, and he took you for it. Some folks are like that, you know. Even so, it’s hard to imagine someone takin’ advantage of a couple of worn-out bicyclers.”

      This news capped our day. And all through the night, the wind roared past the trees and bushes and made our tent walls jump and snap so loud we couldn’t sleep. It sounded as if the whole tent was being ripped to pieces.

      “If this wind keeps up, it’s going to take us another three or four days to get out of the state,” Larry grumbled. “Three or four more days of poking along at six miles an hour with nothing to look at, the sun frying our skin, and the wind howling in our ears.”

      I spent all night contemplating that sobering thought. But by morning the wind had died down somewhat and had shifted its angle, so that it hit us more from the side than straight on. Any place else we’d have thought it was a bad day for cycling, but in South Dakota, the lack of a full-blown headwind was a relief. Around midday the wind shifted again and angled almost to our backs. We took advantage of this and pedaled as fast and hard as we could for the rest of the day. We rode until dark, to within fifteen miles of the Minnesota border.

      On September 1, a tailwind picked us up at the Minnesota border and blew us halfway across the state. It was one hundred degrees and 98 percent humidity, but Larry and I were in heaven; we’d escaped South Dakota. Two weeks later, with Minnesota and Wisconsin behind us, we pedaled into Michigan, where practically everyone, it seemed, was waiting for the opportunity to invite us into their homes.

      CHAPTER FIVE

       Northern Hospitality

      The first ones grabbed us at the end of our first day in Michigan, outside the bike shop in Escanaba on Lake Michigan on the Upper Peninsula. We’d just ridden into town and were standing in front of the shop, which had closed an hour earlier, checking our maps to find the nearest campground with hot showers. We were cold and muddy from cycling in the rain all day.

      Before I had time to put away my map, a woman and a man approached us from opposite directions. The woman got to us first. She looked to be in her early thirties, and she was plump, with short dark hair and a wide smile.

      “I saw you standing out front here, and I saw the closed sign, so I decided to stop and see if I could help you out,” she said. “I’ve got some spare bicycle parts in the basement if you need something.”

      “Thanks a lot, but we were only going to buy a couple spare tires, and there’s no rush. We can make it to Bay City on what we’ve got and buy the spares there. Thanks for stopping though,” Larry answered.

      “How far you cycled from on your trip so far?”

      “California.”

      “California?! I thought maybe you’d come from Wisconsin. How much farther you going?”

      “Hopefully, around the world.”

      “The world! That cinches it. You’re staying at our place tonight. I’ve got to pick up my son at nursery school right now, but my house is really close. Go up to the corner and turn right. Go three blocks, and it’s the brown house on the corner. Have a look ’round town first, and I’ll see you there in five minutes.”

      The woman started to rush off.

      “Wait a minute,” I yelled after her. “What’s your name?”

      “Cinda,” she shouted as she climbed into her car. “I’ll hurry, so I’ll be home when you get there!”

      “I’m Barb and this is Larry,” I called back, but she had already barreled off.

      Now the man who had walked up just after her started talking.

      “Well, I guess she beat me to it—I can’t have you over to my house tonight. But if you’re looking for tires, the auto supply store down the street about five blocks on the right carries bicycle tires, and they’re open ’til six.”

      “Thanks! We’ll check there.”

      “No problem. Have a good time in Michigan.”

      CINDA ELTZROTH AND HER HUSBAND, Elmore, were eager to find out all about Larry and me, and the four of us sat up half the night talking. Cinda and Elmore made us feel right at home in their roomy two-story house, and by the end of the evening Larry and I felt as if we’d known them for years.

      “So what do you think of Michigan so far?” Cinda wanted to know right off.

      “Great people,” I answered. “When we came over the border from Wisconsin today, we stopped at a gas station at lunchtime over in Spalding to ask where the nearest grocery store was, and the man that ran the place hauled us in out of the rain and had us sit in front of the heater in his office and tell him all about our trip. He asked us a whole slew of questions, then afterwards he directed us to the supermarket. And just after we got there and started shopping, the local reporter for the Escanaba Daily Press came looking for us with a camera and note pad in hand. Turned out the man at the gas station had called her and told her about our trip.

      “And that’s the way it went all day today. Everybody we met took a genuine interest in us and our undertaking. It’s funny, even though it was raining all day I had a warm feeling inside because of the way people were treating us. People are really nice around here.”

      “Just your routine Michigan hospitality, I guess,” Cinda smiled.

      The next morning, after Elmore, a geologist for the state, went to work, Larry and I talked with Cinda until eleven o’clock. When we left, Cinda told us to be sure to give their address to any bicyclers we met who would like a place to stay for the night in Escanaba.

      From Escanaba we pedaled east along Lake Michigan on Route 2. It rained all day, and by four o’clock the wind was blowing so hard that the lake was a patchwork of huge whitecaps. We found a deserted motel-campground beside the lake outside the miniscule town of Thompson, near Manistique, and pitched our tent behind the motel building. The building blocked the wind, and the grass provided a perfect mattress. Once we set up camp, I climbed inside the tent to arrange our mats and sleeping bags. I’d almost finished when I heard Larry speak to someone.

      “Oh—H-Hello,” Larry stammered. His voice sounded edgy. “Ah, Barb. Ah—I think

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