Home Again

      My last blog told of our back-roads trip from our home in northwest Minnesota to Massachusetts, where our three sons and most of my siblings live. We left home in late March and told Google maps to avoid highways. We gave ourselves extra days and loved seeing the countryside up close. I appreciate freeways when we're in a hurry or need to get through megalopolises like Chicago, but we're not in a hurry anymore. We're retired.
     We gave ourselves five days to get back to Wannaska: 1700 miles, 350 miles per day. This time I planned to cross southern Ontario and then head north through Michigan and across the Upper Peninsula to home.
     We left my parents home in Hull on April 25. My parents have left this world, but my siblings have kept the house for summer rentals and the rest of the year for family fun. It was nine-thirty by the time we got the floor swept and the car packed. There was a light, steady rain which would continue all day. I had my phone give us a route out to the Finger Lakes in New York. I cheated a little and took the highway to the outer suburbs, but the roads were so clogged that I might have been better off taking the back streets through the inner suburbs as Google suggested.
   I'm not sure our map guide was the Siri that comes with my phone since we were using the Google maps app, but the voice sounded exactly like Siri, reasonable, persuasive, sometimes maddening.
    We took I-95 up to State Highway 9 then turned west through Wellesly, Natick, and Framingham. It was a gauntlet of strip malls and traffic lights. I really should have popped up to the Mass Pike a few miles to the north and taken the turnpike out to the west side of Framingham where Boston's gravitational pull begins to weaken. It took till lunch time to get into the countryside of long views and small towns. Lunch consisted of leftovers from Hull. Coffee came from the nearest gas station. Gas station coffee is hit and miss. I have to have it to stay alert, and it has to be really bad before I'll drive to another station to avoid poisoning.
    I lived in Massachusetts until my mid 20s, but I had never been on these roads before. Google seems to avoid city centers, opting for the suburbs of larger cities like Worcester or Springfield. One of the joys of the backroads travel is passing through beautifully preserved old towns like West Brookfield, with its mansions, each in the middle of a large lawn. Who pays to keep these up, I wondered. There's always one on the edge of the historical district that has not been kept up to show what neglect looks like.
    Some of the towns have nothing left of interest unless you need finger nail clippers. Then the Dollar General will be interesting. Places such as Ware were mill towns and are trying to convert old brick buildings to shops and condos. How many antique shops can the market bear?
    There were still hints of snow in the mountains between Massachusetts and New York, but that disappeared when we reached the lowlands. The Finger Lakes region contains 11 long, narrow, north-south oriented lakes. I'd seen these lakes several times from the air and was eager to see them at ground level. We were travelling along US 20 and the first of the lakes was Cazenovia, which is not officially a Finger Lake, but pretends it is. The beautiful town of Cazenovia sits at the south end of the lake and has a 19th century feel. It was a good half hour further on to Skaneateles, the first of the big lakes. Skaneateles City also had that old-time America charm. The tourist dollar was keeping these places pristine, as much as that's possible. The dollar stores are relegated to the outskirts of town.
     I had been searching for lodging for the evening and found a nice looking B&B in the town of Waterloo just west of Seneca Falls. People may badmouth the Internet, but it's great for the traveler looking for a place to rest. No more banging on doors as the sun sets with the owner saying there's no room at the inn.
     We checked in around six p.m. and our friendly hostess showed us to the Lincoln Room and recommended a restaurant back in Seneca Falls. We were in luck, it was half price wine night at the restaurant. We enjoyed our meal. just across the street was the Women's Rights Museum. Seneca Falls was the site of the first women's rights convention in 1848. It was also the inspiration for Bedford Falls, the town in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life."
      The great thing about slow travel is that you get to see places like Seneca Falls. The bad thing was that we did not have time to explore the points of interest we passed. Instead of five days, we should have given ourselves ten so we'd have time to do more than buy a postcard.
      We got  a late start the next morning because our hostess's wife was a loquacious sports nut. At a motel continental breakfast you barely acknowledge the other lodgers. Everyone watches the news as their waffles cook. At a B&B of course, everyone's expected to tell his or her life story.
      So we we didn't get on the road till 10:00, but that was ok. We only had to go 325 miles to Port Huron, Michigan that day. We were still eating sandwiches from Hull so didn't have to stop for lunch. We planned to cross into Canada at Buffalo, drive across southern Ontario to Sarnia, then cross back into the U.S. and spend the night in Port Huron. Highway 20 towards Buffalo lacked the interest of yesterday's drive, but at least the sun was out. I had heard how devastated Buffalo had been by deindustrialization and population loss. Since we'd be crossing the Niagara River to get into Canada, we had to go through the middle of Buffalo. First came blue-color suburbs, then two or three miles of neglected looking neighborhoods with no trees and little food/lottery stores on almost every corner. Suddenly, this shell shocked area turned into a lovely neighborhood of beautiful old buildings and parks, and soon after that, we were at the Niagara River.
     We crossed the high bridge and got in line at Canadian Customs. We had stressed a bit about what we had in the car. Teresa had bought some potted flowers when we arrived in Hull four weeks ago and I suggested we leave them behind as transporting soil into Canada was a no-no according to the websites. A couple of the cars ahead of us were sent to the inspection area, but we were waved on through. "Bienvenu," said the agent. French for, "You look harmless."
   We were quickly out in the Ontario countryside, following avenues of trees lining  water filled ditches. There were towering windmills everywhere. A pathetic little sign said "Stop the Windmills," to no effect. After fifty miles or so, the windmills gave out and we entered rolling farmland with stone farmhouses. I could see the tall buildings of London off in the distance. We would not be going there.
    We crossed into Michigan at Port Huron around four p.m. and looked for a motel. No problem on a Thursday evening. April is a good month for travel. The temps are mild and the tourists are waiting for their kids to get out of school. We found a restaurant on the top floor of an old warehouse with a good view of the St. Clair River. The river runs down to Detroit and on to the west end of Lake Erie. Lake Huron was just to the north of us.
     We got a late start next morning due not to a chatty hostess, but to us sleeping in. We only had 300 miles to cover up to Mackinaw City. The countryside that morning, while interesting, is not as interesting as in the eastern states, though Bay City had a string of amazing mansions.  At noon we started looking for lunch. The towns along our route each had several cafes. We wanted to avoid chains but the small cafes can be hit or miss. Again, the Internet is helpful. A cafe may only have a handful of reviews, and the reviews may be unreliable, but they're better than nothing.
    As we were ordering lunch in the town of Mio, we noticed that the waitresses were looking at us, or rather at Teresa. "She looks like Susan," one said loudly enough for us to hear. "Yes," said the other, "and she dresses like her too." I was told I did not look like Susan's husband.
     Back on the road, I started looking for a motel in Mackinaw City.  I like the Trip Advisor reviews. If the reviewers keep mentioning cranky staff, I move on. One guy said the big Best Western was not worth $200 per night even if it did have a great view of the lake. That was last July. Tonight, rooms were going for $81. I booked.
    We pulled into town around four p.m. As I checked in I noticed the giant swimming pool was being filled. The clerk gave us a room in a passageway with a great view of...the passageway. We hauled in our bags and after a minute Teresa said, "I don't like the view." We returned to the front desk. The manager was there now. "Of course you can have a view," she said. "We are just opening for the season today. We had three feet of snow last week." She picked up the phone. "Turn on the heat in room 212," and gave us our key. Our new room had a great view of Lake Huron. Definitely worth $81.
    We had stopped in this town for breakfast with the kids many years ago on one of our drive-through-the night cross country treks. It was summer then and all the shops were open and the place swarmed with tourists. Now, in late April, there were just a handful of souvenir shops and restaurants open.  Most of the snow had melted but there were still high mounds here and there. We walked out to the end of town, "the tip of the mitten," where we could see the great Mackinac Bridge to the Upper Peninsula, and off to the east, Mackinac Island. There was a plaque describing how treacherous the passage was between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan. A bridge had been dreamt of for a hundred years. One scheme proposed island hopping across Mackinac Island to join the lower and upper peninsulas. Mackinac Island is famous for its lack of cars and horse drawn carriages so it's just as well this plan went nowhere.
     You've probably noticed that Mackinaw City is spelled differently than the island, the bridge, etc. which end in 'c'. There are explanations for the difference on the Internet, none of them satisfactory. The last syllable of all locations is pronounced 'aw'.
   Nona Lisa's Italian Restaurant had fairly good reviews. Almost all the reviews noted the weird décor. The place turned out to be a combination of Mama Leone's and Cabela's Sporting Goods, with lions chasing wildebeests across the rafters. The place must be a madhouse in summer, but tonight we had a quiet pizza in the jungle.
    Next morning we crossed the five mile long bridge high above the sparkling straits and under a cloudless sky. We had the road to ourselves as we headed west along the dunes of Lake Michigan. Eventually we veered north and west into the wooded heartland of the UP, home of "da Yoopers." Around lunch time we spotted a log cabin café in the middle of nowhere and pulled in. There was a wood stove in one corner opposite a short bar with four taps. There were two TVs with the sound off over the bar. We sat at the bar and watched a European soccer match on one TV, a history of cooking show on the other, and Darla cooking our burgers on the grill. A feast all around.
    Later in the afternoon, the road ran along Lake Superior, still a frozen desert under the warm sun. I sent a picture to my brother who captains a tug in New York Harbor and told him there'd be no shipping here for awhile. "Au contraire," he texted back. He has an app that shows worldwide shipping. He said there was a channel into Thunder Bay, Ontario over the horizon. I checked Duluth. The shipping season had started there two weeks ago. Amazing.
    We decided to call it quits in Ashland at 4:00. We could have gotten home by midnight if we pushed on, but that kind of death march is for working stiffs. It was Saturday so motel rates had jumped, but Teresa wrangled a ten dollar discount at the Best Western, built to look like one the grand old lakefront resorts. It was actually built in 1986.
   Asland was once a great iron ore shipping port, but the last shipment went out in 1965. The city is trying to reinvent itself but its old industrial self casts a pall. Most of the downtown storefronts were occupied. There's a brewpub of course and a tattoo alley, but it's still this side of true gentrification,  which may be ok.
   Continental breakfasts can vary greatly from motel to motel. Some are just a dry roll and a flyblown banana. One time there was a person cooking eggs to order, but that was one time only. The Best Western's breakfast was in the middle. We always pick a motel with free parking, free wifi and free breakfast. The breakfast supposedly saves us a few dollars, but they can be soul killing, especially if the TV is on.
   From Ashland it was just another hour to Duluth, Minnesota. We couldn't have taken a freeway  home from Duluth even if we wanted to. It was two hundred and fifty more miles on roads we'd traveled dozens of times.  Once home we called Steve and Jackie to thank them for taking such good care of our place. Nothing was amiss. Taking five days to go 1,700 miles we realized how remote we are from everything and we got a sense of how much of everything there is out there. I'm ready for the ten day drive to Boston.

Lake Superior, Michigan Shore