Lake Michigan Circle Tour

                                                               

 

 We see them from our bedroom window, the clouds rising from Lake Michigan.  They look like majestic mountains and their gravity pulls us into their orbit, into the Lake Michigan Circle Tour.

 

 

 

Rogue comets, we circle the lake and then, like  forgotten lighthouses, dissolve into mist.

Our Audi TTS roadster, imbued with a pressure cooker four pot, fat rubber and a rag top, makes us eager for roads winding and long.

We open the top and invite the spirit of the lake to ride along.


 

 





Lake Michigan invites us to be a dancing bear, a captured animal of time.  Its ceaseless motion laps against our foundations.  It gathers perceptions, reflects vertigo and ushers ambivalence onto shores strewn with keepsakes, of discarded choices, and of the cold mornings of our youth.  Drift with it, slacken in its sleep. Weep to its rhythm.  It remembers us as a geologic feather, as diamonds to a fault.

 

 

 

At the Manitowoc steam ferry, Mennonites wearing coal black hats issue into its gaping maw to begin their journey across the cold and incompressible lake. 

 

  

 As it slowly recedes, its coal stack smudges  the pale blue, oil painting sky.



 

 

 

In Door County, the last shreds of summer hang in the air: wisps of fish boils, faded kaleidoscopes of  scenery and the faint echoes of the promises whispered by young lovers on August's warm sand.

 

 

To capture the last of summer Fred and Fuzzy cover their lakeside bar with a striped canopy and encase it in a plastic shroud.  It's a  temporary camp, a souvenir of summer destined to disappear in the night like a traveling circus.    Already tables on the lakeside lawn are nearly deserted, the drunken boaters of summer are gone.  We arrive in time for the sunset.  A Romanian born server greets us like late arriving parishioners, and we joke of Transylvania.   

 

On this near solitude a chill settles and the lake reflects its colors back to the sky.  I order a margarita made with crushed local cherries.  In its sweetness I taste the myth of Door County.

The October sun, now hidden behind the headland, tosses light like Mardi Gras candy against the clouds, filling the sky with a pink and orange gauze.  I order another cherry myth and watch its colors fade.

Mackinac Island

Long ago Mackinac banished cars,  meaning only bicycles and horse drawn carriages ply its streets. We surrender our Audi to a smiling valet for a twelve dollar fee.  From the trunk we assemble a tornado wreckage of luggage to bring to the island. The crew gathers it all for its journey across the Straits of Mackinac.  In exchange for a fistful of claim checks, a stranger drives our roadster away.

 

Aboard the ferry,  the cast and crew  perform a practiced patter, a routine of courtesy and efficiency that conveys the wisdom and courtesy of a tip.

 

 

 

 

With the ferry loaded with the bicycles, strollers and tourists sipping their morning coffee we set out on Lake Huron and motor over steel blue water toward the Mackinac Bridge and Lake Michigan beyond.   Once under the bridge we linger gaping at its perspective of latticed ironwork stretching off to the distant haze.  In aspect the towers appear to bend and sway as we bob beneath them.  The captain recites his litany of bridge facts over the loudspeaker: length, tower height and depth of the water. He neglects to mention that some people are so afraid to cross the bridge that they hire someone to drive their car for them.   Nor does he mention unfortunate woman who lost her life when the gusting wind swept her Yugo over the rails. 

 

On the ferry's exposed upper deck the wind drives us deeper into our jackets as the journey becomes uncomfortable.  Finally, through tearing eyes, we see the light house of Mackinac Island.  As it grows larger, the captain resumes his narrative, pointing out the Grand Hotel, the Governors Mansion and Fort Mackinac all taking their place in history on the rocky hillsides above the harbor.

 

After we dock and walk down the pier
we're greeted by the sound of hoof falls
echoing on the cobblestones. 

Reflected in the horses' languid eyes,
this island is bridled by the
conjured harness
of nostalgia.

The old smells of horse breath
and dung waft on the breeze.
Ornate carriages

issue along Main street
then climb back to the Grand Hotel.
Like a intricate wind up toy the island moves in
a measured and repeated sequence.

 

 

 

Behind plate glass windows
candy makers spread, scrape 
and swirl batter
until a solid fudge emerges to be
sliced and sold,  chunks

milk fat and sugar that
converts to body heat

 

The thin veil of yesterday lures the tourists to explore this island outpost by bicycle, footpath or the steadily clopping horse.
The tourist trade supported bike rental shops, horse drawn taxi tours, fudge shops, antique stores, art galleries and of course bars. All colorful, all lively, all about to close for the season.

Drawn by four horses, drivers dressed in top hats, red tails and shiny black boots, the polished carriages are the emissaries of the Grand Hotel . With this livery the Grand Hotel makes itself pervasive.

 

 

Those not staying at the Grand Hotel are welcome to come in and, for a ten dollar fee, have a look around.
Today we a paying guests and explore every corner of this stationary cruise ship.  We pay particular attention the front porch that is so long its far end disappears in the distance.

Beneath the vast northern sky
The Straits of Mackinac 
bathe the sprawling porch of the Grand Hotel with
a light of silver and interstellar blue.
It falls upon the line of rocking chairs stretched out along the porch
making them a glow a heavenly white. 
 
In the distance, out beyond the Mackinac Bridge, 
clouds appear and soon all is obscured
by the approaching fog.   

 

 

 

 

 
 


Fort Mackinac

In the darkened block house

overlooking a fog shrouded
meadow and forest edge
A diorama depicts
the humiliation of surrender.


On a film loop shown
in the mess hall,
the Americans
fail to recapture
Fort Mackinac
every thirty minutes .

 

At the appointed time,
a replica cannon fires 
upon a memory of the enemy
and reminds us

of a war we won.

 

In the recreation hall a mannequin bartender
serves plastic beers to mannequins with
realistically depicted thirst.
Our genuine thirst compels us to end our tour.
A volunteer soldier points out
the narrow stairs down the cliff
to the harbor
and a friendly bar.

 

 

At the roadside fruit stand
 a jumbled pile of
pumpkins fluoresces
in the autumn sunlight

The gray asphalt
 along the edge of the road
was crumbling.
Our tires pick it up
as we drive off, spitting
staccato rocks in our
wheel wells.

With the rain shimmered tarmac
glowing through the windshield
we leave the bounty of Michigan
behind.










The Honey Crisp, Jonathon, and
 Red Delicious that

once hung patiently on trees,
now ripe, and packed in paper handled bags
foster traffic jams
in Charelvoix..

We join the throng.

Petoskey Stones

trace the small lives lived

a million years ago

under the sea.

 

Leland

So far from the ocean we had found a sea. Here were plaques dedicated to the fisherman who recanted their rights and gave in to the lake. They lived to plumb the depths and mine the shining fish. Under the lake's spell their backs were broken, their shells hardened, and their whiskey breath bleached the boards of their homes. Their sins, heaved to the depths, resurfaced in the Leland spillway
as great leaping salmon .

 

 

 

 

 

Sleeping Bear, where patches of grass sway in the wind.

Clinging to the shifting back of the sleeping bear, we climbed mountains of cake mix sand.  The children of Asia joined us in ignoring the CLOSED DUE TO FEDERAL SHUTDOWN signs.  We tiny pixels joined to form a massive planet of sand.

Past dead trees cast adrift on the dunes,
 past transitory foot prints, 
to an ascendant and ancient sea we climbed.

The sand dropped like soup from our heels
as we staggered skyward.
Always another barrier,
another dune to climb.
With each step the lake slid away.










With the ashen clouds parted
the sun cast light in solemn shafts upon
trees burned red and gold.
In this stage lit world we became artifacts,
a forgotten discovery,
petroglyphs painted by
the shifting dunes.
 

 

Our orbit concludes in
the crackling electricity of Chicago where the howling tires of the big rigs trumpet an overture of industry and commerce
and billboards project cold and fearful sex at
seventy miles an hour.

The the spirit
of the Lake has gone.
It's time to raise the top.
 

Spring Fly Fishing

Spring Fishing

Ice shimmered in the trees

As I passed the pickup truck

with a reckless swerve on the 

glistening serpent of Highway S.

my switch to summer rubber was early

 
.
 

Rulland's Coulee
flowed muddy brown.

Undeterred, the packs of pickups coagulated

to mark the young season when

the spring wind batters your hat

and kills the cast at your feet.

After clambering up the bank

on Spring Coulee I sipped a dram of single malt
and watched an osprey hover.  Close by,
the kingfishers darted like jet fighters,

their raucous complaints
echoed through the valley.
 

The roadster's trunk held a
bottle of Bordeaux
for early dinner amid the Ocooch.
 

When the sun went off the stream,

an osprey found his perch.

An otter sitting streamside implored me
with his otter's sense of entitlement
 to give him a fish.

 

 

 Fueled up with breakfast and coffee,
I ventured a mile from my roadster
along the many meanders of Timber Coulee Creek
until barbed wire and decomposing cows
established a limit.
   

Beneath the overhanging branches
I cast and smoked a cigar that burned with
an impossibly long,
fine gray ash.  Its thick white smoke
curled up against the
backdrop of the trout stream.

Turneffe Trance

Turneffe Atoll

Off the coast of Belize a seamount rises to the surface.  Its summit forms an island and on the island is a resort known as Turneffe Island Resort.  It is a paradise for scuba divers and fishermen.  It charm  small size of the operation and the pristine waters that surrounds it.e




 Atoll we lived a week of our lives . Upon its waters of Caribbean azure blue, sun splashed, hypnotic,  time rapidly slipped away.  It was a blur of skimming in the dive boat, backward rolls into the sea laden with scuba equipment, weightless drifts along the sea floor surrounded by the kaleidoscope of coral and reef fish sea.  Even in these idyllic circumstances danger lurks in the form of toxic sea
creatures and the physics of diving.
Our journey began at 4am in the cold and dark of Chicago's northern suburbs.  Aboard the 5 am taxi to O'Hare the Russian cabbie tells of living in Kiev during the Chernobyl disaster.  For some reason he couldn't drive smoothly on the icy roads the car kept surging ahead his driving because he couldn't maintain a steady speed.  Or maybe it was the ancient taxi trying to cope with the icy highway.  With two hours before our flight we arrived at O'Hare, checked a couple bags and fell into the nightmare that is airport security.  After spending 40 minutes in line, the TSA dude informed us we had too many 3 ounce bottles of liquid in our carry on.  It had to be checked,  so it was through security again.  No time for breakfast just on the plane to Miami where a morbidly obese woman next to us struggled to make her seatbelt stretch.

On the flight from Miami to Belize we sat next to the Mr. Klutz.  He was tall and ungainly in the aisle seat.  Ms. Klutz knew better that to try and share an armrest with him.  He claimed the armrest and defended like a junkyard dog. She sat he the aisle across from him.  Somehow his belongings made their way into my wife's foot space.  Their loud conversations across aisle while being generally annoying did provide some mild amusement for the fellow passengers.    As it turns out Mr and Ms Klutz will be with us all week.  ot only were that also headed to Turneffe Island but they had the room next to us in our duplex cottage with the paper thin walls. 
We are assailed by her whining complaints.  Of course they are on our daily dives where they tread on the coral and on our and the dive master's heads.  We struggled to be free of them as was our  dive master was constantly pulling them off the coral fronds.

On shore they argue with one another in loud voices at great distances. That gave us fair warning to head the other way..

It took us a long time to retrieve our luggage at the Belize City airport. The porter eager for tips told us we are the last to arrive. A van was waiting. We boarded as did The Klutz's.  They were going to the very same resort as us.    It's driver also wanted a tip. We drove through the roughly paved roads of Belize City to the harbor where we boarded one of the Turneffe Island resort's two shuttle boats for the hour and a half cruise out to the atoll.

On the flats around the island swim the bonefish permit and tarpon so prized by the fishermen. We start getting acquainted with our fellow guests and the resort staff. When we arrive at the island the entire kitchen and housekeeping staff are on he dock to welcome us. We find our room, asked the it be changed due to the slamming of doors and needlessly loud conversation of the Klutz couple. We have dinner served family style in the communal dining room then we tired travelers all hit the sack early. Next day we are in the diving skiff with dive master Brad and captain Marcel both genial and dark skinned sons of Belize. We are pleased with the condition of the reef and Brads pinpoint spearing of lionfish. These beautiful invasive fish voraciously devour every other living thing unchecked by any natural predator. It takes a shot to the head to kill them. A spear through the body is ineffectual. Only If the are properly flayed will the trigger, grouper and snapper eat them. On the first couple of days of diving we were rewarded with several sightings of Eagle Rays' Hawksbill turtles, bearded toadfish, flamingo tongue, red tipped sea goddess. Rock beauty, queen trigger French angels, a mesmerizing and kaleidoscopic display lobsters waving their tentacles angrily large morays swimming after us grown used to the handouts of slain lion fish from the dive master.

The island is low, only mangroves and a spit of beach where the guesthouses and dining hall are arranged deprecate it from the surrounding flats.  The boat dock was the center of activity each morning where the divers and fisherman met their guides and learn what adventures lay in store.

Sun splayed flats harbor the bonefish,  permit and tarpon the well heeled sportsman pursue walking the flats or being poled along above the turtle grass exposed to the winds.
From Our veranda we hear the powerful unrelenting roar of the surf as it breaks upon the reef. We can see no other signs of civilization other than our compound on the Turneffe Island, a tiny spit of coconut palms and mangrove situated in the southern end of the vast Turneffe atoll.

The boat ride in. We ride atop the flying bridge protected by plastic and zippers from the stinging spray.
Luis our captain negotiates the heavy sea , cuts power, alters course to turn into the wave , the big boat rolls and pitches its way to the Belize city dock where local vendors wait trying to sell their handicrafts to the departing guests of the private and remote resort. The dock is the only place where they can approach them. The guests don't want to be approached the walk to the rad disown to use the bathroom then on to the airport. They are done with Belize for now. It's back to their communities to pay their bills in America check their bank accounts stock their refrigerators adjust their furnace for the late winter chill in St Cloud or Akron

Diving in the cold front, wind whipping the wave top, Chilling wind
Boat rocking. Out of the wind below the boat a warm ocean awaits. Under the sea the light is diffused. Subtly lit corals wave in the current, green, purple, orange, red and really red.