114: two approaches, donner party, owa-taygoo-siam, meet back here in ten minutes, trillium, shore thang, possum hollow, rv, preferred waste, mushroom houses, salad on a drink, getting bridged, four, battle of pine river, slinky success

August 20, 2025

Alden to Charlevoix

As I was heading out of Alden this morning, the temperature cool and the streets damp from the intermittent drizzle, a couple of cyclists with a tour group pulled out in front of me as they began their sprint to the finish line.

Rider #1: "Where are we riding today?"

Rider #2: “The only thing I'm riding to is a hot shower.”

There's a huge difference in how people approach touring. Some people, like me, travel at a walking pace, stopping (literally) 10-25 times an hour for a picture, a snack, or a conversation. "It's the going, not the getting there," I always say.

Others, like the tan, fit, executive-type duo ahead of me, seem to have a checklist. They get their gratification from having completed a task. "Ride 50 miles, averaging at least 16 mph." Check.

At first I thought they're really missing out on the best of what touring offers (and a part of me still does), but that perspective lacks depth because it's not who they are. If increasing their average speed is what gives them pleasure, then that's what they should do.

Me? I'm going with slow, looking for the quirky and humorous.

"Hi, we're the Donners and just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood. We're having our annual 'Donner Party' this evening and sure hope you can make it. Do you... uh... eat meat?"

Hayo-Went-Ha reminds me of when I was in my early teens and was told about the Native American chant: Owa-Taygoo-Siam.... repeated over and over until you hear what you're actually saying.

mother and child bounded away in different directions

I'm sure they'll get back together soon, most likely in the middle of the road, but not until there's more traffic.

I'll bet the houses on this street cost a millium trillium dollars.

The large and expensive houses along the eastern coast of Lake Michigan have names, like in England, but less aristocratic sounding. Instead of Blackthorne Hall or Whitcombe Greens, you’ll see what’s clearly a million-dollar house with a name like Shore Thang, Beachy Keen, Vitamin Sea, or (how American:) A Salt Weapon. They come with elaborate hand-made signs, some of which are also clearly expensive. After passing dozens and dozens, I finally thought to take a picture… this one uninspiring and even boring, but you get the idea.

When I stopped for a break in Eastport the same tour group I’d seen earlier was there loading their bikes onto the van. Reg (pronounced "Rej") and I talked for a few minutes, and I learned she’s taken a number of week-long European trips, as well as the opposite of LEJOG (would that be JOGLE?). Caroline also came over to chat, and I could tell that these are the kind of people who seem to enjoy the going, not the getting there.

I come across these tour buses occasionally, and the tour guides are alway distant, I believe because they don’t want their clientele to find out just how easy it is to plan a trip like this yourself, or learn about the freedom it gives you to be unrestrained from a schedule.

This was down a barren side street, barely visible from the main road.

Looks like this guy's been here a while... and AHA! Maybe THAT'S why I didn't get any Christmas presents last year!

You can see how high the deer can reach to eat, or at least I suspect that's the cause for the absence of undergrowth.

Should I swap my sofa bed out for these? Tempting... they look comfortable, and in decent shape. Of course, I could just add them to what I'm already carrying. I don't think I'd notice the extra weight.

"I'm sorry, sir, your waste doesn’t meet our standards. Half-empty peanut butter and jam containers? (soft chuckle) No, I’m afraid your refuse is below our threshold of quality. Have you tried Semi-Sanitation, or Dumpy Dumpsters? I can give you their numbers, and I'm sure they'll meet or even exceed your expectations."

There was surprisingly little traffic all day in this touristy part of the state...

...at least until I neared Charlevoix when it became heavier, although it remained courteous. The shoulder dwindled to less than the width of my handlebars, but I was only on it briefly.

Charlevoix is the home of the “Mushroom Houses” (also called “Hobbit Houses” and “Gnome Houses”), which look like something out of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. They were designed by Earl Young, who moved here when he was ten years old. He had no formal architectural training but worked in the real estate industry, then began building and remodeling homes in the area.

His Mushroom Houses began sprouting in the 1950s, with characteristic rooflines that sweep so close to the ground the side windows needed to be cut into them. Young told a Ludington reporter that he always designed the roofs of his houses first and “then shoved the rest under them.” The homes have cedar shake rooftops, and the walls are crafted from fieldstone, red stone, limestone, Onaway quarry stone, and boulders. They typically have large fireplaces, a generous use of stonework (see list of stones above), and creative landscaping which helps the houses snuggle into the hillsides.

Most of the homes aren’t even pictured because it was so difficult to get good angles of the houses The photos below are absurdly inadequate in illustrating how interesting they really are and, in fact, were so bad that I rode back into town the following morning to take some better ones (they didn't turn out much better).

This house, called “Boulderdash,” has been owned by Janine Wallace since the 1960s. When the roof needed to be replaced in the 1990s the roofers called her with daily reports as they found strange items under the shingles to give the roof its sway and movement… bicycle wheels, screen doors, and other peculiar objects. During the repair, she decided to stack the shingles instead of replacing the odd objects (some sections are now nine layers thick), and spent more money replacing the roof than she did buying the house.

In most of the pictures you can only see a small part of a house so I didn't post them here, but if you're in Charlevoix it's certainly worth a tour of the neighborhood.

I ate lunch at The Happy Troll and when the woman next to me received this bloody mary she canceled her salad order.

Every half hour, on the dot, the drawbridge goes up. Traffic backs up on both sides and if you get stuck the locals call it "getting bridged."

In the late 1800s, the Charlevoix & Chicago Railroad Company built what locals call "The World’s Shortest Railroad." It was only 3 miles long, and built mainly to haul stone to the lake. As far as the shortest, it's not in the Top Five, and might not even be in the Top Ten, but they still call it that. It brings to mind Abraham Lincoln’s quote: "How many legs does a dog have if you count the tail as a leg? Four. The fact that you call the tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." (Angel's Flight in Los Angeles, built in 1905 and spanning 298 feet [91 meters] over a vertical gain of 96 feet [29 meters] is the shortest)

Not much was written about this “battle,” but from what I could find there was a Mormon colony on Beaver Island, headed by a charismatic man named King James Jesse Strang. In 1879, three men fled the colony and a party of Mormons appeared at the local settlement here, then called Pine River, to request their return. The local fishermen refused to release the escapees, and ordered them to leave. As the Mormons were about to depart, one of their party “fired on Louis Gebeau, who had raised the gun he was carrying.” And thus ended the fierce battle of Pine River.

I can still picture the corpses of egos and machismo littering the grounds.

...with two queen-sized beds and a private bath for a modest price, especially for this area.

You may have forgotten about my inability to find some acceptable stairs for the Slinky. Even in Pittsburgh, the City of Steps, which even has a Ministry of Steps, I was unable to find any upon which I could watch with childlike pleasure as the toy of my youth walked down some stairs. Every attempt failed because the steps are just too long.... you know, about the size of a foot. What I needed was a series of short steps with a significant drop between each one.

Consequently, I've been carrying a Slinky for the past thousand miles, watching as the box in which it came in slowly disintegrated into powder, along with my hopes of coming across a single non-ADA-compliant stairwell. I've kept an eye out for, and stopped at, dozens of stairs.... all to no avail.

And now, at last, here in Charlevoix I found a set at the very top of the narrow access to my third-floor room, and am finally delivering on my old promise for you to watch with unfettered joy as a Slinky walks down these steps.

Okay, so maybe not the first try....

And maybe not the second try, either.

And, uh, I guess, maybe not the third try.

That one was sort of close. Maybe.

I'm calling that one a success.

A moral success, at least.

I think you're getting the point. I did this for a full fifteen minutes trying to get a good video. As a child, I don't remember it being this difficult. As I seem to recall, you could use just about anything.... not only any steps anywhere, but cushions from the couch, books, even stacking your friends up would work.

Determined, I continued, and eventually filmed one that was semi-successful and, I have to say, it was fun to play with, and brought back some pleasant, long-forgotten memories.

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Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 2,969 miles (4,778 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	6

Rich FrasierThere’s nothing like a good slinky video…
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4 months ago

Bill ShaneyfeltI suspect our slinkys were maybe slightly larger diameter, allowing them to span the wider footsteps???
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4 months ago

Bob DistelbergYes, I think you can call that last video a win.
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4 months ago

Mark BinghamTo Rich FrasierAin't it just so?
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4 months ago

Mark BinghamTo Bill ShaneyfeltCould be.... I never even thought of that.
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4 months ago

Larry FrahmTo Mark BinghamMy slinky ended up tangled in itself.
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4 months ago