Missing Mackinac and The Road as Evoker of Memories Matrix Point and Big Rapids, Michigan Day 65-66 - August 5-6, 2002  Back   |   Next

Update... Today I was thinking about one of the many friends that I made on Mackinac Island, and how she helped me pack my gear the day I left the island. We went to the Coffee Beanery which overlooks the marina. There we played chess and talked about when we first met at the St. Anne's square dance, to star gazing at Ft. Holmes, to making a run off island to see two movies in a row (Minority Report and The Road to Perdition), and finally watching the sun set from British Landing Beach. "What are we playing for?" she asked. It had been a while since she had beaten me. "If you win, I'll stay another day." As I write this journal entry seventeen days later, I wish she had beaten me; such is the beauty and wonder of Mackinac Island. Instead, it was a stalemate, and Mackinac Island and my friendship with her lives on. Missing Mackinac Day 65 - August 5, 2002 It is 9 PM and the sun is setting. It's been fifty or so miles since I left Mackinac Island. I am camped not far from where I had camped just a few weeks ago after Rich and I parted ways. Now I am back on my way west from Mackinac Island. This morning as I lay in bed and later when I had breakfast, I kept thinking of ways I can justify staying on the island. To leave is to tear myself away. I watched Mackinac Island grow small as the ferry took me away to St. Ignace. Father Jim Williams Pastor of the Church of Saint Anne As I ride I remember things people have said to me while staying on the island, especially Fr. Williams, rhetorically asking our White Noise book club, "What is real?" Taking a detour off of US 2 onto Cut River Road makes me wonder why I took it in the first place. I could have gone faster if I had stayed on US 2, but then the scenery reminds me of the old country roads outside of Williamsburg, VA, when on early Sunday mornings, Steve S. and I would go out for twenty to thirty mile rides. It is a pleasant memory and it makes the extra mileage worthwhile. If a turn in the road is enough to conjure a memory-especially if it is a good one-then it is definitely not a wrong turn. Damn. I miss the island already. As the miles tick off on my odometer a voice inside me says that its not too late to turn back, that if I turn back right now, I could make it back with the last ferry and spend one more night on the island. The Road as Evoker of Memories Day 66 - August 6, 2002 It is 7:27 PM. I have made camp in a pine forest somewhere between the towns of Big Rapids and Ensign along US 2 in the Upper Peninsula. Again, the forest reminds me of the one Nick Adams went through on his journey in "Big Two-Hearted River." The pines are old; their lower branches have long since grown brittle and broken off. Clumps of wild grass, brown pine needles, and soft moss beds carpet the forest floor. It is quite the living room to retire to after a long day in the office. Not much has occurred on the road today. Just memories-memories powerful enough o make me bust out laughing. Memories of the stupid stuff we did in the Marines, to the joy and beauty of Mackinac Island, to even, whoa! -- it seems like so long ago that I set out on June 2nd and I was on the C&O Canal Towpath riding along, wide-eyed, and amazed at every little detail.