Pere Marquette trail

Today was our second day on the Pere Marquette trail.

Railroad builders moved massive amount of rock and earth with hand tools to create gentle grades.

We have often noticed road conditions change when we cross a county line. Sometimes the pavement is in much better repair in one county than in another. Sometimes one county has a wide bike-friendly shoulder, while the next county makes the shoulder unridable with a poorly designed rumble strip. The same is true on bike trails like the Pere Marquette that span multiple counties.

In general, all sections of the Pere Marquette were well maintained, but in a few counties the pavement was getting a bit long in the tooth. Today we met a county crew proactively sealing cracks before they could become problems. The process is similar to making sprinkled donuts.

The next step is completely manual - fill up a bucket with sprinkles.

Spread the sprinkles on the frosting while it is still hot.

As usual, we were impressed by the fauna and flora along the trail, but could identify very little of it.

These were very numerous, but we don't know what they are.

Mystery flowers that like to hang out with cattails.

In the town of Clare the bike trail abruptly ends. The trail resumes in a couple of miles on the other side of Clare. Since we had to leave the trail, it seemed like a good time for a break and to check out the town.

Pulp??? Is there a paper mill in the back room?

If I hide next to this big red bush, the bad man with the weed whacker will never find me.

Like the TART trail, the Pere Marquette trail has planets on display. Unlike the TART, both the distance between these planets and the size of these planets were to scale. Apparently putting planets along bike paths is a thing. We first encounter this a few years ago on the Starkey Wilderness bike trail in Florida, but there seem to be quite a few out there.

Saturn is easy to see when scaled down by a factor of 600,000,000 to one.

But poor Pluto is just a spec at that scale.

Long before people put models of planets along bike trails, they put milestones along roads and railroads. The milestones along the Pere Marquette give the distance to Saginaw.

Did they look like this back in the day?

kerry I said as I borded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh,

Michigan seems like a dream to me now.

It took us two months to cycle to Saginaw.

I've gone to look for the rust belt.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	3
Comment on this entry	Comment	2

Carol CollettThe pale pink flower is Bouncing Bett
Reply to this comment
6 years ago

Alain AbbateTo Carol CollettA bit of googling convinced me that Soapwort (the name Bill gave) and Bouncing Bett refer to the same flower. Apparently Bouncing Betty (or Bouncing Betty) refers to a washer woman. Since the flower can be used to make soap, both names seem appropriate.
Reply to this comment
6 years ago