| Six weeks to do with just as we pleased! It was June
and six weeks of vacation were ahead of us. For more than a thousand miles we wandered unhurriedly through our native Michigan before we returned, absorbed in the spell of concrete ribbons, graveled turnpikes, grass-grown side roads, and island trails. “I have always had a desire to see things when I travel, rather than hurry past them,” my wife told me one evening prior to our going. “We have never hurried while on a motoring vacation, and yet I believe that there are many things that we've missed.” “You should have traveled in covered wagon days,” I joked. “But nevertheless I like the idea for I’ve felt that same way.” From covered wagons the idea resolved itself into bicycles. Two weeks later we had bought our equipment and were ready to start. It was a sunshiny morning when we trundled our cycles out to the road. We had mapped out a tentative route, but no hard and fast plans were to bind us. We had decided that for once in our lives we were going to be as free as possible to do the things we wanted to do. It was one of those mornings when sunshine seemed to fill everything between earth and sky. The road challenged us and we were off. Riding seemed so carelessly easy, spinning along at six or seven miles an hour. During the first few hours we traveled a road with which we were daily familiar. We rode leisurely down the gray pavement with its inclines and curves. Gone was the thought of time. We had left that along with the rush and hurry of life behind us. We were setting no speed records. We were advertising no product. We had six weeks to do with what we wished, accountable only to ourselves. Hurry and its accompanying reflections had fallen from us. Although we did not know it then, we were to learn and see many other things which we would not have, on other than bicycles. We stopped often that first morning and afternoon. The stupefying effects of over-civilization had softened our bodies until our riding threatened to develop into work. We would stop at times for only a minute or two, and then again for a period of 10 or 15 minutes when we sprawled comfortably under a roadside tree. By noon we had covered 15-3/10 miles by our mile-o-meter. This represented nearly four hours of travel. We could have returned to our starting point in 20 minutes or less by a passing automobile. Distance had taken on an added significance! Noon found us in a grove of trees, a short distance off the main road, eating lunch. A nearby farmhouse supplied us with water for our water bag, and after spreading our blankets for a table, we ate our first meal. We had prepared sandwiches and fruit before starting. Food for our evening meal we would buy in the next town. During the afternoon we learned the significance of hills. While they may appear as casual rises to an automobile, they mean work to the cyclist. Half way to the top of some we were forced to trudge the rest of the way on the push. We came also to look upon other familiar objects in a different perspective. Sleepy villages paused in their drowsing to watch us pass. Farmers in the fields shouted greetings. Evening came upon us full of weariness at the crest of a hill. To our right was a lake reflecting the sunset through the trees. We dismounted and wheeled our cycles up a footpath through the woods. Twelve hours later we were again on the road. A swim, two heartily-enjoyed meals, and a night of rest had refreshed us. Only two incidents had marred our stay. The mosquitoes had driven us to the sanctuary of our tent at sundown. Fortunately our tent had a screened door and window giving us protection and ventilation, and near midnight a severe thunderstorm came up threatening to blow us into the lake. Then, after weathering the storm, so to speak, we were ready and eager for the second day. Due to the nature of muscles not used to physical exertion, we traveled only 18 miles that day. As was to become our daily custom, we would pass down a grass-grown side road to a clump of shady, sheltered, roadside trees to eat our lunch. Occasionally we stopped to talk to passersby and spend some time of day. Many rests were necessary, for we felt the tug of civilized muscles were insufficient for the strain to which they were put. Comments were made by those we met. Some declared that we would ruin our health in a week; and if we continued we would be physical wrecks in a month and taken to the nearest hospital. Others assured us that it would add 10 years to our lives. And through it all we decided to keep on going and find out for ourselves. A week later we had traveled more than 250 miles. All thought of muscle strain and pain and ache which had appeared on the second day had vanished. Now we were truly free to follow our inclinations. It seemed that we were farther from our home than we really were, having been accustomed to the speed of an automobile for years. Tanned by the wind and sun, we felt that we had been vagabonds for a long time. We traveled by day or stopped, as we chose. Each night found us around a little campfire before our tent in some comfortable spot. We cooked our meals over an open fire or on the tiny stove we carried. Not having an excess of space for the carrying of food, we planned our buying so that we purchased sufficient supplies in the morning of each day for the next 24 hours. For Sundays, we made our purchases on Saturday afternoons. Then, too, were the wayside markets and farms where fruits and vegetables in season could be bought. Water was easily and freely obtained. By the end of the second week we had entered the North country. Daily we were meeting wanderers like ourselves. Some rode in expensive sedans, others in rickety affairs, while many — we called them Footsore Willies — walked. Of the latter, we met them often. Some were young men playing hookie from the school of hard knocks. Others were men well up in years, their faces tanned by all weathers. We would meet them valiantly trudging along the highway, their feet pointing forward, but their eyes questioning for a ride to carry them on their belated journey. There is a common fraternity among wayfarers. Like little children they were open, friendly, and jovial. They would call some good-natured greeting as we passed; and a few miles farther on, would shout at us from an automobile in which they had "hitched" a ride. As we advanced further upstate, we came to an endless succession of hills. At first they taxed our newly-aquired strength to the limit. When we came to the first hill we stopped a few feet past the bottom, having gained that point by increasing our speed. From then on, it was a matter of gaining altitude by pushing a few feet at a time between rests. But at the top we were repaid, not only by a spreading panorama of fields, streams, lakes, and valleys; but we had the pleasant prospect of going down the other side. Slope-favored, we coasted, gaining speed with every turn of our wheels. Another hill confronted us at the bottom, but our momentum and a little bit of exertion on our part, and we were carried up that hill as if the wind was playing holiday at our backs! There were two places that we could go, during the course of our wanderings, on our bicycles that automobiles could not. The first was Mackinac Island; and the second was across the famous locks at Sault Ste. Marie. On the Island we found many things that we probably would not have seen if not on bicycles. We learned that no motorized vechicles were allowed there, so we were blessed to be on pedal power. At the locks we ate our lunch at the St. Mary's River, after crossing the footpaths of each canal to do so. Having completed the first lap of our journey we dreamed of our southward trek home again. Our vacation was drawing to a close, and other duties were calling. Our last camp was made at the same spot as our first, just as quiet and dreamy as when we had left it. "We undoubtedly had the best vacation of our lives!" my wife phrased it. We had lived a healthy, vigorous six weeks in the open, and the result was evident. We could swing along and the hills that had troubled us on the first day were as level stretches. We started early the next morning. I glanced at the mile-o-meter. When we arrived home we would have traveled 1,020 miles on the open highway; but time was calling, and though at the time I thought it might have paled in time, this trip has been a most beautiful memory!
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