Breakfast at Hilty's, Broken Spokes, Meeting Fuzzy Brooks, and Life and Death in the Forest Night Yankee Springs, Michigan Day 17 - Wednesday - June 19, 2002  Back   |   Next

Mr. Enos Hilty's Farm Breakfast at the Hilty's I awake a little before dawn. After perusing the outhouse and breaking camp I cross the pasture over to Enos Hilty's farm. Enos and his sons are already up. He puts two of his youngest sons on top of a Belgium draft horse, which he hooks up to a plow. They work together. The sons direct the horse, the horse pulls, and Enos plows. I take a walk around the farm. I am walking around a corner of the house and Mrs. Enos Hilty stops short of tossing water out of bucket on to me. She chuckles, "I almost gave you a shower," and goes back into the kitchen. After working the fields for a bit, Enos comes back and introduces his sons, Jeremiah and Jacob. They invite me in and seat me at a long table. They have me sit on one end, while Enos sits at the other, with his wife to his left. His three sons sit on one side of the table and his two daughters sit on the other next to their mother. Mrs. Enos Hilty brings out scrambled eggs mixed with cheese, onions, and mushrooms, granola, fresh strawberries, and milk, and pours me an herbal tea from mint picked from their garden. Enos explains to me that they pray in silence before and after the meal. When everybody is ready he bows his head and everybody follows his cue. When Enos senses everybody has finished praying he begins the passing of food around the table. He tells me that his wife makes everything, including the granola, which she sometimes sells in town. Enos does most of the talking. Sometimes when Mrs. Enos Hilty has a question such as when she wanted to know if she could pack me a lunch, she asks through her husband. The children speak German and Enos translates. Apparently they had many questions but now that I am here everybody is tongue tied-including myself. After breakfast, Enos leads the family in silent prayer. Then everybody is up from the table, off to morning chores. His wife begins packing me a lunch of ham sandwich, granola, and his daughter comes back from the garden with bag of radishes. Just before I leave Enos bids me farewell and says, "May a guardian angel protect you." Broken Spokes on the Border of Michigan and Indiana It is late morning and again I'm enjoying a nice breeze as I pedal fast at 18-20 mph on a slightly downward grade. As I pedal I notice that my rear derailleur delays when I shift gears. Then the chain pops off and gets twisted in the rear wheel's spokes. I break hard but before my rear wheel locks several spokes break and even more bend. I finally stop and the chain is so twisted with the wheel that the rear wheel won't even move. I couldn't even walk my bike to nearest town if I had to. Looking around I see that I am at the crossroads of Route 6 and 150 East between the villages of Rome City and Albion just south of the Michigan border in northeastern Indiana. A pickup truck passes by. Traffic on Route 6 zips by. There is an unidentifiable commercial building at the corner with a sign that says SORRY WE'RE CLOSED. Across the highway is a house I briefly consider walking to, but then I would have to leave my bike and trailer behind because it would be too dangerous to carry across. I decide to wait for a truck or jeep and ask for a ride. Diane Ruggles of Three Rivers, MI A half hour later a teenager in a jeep stops at the stop sign and I ask him for ride. He subtly says no, by saying he is not going to town. A few minutes later an old man in a pickup truck with dogs in the passenger seat sees that I am in trouble and stops. He tells me to wait so he can bring the dogs back home. Paul comes back later and takes me to Three Rivers, MI where he knows of bike shop that can help me. Three Rivers and Meeting Fuzzy Brooks Paul brings me to a bike shop in Three Rivers, MI. There, I meet Diane Ruggles of The Kickstand. She immediately handles my emergency situation, fixes my wheel and rear derailleur. Diane, a cycle tour veteran, is planning a self-contained tour of the east coast to raise funding for chronic fatigue research. She has been living with chronic fatigue all her life yet she is an avid cyclist. Cycling the east coast will dispel some of the myths concerning chronic fatigue. While Diane fixes my bike, another cyclist walks into the shop. He wears white painter shorts and a yellow windbreaker. His skin is sun reddened and his hair and beard sun bleached. His name is Fuzzy Brooks and he comes from Kansas City. I tell him I have a friend from Kansas City. Before long we are swapping road tales and I learn that he too is on a quest. He is in town to fix his bike as well, and he also has spoke problems. Fuzzy Brooks Fuzzy Brooks and his "Garbage Scout" are on a two and half year bike trip. He tells me about all the interesting people he has met recently. I ask more about his quest. Fuzzy Brooks is the Captain Ahab of the American roads. He is on a quest to avenge himself upon a certain white whale. We talk about ethics, institutionalism, and ancient Roman history as we munch on Mrs. Enos Hilty's granola and radishes. Life and Death in the Forest Night After getting my bike fixed, I race northwards thinking that I can make it to Grand Rapids, MI by evening. Once there I would be able to rinse off several days of sweat and road grime, have a nice meal, and cool off in my Uncle Charlie's pool. But by twilight I am in the middle of nowhere, also known as Yankee Springs, MI. Lately I had been passing through places labeled as towns on the map because they are at a junction and consist of a liquor store, gas station, and a grain elevator. In Yankee Springs, which is more the name of a road then a town, I take a left upon a dirt road and pass a cemetery. There is a campsite just a half-mile down the road. I make camp. The site is deserted. Occasionally a car roars by and crunches gravel on the main road. It is a warm night so I decide to sleep in the hammock. I wrap myself up in my tarp and wear my gortex rain coat, and a mosquito head net to keep the mosquitoes at bay. I watch the yellow moon slide across the black starless sky. The trees seem to reach up and claw at the moon.   The Langley Covered Bridge was built in 1887. It is 282 feet long and is the longest covered bridge in Michigan. It was named after a pioneer family from Centreville, MI. I am ejected from the dreamworld by the sounds of broken foliage, snapping twigs, and branches. A snarling carnivorous growl, vaguely Pleistocene, makes my heart pop. Then there is a thrashing in the woods to my right and I hear the shrieking whimper of a deer. I grab my knife and flashlight which instinct told me to keep by my side this night of all nights so far on the road. I strain my eyes into the dark forest, and see nothing but shadow trees and total darkness in the spaces between the woods. It is nearly 3 AM. For sometime the only noise I can hear is the beat of my heart. I resist an urge to shine my flashlight into the forest night. Nothing like a beam of light to show every wild demonic beast where I am with a big fat yellow arrow saying LOOK AT ME! I sleep the rest of the night with my hands gripping my sheathed knife and flashlight.