Lansing to Chelsea
July 16, 2003
Back up to Manitowoc to Washington
Westbound: Morley to Lansing Eastbound: Chelsea to Tonogany
I get lost looking for our former home but have no trouble on the highway.
Breakfast this morning was with my former secretary at a nearby chain. We caught up on her children and some former coworkers she continues to see from time time. She then had to get to work, and that got me on the path to traveling.
My motel was on the far west side of Lansing. Our former home is in Okemos, the second suburb east of Lansing. I really wanted to see the old place after twelve years in Wenatchee and Puyallup, Washington. The ride downtown was uneventful, but the Capitol area was interesting with its newer state office buildings. After an hour or so, I reached the old neighborhood. Deja vu!
But I should explain. When our real estate agent showed us this house back in 1983, we liked it very much. After he returned us to our car parked at his office in East Lansing, we went back to take another look at the house and neighborhood. And had a deuce of a time finding the house. This is a development with no right angles to speak of. It took forever, it seemed then, to find our future treasure in the maze.
After we had lived there a while, we had no trouble using any number of routes through what was no longer a maze for us though we maintained patience with visitors and their unsurprising difficulities in navigating.
Now I needed to find the house again and twelve years away had eroded my memories of the paths through what was again a maze. Deju vu as I wandered until I recognized one of the intersections.
Having lost around ten minutes in my wandering, I was still in front of the house when the lady thereof returned from her errands. As she entered the driveway, she looked me over carefulluy as I stood with my camera across the street next to my exotic bike. Caught, I decided to be sociable and asked if she was the lady that had bought the house from us twelve years ago. She was and invited me in for a drink. A quick visit and some really cold water and I was ready to move on with my nostalgia itch scratched.
Lansing to Ann Arbor is about 60 miles. One year I worked for a commission with an office in Ann Arbor and many appointments in Lansing. I found M52 was both shorter and more pleasant than the Interstates. Years later, unlike the old neighborhood, its turns were still familiar. Of course getting to M52 without using the Interstate was not as simple. If this segment had been my only exposure to Michigan pavement, I would have held a very poor opinion of the state. Eventually I reached my highway and headed south, stopping for lunch in Stockbridge, a bit more than half the way.
South of Stockbridge M52 is somewhat hillier and curvier. I remembered this from my many roundtrips in my old Opel and then my MGB, neither of which had an excess of torque. I wondered how challenging I would find these hills with only my bicycle when recumbents have such a poor reputation for climbing. Well the hills were short and after around 2,000 miles on the road, they were no particular challenge and soon behind me. Before long I had reached Chelsea, the home of Jiffy Mixes, and found my expensive motel in a new development on the south side near Interstate 94.
I was staying in Chelsea about twenty miles west of Ann Arbor because it was on a good route and because my friends with whom I was having dinner had not wanted to fight the Ann Arbor Art Fair's crowds. I hadn't realized that would be an issue but agreed that the Fair, like Wolverine home games, would be a major inconvenience however much it contributed to the local economy and culture.
Once in my room, I called John on his cell phone and learned they had an ETA of about thirty minutes. I hustled into my shower to get ready. They took me to Jeff Daniels's restaurant. It was very nice. While we saw no movie stars we also saw no spiders. I had another excellent Italian meal. We then returned to my room and talked politics, National, Michigan, and Texas, for hours until they had to get back on the road to get home and some sleep.
It was a second shorter day but again an excellent visit.
59.62 miles in 4:39 on the bike for an average of 12.82 mph.
Back up to Manitowoc to Washington
Westbound: Morley to Lansing Eastbound: Chelsea to Tontogany