I know it’s not summer in Michigan, anymore. I’ve seen reports of the color. And I know even months ago there were preparations underway for the coming cold.
But having been in catch-up mode, writing about our travels in July and August, my head is still stuck in summer.
So there you have it.
As the Mackinac Bridge descends onto the Lower Peninsula, is passes over Machilimackinac. To the west is the fort. To the east is the old light house.
From behind the steering wheel, I gazed longingly at the park and asked my fair and patient companions if they were up for another stop. It only having been 20 minutes since the last one, they immediately vetoed the proposal, and so we continued on to US 23.
US 23 is to the eastern side of the Lower Peninsula what US 31 is to the western — a scenic drive thru wooded forests and along sandy shores. There were cottages looking out on the water between us and the lake. We would peer down wooded driveways and sometimes see small cottages on the water. And there were of course many big houses on the water.
Big or small, there seemed to be a tradition of each place having a unique name and a sign to proclaim it. Mile after mile, driveway after driveway, there was a seemingly infinite sequence of fascinating one-of-a-kind signs hanging out by the road.
The blue water was tantalizingly close. But sometimes the highway would turn inland.
After one such turn, we came to Cheboygan where our hunger got the better of us at the Yeck Family Drive-In, where we sat in the car eating burgers and fries, happy that we had found a real place instead of a plastic one. But we didn’t dally long, because we still had miles to go.
Miles to go or not, there were still roadside parks beckoning from the side of the road. I couldn’t resist; the water looked so inviting.
At Huron Shores Roadside Park, there were picnic tables. And there were stairs leading to the water.
Gentle waves lapped against rocks and reeds, making this shore quite different from the western shores that I know so much better.
Trudy found a rock.
Ben pumped some water to drink.
We got back on the road, stopping one more time (was it at Oscoda Roadside Park?) as the sun was lowering in the west.
And that was goodbye to Lake Huron.
We only had a few more miles to go before we could sleep, although as it turned out, there was a complication at the hotel and the sleeping part ended up being delayed even as the mile-counter dropped to zero. But sleep we eventually did, and we caught a Southwest flight home the next morning.
On that last day of ours, our route took us from Munising on the southern shore of Lake Superior across the Upper Peninsula to the northern shore of Lake Michigan, across the Straits of Mackinac to the Lower Peninsula, and from there down the Lake Huron coast to Detroit where we’d spend the night and catch a plane home in the morning.
We had been on the road for a while and had succumbed to the siren calls of refuges and roadside parks. So we were still in the Upper Peninsula with miles to go before we could sleep. (I think you’ve heard me say this, already.)
Here we were, driving the last few miles of US 2, when another park appeared on the right. There were groans from my fair and patient companions as I pulled off the road. It would only be a brief stop, I promised. But when were we going to come this way again? In any event, how could I not?
The sun was shining, as it had been all morning. Lake Michigan was blue, as it had been, too.
I confess, poetical waxing aside, when I see the sun and the green and the blue in Michigan in the summer, I find it impossible to shut out imagined images of the place in winter. Gray skies with cold winds. Snow covering the ground. Ice-topped lakes. Broken, brown wildflower stalks poking out of the drifts. Pine trees standing valiantly with winter moaning in their branches.
Still, it was summer — the best kind Michigan has to offer. There were purple-topped thistles rocking in the summer breeze. And there were Pines standing proudly against the summer sky.
And there was a ferry kicking up a rooster tail as it made its way across the straights from Mackinaw City to Mackinac Island.
We stood and took this in. It was just a brief stop (as a concession to my companions), and then we got back in the car, where we soon found ourselves crossing into the Lower Peninsula.
You might know that Michigan has gorgeous rest areas. These are wonderful places to stop. You will find artesian wells at some. You will find hand pumps for fresh drinking water at others.
Along US 22, just east of Naubinway, we came upon a rest area near of the northernmost shore of Lake Michigan.
We stood for a while and looked out on the blue water,
on the waves washing up against the sandy shore,
on Yarrow growing just beyond the shade of some trees.
And we watched Monarchs. (Imagine that!)
And then we got back into the car and continued our drive, because there were still many miles to go.
Our long last day had just begun, and I was already proposing a detour in what would be a day filled with detours and unplanned stops.
There had been signs along highway 28 as we drove east — wildlife refuge signs hanging from the fence. There had been tantalizing roads with wide-open gates. And now as we drove south and began to cross the Upper Peninsula, leaving Lake Superior behind and heading toward Lake Michigan, we came upon Seney National Wildlife Refuge.
“Shall we stop here?” I asked.
With an assent from the Fair and Industrious Trudy and the Smiling and Patient Ben, under the watch of blue summer skies,
we pulled in.
The couple volunteering in the visitors center, suggested the Marshland Wildlife Drive, a narrow gravel road that wound through the refuge on dikes separating the pools.
“The Fishing Loop is open this time of year,” they said. “If you want a longer drive.”
There were wildflowers scattered in the sun and shade beneath White and Red Pines. There was sunlight glistening on the water.
And there was indeed wildlife there.
We heard the lonely call of a Loon. (I am sorry to sound cliché, but it is a lonely sounding call, even though these Loons were in a group.) We saw them swimming. We rolled to a stop and watched them. They warily watched us back.
And (this being Michigan) there were swans.
We found ourselves stopping, walking along the road on foot. Enjoying the Michigan summer. Enjoying the color.
Enjoying the snags silhouetted against the wilderness.
We were there two hours or more. We regretted the diversion not a bit. But we literally had miles to go before we could sleep. So we pulled back out onto highway 77 and continued our drive.
Thousands of people showed up for opening day. Bert, Trudy and I took the bus to get there.
A new building looking out on the river under blue skies and a shining sun. A line winding slowly up the stairs. Kids with smiles dashing here and there. Groups gathering in conference rooms behind tall glass walls. People lounging around on the sixth floor terrace on colorful couches.
And people carrying books.
The new main branch: Austin Public Library.
On the way out, we passed our street address hanging against the house.
Bert turned and pointed and said, “Nice.”
“Yeah,” Trudy said. “Isn’t it? David made it.”
“Who!?” Bert said.
My reputation precedes me.
It was late in the day. We were standing in the driveway leaning against the dumpster that was filling up fast because it was closer to the house than the piles along the street.
A pickup drove slowly by, the driver leaning out of his window looking for cast-off things to scrounge.
He looked up and waved. Bert waved back.
“You getting rid of this?” the man asked, pointing to an antique trunk that previously held family heirlooms but had been immersed in the brown stink water. Virtually everything in it had been a loss. The marbles were salvageable. Some costume jewelry. Trudy and I had sifted thru the contents, setting aside a few things and wheeling the rest out to the curb. When we’d gone thru it all, I picked up the trunk, tipped it over to let the water drain out and took it out the the curb. The man in the truck had his eye on it.
“How’d that get there?” Bert said and glanced over at me.
dang
“I put it there,” I confessed. “My bad.”
Bert walked out and explained that the trunk was there by mistake. The guy smiled and nodded and rolled on.
Bert carried the trunk back to the house and set it in the sun to dry.
Sometime in the morning…
“Do you need anything?” a woman asked as she got out of a van that had stopped in front of the house.
They gave us a roll of heavy duty garbage bags and a bucket and a mop and a broom and sponges and gloves and breathing masks and bleach and Lysol. They carried them to the house from the van and left them by the front door.
“Thank you,” I heard one of the others say to the woman.
Then the woman got back into the van and rolled to the next house down the street.
Around noon…
“Are you hungry?” a woman asked from the window of a white pickup truck that stopped in front of the house.
There were three of them: a man, and a woman and their daughter. They had driven from Minnesota.
“How many do you need?” she asked.
The bed of the pickup truck was full of styrofoam to-go boxes each packed with a chopped beef BBQ sandwich, baked beans, and a cookie. There were easily several hundred.
“Thank you,” we said. I gave her a half-hug (hugs not being a thing when working in flood water).
We sat down, some of us in the driveway, some in the grass. We devoured the food in silence.
Sometime in the afternoon…
“Do you need anything to drink?” a woman shouted from a truck that was slowly rolling down Oak Drive.
“No…” I started to say.
“…water? Juice? Gatorade?”
I had been taking a break, sitting in the grass in the sun. Three rooms of flooded books and the morning had caught up with me.
“Gatorade!” I said. “Oh… Gatorade. Please.”
I stood up and walked to the truck — very slowly.
She gave me a 12 pack of bottled water and an arm-full of bottles of red and grape Gatorade.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
Before I was seated in the driveway, I had sucked down two bottles.
Category 4 Hurricane Harvey hit Houston hard. It hit Dickinson harder.
Whereas hurricane rain usually comes in waves, raining hard when the arms of the storm pass overhead and letting up in between, in Dickinson there was no let up. It just kept raining.
It started Friday. It was coming down hard on Saturday.
At 3:30am Sunday morning, Bert texted, “We’re screwed. Flooding in garage and sewing room. Worse next door.”
Trudy texted back, “Will you need to get out? Can you get out? Just saw the radar.”
“There’s no getting out,” said Bert.
When Dickinson Bayou rose out of its banks, the water came quickly. Bert was shocked how fast it was moving across their yard.
He later said he went next door and told the boys to save whatever they could, because it was going to come into the houses. There were stacks of books in cardboard boxes warehoused there and photos and family heirlooms. Bert rushed to put valuables in plastic bins on top of the stacks to keep them dry.
Across the street at the La Vita Bella retirement home, where Trudy and Bert’s mom Faye was living, the staff and the dozen or so elderly residents were in trouble.
Despite an extensive prewritten, 100+ page emergency plan that included detailed hurricane evacuation procedures, city emergency services told the staff to stay put. But no one, including emergency services, anticipated this much rain falling this fast and this scale of flash flooding.
Once the water started coming in, it was 10-15 minutes before wheelchair-bound women were up to their waists. You might have seen tweet that went viral or read the story later.
They thought they were going to die.
The staff and the residents were in the front room waiting for help that didn’t come and didn’t come. A firetruck was on the way but couldn’t get thru. A helicopter was on the way but showed up at the wrong place. The morning after the worst of the storm, Bert waded down to Pine Drive to see if he could flag down help. There was no help to flag down.
He went back to the La Vita Bella. He lifted his mom out of her wheelchair onto the back of a couch, trying to get Faye partially out of the water. He was there when a National Guard truck finally got there.
The residents were all taken to Mainland Medical Center in Texas City. Faye had a core body temperature of 92 degrees when they admitted her.
On Oak Street the water had risen above the top of the toilet bowls. The water was thick and brown.
The furniture was lost. A trunk of photos and memorabilia from several generations. The cars in the driveways. The truck in the garage. The clothes in the closets. Everything on lower shelves. The flooring. The doors. The walls. Wiring. Fans. Amps. Stereos. All destroyed.
And his plastic bins, too. Saturated by the water, the towers of cardboard boxes tipped and fell over, dumping the bins with Bert’s valuable books into a mass of soaking slime.
The morning after. The week after. The weeks. The month. The months. What do you do?
The houses are a wreck — torn down to the slab and studs. Everything’s gone. Drywall, paneling, flooring, furniture, appliances, books, dolls, everything imaginable tossed onto tall heaps running along the streets of Dickinson and all around Houston, too.
What do you do?
Yes. Faye and the staff and all the other residents were rescued. Yes. Bert and Jeanni and the boys are safe. They found dry places to stay. And the cats and the snakes and the turtle.
Just what is next, and how do are you supposed to get to it?
© jumpingfish by David Hasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
