Corner To Corner - Chapter 7, The Pasty Highway

The rain had washed the air clean and it was a cloudless morning when we rolled out of Manistique, Michigan on the Upper Peninsula about 8am. We are definitely in the north woods, as it was quite cool and again we needed our jackets, and the bikes, as well as any surface was covered with large bugs that looked like a cross between a mosquito and a crane fly, and if they teamed up could fly away with a small dog. Fortunately they didn’t bite.

We rolled West on US-2, which goes through the north woods of the U.P, and which I have now named the Pasty Highway. You see the road is lined with lots of small Ma and Pa motels and fishing camps, and even “tourist cabins” that were built in the 40s and 50s – most of which are still in business. These are the kinds of motels that used to line all the major highways before the chains took over, and it was almost like a step back in time. Almost all of them had big signs saying “PASTIES”, reminiscent of the “FRUIT’ stands that line the highway outside of Wenatchee and Yakima, or espresso stands in Seattle. I wondered if there was some sort of college for strippers nearby and there was a cottage industry of making the little tassel things that they put on their boobs. Tony, having spent time up in the U.P. said that they are “kind of like a Scottish sausage roll – a pastry filled with meat and potatoes or veggies, and they remind me of a beef stew.” However, that early in the morning, none of them were open yet, however one of them advertised on their reader board:

Pasties
JESUS SAVES
$35

So I have to ask, if He showed up at this little motel would He save $35 on a box of pasties while the rest of us paid full price?

In Escanaba, Michigan we set our watches back an hour as we entered the Central Time Zone. We’ve been in Eastern Time for the last week as we’ve come up North from Florida, so this really does indicate we are headed West towards home. Outside of Escanaba US-2 is joined by US-41. If you recall, this is also the Tamiami Trail in Florida and what we rode across the Everglades, and is a main street in Tampa, Tony’s hometown. Looking at the map, US-41 runs from Miami up to Marquette, Michigan. I’ve always loved the visual image of highway signs, and their connection to places that mean something to me. For instance, US-89 runs north and south through Salt Lake City and the West. While I lived in Phoenix, it was my connection to home – I could be on US-89 and know that if I just followed it, like Dorothy followed the Yellow Brick Road, it would lead me home. I felt a kind of peace when I got homesick if I walked US-89 in Tempe. So here we are in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, about as far away from Seattle and Tampa as we can get, and what do we come across? A junction that split US-41 South from US-2 West. We pulled up and reflected on that -- it was a telling moment for Tony – the pull of his two homes. He could go West on US-2 home to Seattle, or South on US-41 to his hometown of Tampa. We’ve gone through a lot this year, and this trip through the U.P. had been a retrospective for him as the last time he was here 12 years ago he was ending his relationship. We sat there for a bit and reflected on things, and then pulled back onto US-2 West.

Outside of Spalding, Michigan we rode past an outdoor display of finely cut iron work – images cut by a saw or torch into metal works – many on old saw blades. We saw one great “Welcome” one with a bear, and thought it would look good on the side of our new garage so we pulled in to get a closer look. The owner/artist came out to see us – his name was Eric, and he walked with a bad limp. He was a biker at one time, but arthritis made him sell it off. He’d created hundreds of these and sold them by the side of the highway. He invited us into his house to look at more, and we were very surprised to walk into his rec room to see a hardwood floor, mirrors floor to ceiling, some old leather couches, a bar with a metal Harley-Davidson sign, and in the middle of it all, a pole. A stripper pole. He caught Tony staring at it and said “yeah, it’s what you think it is.” He didn’t offer any explanation. Unfortunately it would have been rude to take a picture, although we discretely tried.

The bear sign we wanted was $500 with shipping so we’ll think about it on the ride home. I still want an explanation of the stripper pole.

We crossed into Wisconsin and picked up US-8 West, and in the small town of Crandon, we rolled through a wonderful small-town main street festival with artists, and a car show, and horse rides, and of course booths selling Pasties. I love small town festivals like this, but we needed to keep moving, and I would have no doubt bought stuff we didn’t have room to take back. We stopped for lunch at a small roadside tavern outside of Tripoli, WI with a few other bikes parked out front so we figured it had to be good. I wish I could figure out how to phonetically spell a Wisconsin accent. It’s quite nasal and drawn out – with similar but softer vowel sounds to a New England accent, with some Canadian in it, and they say “yah sure” a lot. They are almost as nice as Southerners and just as helpful.

After lunch we took off our jackets and continued West on US-8 as it dropped out of the North Woods and into the farmlands of Southwest Wisconsin. It was warm and nice, and as usual after lunch we got a bit drowsy. We’ve done six straight days of hard riding and we are finding we get tired a lot more – and we stopped about every 100 miles or so today. At a nice roadside park we even laid on the grass for a bit, and I had a hard time getting back up and getting on the bike.

A few miles after our siesta, we rolled into Tony. Literally – Tony, Wisconsin. Tony has his name on the water tower, and the store is called “Tony Depot”, conjuring up an image of shelves full of little Tonys.

Our ultimate goal was Minneapolis, as Tony has some friends here he wanted to see. I just love riding into a big strange city on a freeway, but we had no choice. Fortunately we had directions to the hotel and were able to navigate through the city OK. We arrived after 422 miles for the day, and had a nice dinner with some friends and watched a fireworks show over the Mississippi river. We decided to stay and rest a day and not ride, which is why this is being posted a day late. We’ll stay here Sunday and just relax, and then head West into South Dakota tomorrow.

So you get a break from us as well. Feel free to get up and move about the cabin. We are half-way home.