Miles Today: 78
Miles to Date: 1,587
June 1, 2015 – Overcast and windy, 55 degrees
Days with 4,000 vertical feet of elevation rise are physically exhausting. Days with 400 feet of vertical elevation rise are just tedious. The trip from Elmore, OH to Dearborn, MI is so flat the only times I downshifted was to climb overpasses.
The few creeks I crossed were full of muddy water from yesterday’s torrents
Some houses sat only inches above flooded yards.
I chuckled at Brewthrough, the most literal drive-through coffee and beer place I’ve ever seen.
Toledo was the saddest collection of aging industry and neighborhood neglect I’ve passed through to date.
Michigan didn’t offer a welcome sign, just long stretches of wide highway with marginal shoulder, thought I enjoyed the cool machine that turns old concrete into new aggregate and filters fine and course aggregate in one process.
I also had to stop to ponder this sign: would I really get my hair cut there?
Off my bike, of course, the people were terrific. The owner of Fino’s Resaturant on Monroe, MI insisted on buying my lunch. Virginia and Marietta, two elderly women having afternoon coffee at the McDonald’s in Lincoln Park were baffled by my journey. They went outside and studied my bicycle, incredulous that it would carry me so far.
I arrived in leafy Dearborn just after six. My friend Bob Basse was in front of his family home, with his brother Bill and their neighbor, Housalla ElMoussa. I wanted to visit Dearborn to explore the Muslim influx, which was everywhere evident on Middlepointe Street.
Bob took me out to Al Ameer, the best Middle Eastern food I’ve ever had. We ordered all sorts of dishes and brought enough leftovers home for a second meal tomorrow
The Awkward Pose 
I’ve lived in both places and ask myself each day….How will I live tomorrow? More than likely without my hearing….How in God’s name did you end up in Elmore? Elmore Ohio is noisiest place I’ve ever lived……Elmore is where silence went to die….I once had a T shirt made up that said…”if you’re NOT making noise, how do you really know you’re alive? No one even noticed….the volunteer fire department is the loudest….now, I know they have to use sirens but honestly, when they pass my store they are so loud I can’t help getting the image of a crew of 6 year old boys all dressed up, hunched over a steering wheel making siren noises at the top of their lungs. The frequency of these “emergency” trips are so often….(sometimes 3 time a day) at all hours of the day or night, that I wonder what the criteria is for a trip….I’ve always assumed it was when life or property is in danger…..but I can’t say for sure, anymore.
Folks here don’t so much talk as holler; as well they love to let whatever vehicle (car, truck, combine, tractor, or cyclotron) sit and idle for hours at a time, at the curb, while they shop or eat breakfast…..I ask people….why do you do this?…I mean there is this thing called global warming…..aren’t you ashamed that you’re poisoning the planet with NEEDLESS carbon dioxide….don’t you have any Grandchildren?…….they just look at me like I have lobsters crawling out of my ears…….I’ve surmised that local residents are immune to any appreciation of causality and I have come to believe, that they believe, that none of them are going to die……and life will just go on indefinitely….that is unless they spend some money…..because as we all KNOW….if you don’t spend money, you will not die…….nice blog!
Wonderful comments! If you would like to know how other people on my trip are responding to ‘How will we live tomorrow?’ you might like to visit http://www.howwillwelivetomorrow.com. That site includes my trip blogs plus the responses to my question.