The Spokesrider

Today’s issue of the Battle Creek Enquirer has a very nice article by Ryan Holland: “Uninished Tribute to the Open Road.” It’s about the strange-looking monument that is peeking above the “Welcome to Battle Creek” sign where I-194 ends in Battle Creek. (I took the photos in this article on my way out of town [...]

I thought I had a story from F Drive North in Emmett Township from last Sunday’s bike ride, even if the photos weren’t particularly interesting. It was vaguely related to the story of the 1832 cholera epidemic that I was following. But now I see that even the photos I have don’t fit the story. [...]

Today was cloudy and not such a good day for picture-taking, but cool enough for a pleasant 30-mile bike ride. The theme of today’s bike ride was the 1832 cholera epidemic that came with the Black Hawk war. The final stop was at Oakridge Cemetery in Marshall, MI. I had hoped to find a handful [...]

In all the times I’ve ridden to Athens, until last Saturday I don’t think I had ever taken the county road that follows the north edge of the prairie that drew settlers there in 1831. The photo is at the east end of the prairie (which they called Dry Prairie) at the place marked by [...]

` Last weekend was my second overnight, self-contained tour of the year. I started this one the same as the last one, by heading south to Athens. The above is a mile or two north of town. In the spring of 1832 the town was only a year old. A world-wide cholera epidemic reached the [...]

Last week in Iowa and southern Minnesota, we saw a lot of road signs that seem to be a new feature of the last several years. It seems that as the countryside gets depopulated, it is no longer necessary to maintain all of the section-line roads. There are no longer any children living on them [...]

The start of an overnight, self-contained tour always brings excited anticipation: What did I forget this time? Last year it was tent stakes. Once it was tent poles. Another time it was the right set of tent poles. This time it was a map for the north part of Calhoun County. Oh, well. I figured [...]