Following pathways

What would life be like without surprise? Encountering something new, moving toward it, then allowing yourself to be swallowed by the encounter, is this not what creativity, and adaptation is all about?
This was my take-away from a bike trip yesterday to a Central Michigan county, with Rob, and here’s what happened. We had tried to mount enthusiasm for a long, rural bike ride starting from Jackson, a medium sized town just West from Ann Arbor, but it was difficult.
Jackson: Jackson State Prison. Jackson: Republicans. Jackson: where small minds are made smaller. We even tried to circumvent the actual town by starting our ride about 3 miles out, and parking in the empty lot of a Greek Orthodox Church, to unload our bikes and so begin a 25 mile loop taking us back toward Ann Arbor, and past some pretty lakes.
My front tire was soft; we didn’t have a pump along. Oh well, I thought, if it goes flat, THAT will be our adventure.
We rode on miles of rural/residential road, past schools, washed out country stories, the occasional mega-home with an algaed pond, a trailer park, small ranches built on 4-5 acres, homes where pick-up trucks, sheds, dogs, and riding mowers were de riguer. It was pleasant, the occasional hill was a riding challenge, and the weather was knock-dead gorgeous. There were enough turns to make navigating a necessity.
A man in a pickup truck pulled astride us to request that we be on the lookout for a lost Yorkshire terrier. Passing an old frame house, we were blasted by rock music, and for a brief instant I fantasized the place as a summer hideaway for Eminem (not).
Another mile, and we encountered a very old farm house, next to a field being plowed by a very old man on a tractor. We waved; he waved back. The house with its old, covered swimming pool and ancient basketball hoop suggested a family had been raised here, in the 50’s. It was sad somehow, this enduring image of a rural family whose children may have run off for Las Vegas, or Orlando. The lack of a flowers garden seemed to signal the loss of the man’s wife too.
As we turned north, there were fewer houses, and more trees, signaling the lake district ahead. I felt lulled into a kind of vague longing for summer icons: a lake, ice cream, picnic tables, a resting spot.
And then we happened upon an odd, weather-beaten sign. Then another one: ‘Parking ahead for viewing area.’ Viewing what? A tree in the shape of Mary Magdelene? A hill-top vista long ago overrun by trees and houses? I braced for the honky-tonk that the Midwest is famous for: “THE WORLD’S LARGEST CROSS.” Or “YOU HAVE NOW CROSSED THE 49TH PARALLEL.”
Sure enough, on our right appeared a dirt parking lot. We steered toward it, my soft front tire sinking into construction sand, and gravel. A bright blue sedan was parked, the only car. There was a wide grass path directly to the left and we eased down it, toward some odd, open space.
What we encountered still boggles my mind, 24 hours later. An enormous bird sanctuary is nestled among 900 acres of forest, marshland, and open prairie. Each year hundreds, sometimes thousands of sand crane stop here. We heard a few in the distance. The sky was flooded with birds flying in and out of hundreds of well-placed bird houses. Purple lupine dotted the landscape. Viewing benches were everywhere, and trails upon trails. And this: no one save ourselves and the owner of the bright blue car, who stood stark still gazing at a tree wherein presumably was a rare bird.
We rode our bikes on the trails, past a lake, into another open area, through some forest, and looped back to our beginnings. Apparently the area is home to many rare birds, including a bald eagle. We were agape in wonderment, to discover such a place, hidden from the road, maintained by the Audubon Society, donated by a man who lost his only daughter, in 1935.
Follow an uncharted pathway, and this is what can happen.