59 miles

The humidity here is horrible. Everything feels wet.

The thought of taking a rest day is appealing, but I’m on the fence. The weather is calling for a beach day, and I’d like to get some groceries, shower, and buy some supplies. I guess maybe I need to go to Meijer.

My grocery list: 

• fruit/veg pouches
• apples
• oatmeal
• avocado
• salad
• bananas
• peanut butter 
• tortillas
• lara bars

I had loosely planned on camping at Millennium park, which is not a campground, more of a sprawling nature park, but I got there too close to sunset to find a good spot, and it was also busier than I would have liked. The whole park was basically just a bog with walking trails. Nice bike trails, too, but SWARMS of mosquitoes. It was a full-on assault as soon as I stopped for even a few seconds.

So I kept riding. And riding. I briefly considered staying at the county park HQ, but when I arrived I decided against it. A picnic table and a bathroom next to a freeway feels a lot different when you’re this close to an actual city. It felt sketchy, so I trusted my gut and kept going with a loose plan to scope out the fire station, which was next to another big park and a cemetery. On my way there I rolled through an area that reminded me strongly of Detroit. The gas station had neon bodysuits for sale in the windows and bulletproof glass. 

I decided not to stay at the firehouse. Nature is what I determined would feel safest, even if it was just a clump of trees…I kept thinking about the fact that all the essential things I was looking for—access to water, a bathroom, privacy, and quiet, are all things that chronically transient people also need, and it seemed like there was more competition for it here than anywhere else I’d seen since the start of this trip. By this point, it was about 11:00 pm on a Sunday, and most of the people I saw on the street in this area were intoxicated and/or otherwise not to be fucked with. I was eager to avoid everyone.

Finally (through the magic of technology) I located what looked like a nature preserve near a suburb close by, and crossed my fingers that it might have something to offer. Google Maps expertly directed me to a bike path, which in itself was a huge step up from where I’d been riding since Millenium Park, on broken city sidewalks and ugly stroads.

The bike path led me almost immediately into the peaceful quiet of a sleeping neighborhood. I felt the vibe shift immediately and my hope of actually sleeping somewhere tonight returned. I still had to ride for a while before spotting an area that had adequate cover for illegally setting up a tent. Eventually, I found a grassy area far enough off the path near a creek, covered by some bushes and trees. It was nice and secluded, not visible from the path, and there was just enough space for my tent. I was overjoyed and exhausted and went straight to sleep.

About 3:30 am, I was awakened suddenly to what I can only describe as a sharp, ghostly shriek. Whatever was making the sound was very close to my tent, and it kept emitting the sound in LOUD blasts. Not knowing what it was, I kept very still, and tried to kick my sleeping brain into gear. It didn’t sound quite like any bird call I’d ever heard, but it also didn’t sound like a predator. It was terrifying and disorienting in my grogginess. 

A couple of minutes passed and the magic of technology once again provided an answer: it was probably a deer. This didn’t completely calm my nerves, because deer are still wild and big animals, but just as I started imagining whether I could take on a frightened deer in a territorial dispute in the dark woods alone, I heard a dog start barking like crazy from inside a house, somewhere very close. I guess I hadn’t realized in the dark how close to a fancy cul-de-sac neighborhood these trees were, and I hadn’t imagined I’d be disturbing the local wildlife to this extent just by existing. Being basically in the middle of Grand Rapids, I hadn’t really expected wildlife at all. As I was still half asleep processing all of this, with the dog and the deer caught in their freakish interspecies alarm-response feedback loop, a sudden new wave of horror struck me as I heard a new voice, a man yelling, not at his dog, but at the deer, exasperatedly urging it to go away. Heart thumping wildly, I heard him angrily shout “No one is here, move along!” which was a small comfort on some level, because it revealed to me that he did not know I was there and was willing to gaslight this poor deer instead of taking its warning seriously, but it also planted a new fear that the deer would stand its ground, causing the dog to stand its ground, causing the man to eventually investigate,  while sleep deprived and furious. 

By some miracle, the deer did move along and the situation stopped escalating after that. I ended up hearing it snorting again about an hour later, but this time it was just the deer. 

As they say here in Grand Rapids, praise Jesus.