If you have ever had the opportunity to spend time in the waiting area of a auto repair facility you will completely understand what I am about to describe. The best and cleanest of facilities is inherently boring and tedious. I was last there to have a tire fixed which turned into a bit more of a repair than I had expected and spent a good two and a half hours with a smart phone as my only amusement. Let's just say I wasn't amused. There was a TV blaring banal idiotic daytime television shows and in the big open room there was no escaping the drivel, canned laughter and inane subject material. It was distracting and annoying.
Fast forward to today, knowing that getting new shocks and struts was going to be a two hour wait and we had delightful weather I loaded up my bike with panniers including a laptop, in case it really got long, and set off to explore downtown Brighton.
What a treat! It was early morning cool with much of the town still quiet and sleeping. Working folks had already been off to their commute and the rest of town had yet to become a buzz. I meandered my way into downtown via a back-behind-busy-Grand-River route that I had discovered some years earlier to avoid the traffic congestion along the main thoroughfare and wound my way through tree lined streets with quaint homes and plenty of flowering shrubs and of course ended up by the mill-pond, smack in the center of downtown. Poking around the mill-pond and tridge I found a route that ran just behind all of the businesses all the way back to Belle Tire where my car was. Cool. I knew there were walkways and paths all around the mill-pond but did not know that it ran all the way down Grand River for the entire length of the pond and connecting downtown proper with all the new businesses sprouted up down the Grand River corridor.
Mill-pond and tridge in the distance
Downtown.Brighton
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| Boardwalk and walkway behind Grand River |
So I wound my way back to downtown, explored the east side of Main Street and neighborhoods over there and eventually made my way back downtown to Lynn's Cafe for a leisurely breakfast. Before heading out for more exploring I pulled out my laptop and did some scouting for a trip I will be taking this weekend. I hope to do a bike ride in the Tip of the Mitt later this summer from Charlevoix to Mackinaw Island and I'll be using part of this trip to scout out potential routes and places for food and lodging along the way. My trip this weekend will be all the way past the tip o' the mitt to the tip top of the UP (upper peninsula of Michigan) for a conference for the Charter School Academy Board that I serve on, that retreat is in Sault St. Marie on the US side. There is a sister city across the St. Mary's River in Canada. The St. Mary's River connects Lake Superior to Lake Huron. If you look at a map of Michigan the lower peninsula is mitten shaped. So us Michiganders refer to our state as the Mitten State. Youpers (those living in the UP) refer to us as trolls because we live below the bridge. That would be the Mighty Mac otherwise known as the Mackinaw Bridge, linking the upper and lower peninsulas together.
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Brighton has done a fabulous job making a walk-able community
and connecting businesses with downtown |
So before I had done much more exploring the phone rang to let me know my car was ready. Wow, where did that time go? I made my way back to Belle Tire, loaded up and was off to Hudson Mills for a few laps.
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| Lynn's Cafe |
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