Hudson Mills

June 28, 2021

We’re staying three nights in Ann Arbor, at the Graduate - a hotel almost adjacent to the University of Michigan campus, a place we expected to like more than we in fact do. It’s appealing enough on the surface anyway - the staff, I think all graduates of or students of the university, are courteous and open. The decor is interesting, themed around academics and the gridiron - I especially like the chalkboards in the lobby covered with mathematical formulae. They’re happy to let us put our bikes in the room, there’s a fridge and coffee maker. Still, there’s something about it. Maybe it’s because it has an odd, damp feel - our damp clothes seem to just get damper the longer we’re here.

Saying that, I think I’ve almost talked myself into thinking we really like the place after all. Pretty small quibbles, really. The most important thing of course is that we’re indoors with a roof over our heads and can look out the window with wonder rather than dread when the next torrential storm washes over the city.

The lobby of the Graduate triggers a host of old memories.

Looking down the hallway of our hotel, the Graduate.

Ann Arbor sits at the center of the Border-to-Border Trail (the B2B), a long term project to create a bike route completely spanning Washtenaw County, of which Ann Arbor is the county seat. The route crosses the county east-west, generally following the course of the Huron River as it drains eastward toward Lake Huron. The route is a mix of on and off road segments of varying appeal, but there’s a long term plan to gradually improve it by filling in gaps and developing new off-road trails.

We’re here for two layover days, and plan to explore the B2B in both directions with a pair of day rides, weather permitting. In spite of the threatening look out the window this morning, it looks like weather permits if we hurry. Rain is due to arrive in early afternoon, but that gives us all morning. We have breakfast and coffee in the room and are out the door by 8, heading toward the riverfront.

Looking south across Ann Arbor from our room this morning. The weather app says we should be fine until noon, but who knows?

We find out that the B2B has some gaps and signage issues, and probably the worst gap is right here, heading west from the city. We get confused, make some false starts, and add a wasted mile or two until we finally find our way onto Huron Drive, a shoulderless but very quiet two laner that follows right along the south bank of the river. It’s a beautiful riding road, mixing quiet cycling through dense woods with great views across the water. There’s plenty of wildlife about - songbirds, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks, deer, swans, grebes - and turtles!

We’ll be closely following the Huron River most of the way today.

I finally took the bother to see what all these swans are that we’ve been seeing. They’re Mute Swans, introduced from Europe. I was surprised to learn that they’re regarded as a destructive, very aggressive invasive species that threatens native species, habitat and even humans. There’s a statewide campaign to severely reduce their numbers: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/MuteSwanFacts_final_366761_7.pdf.

This was a beautiful stretch of the Huron - a wide, slow, shallow bend in the river.

This is the first time that I’ve seen turtles often enough to start noticing their differences. Midland painted turtle?

The Huron is a meandering, slowly moving river. We’ll cross it a half dozen times in the next ten miles as our route cuts across one meander after the next.

This momma stood vigil in the road for a half minute, inert but alert as cars approached from both directions. I think she’s waiting until her fawn that just left the road is out of harm’s way before dashing off herself.

Along the is stretch of the Huron is a good habitat for birding. I see cardinals, blue jays, and bluebirds today, and even an indigo bunting fly across the road and disappear into the trees. This eastern kingbird is the only one who stays still for me though.

As good as this is, after ten miles we leave the road for an off-road trail and the ride gets even better. Except for a brief passage through the hamlet of Dexter, the next ten miles are completely off road, on a trail that alternates between smooth asphalt and extended lengths of boardwalk where the trail crosses the Huron and the wetlands by the river’s edge.

We’re riding the B2B (Border to Border), an incomplete route in progress intended to cross Washtenaw County from border to border. Ten miles into the ride, we enter 0ne of the off-road segments of the route.

This is a beautiful route through dense woods, much of the way on boardwalks across the soft, soggy ground bordering the Huron.

Dexter, the only community we’ll pass through after leaving Ann Arbor.

At Hudson Mills we added a delightful few miles biking through the Hudson Mills Metropark.

We turn back at Hudson’s Mill, partly because we’ve reached the end of this off trail section but mostly because we are growing suspicious about our weather window. I pull out the phone and check the weather app, and receive the good news that the rain has moved out and we should be good until about 3. Plenty of time! The darkening sky indicates otherwise though, so we head back and quicken our pace.

A few miles later it starts raining lightly just as we’re coming to Dexter. We hide out under an overpass for a few minutes to test conditions but soon lose patience and head up to Dexter to look for a place to hide out and grab some lunch.

To make a too-long story short, we don’t find anyplace in Dexter that makes sense to eat or hide out at, so we decide to just keep riding. It’s only about 12 miles back to the room, and it’s hardly raining at the moment. We may as well go for it.

About two miles down the road and it’s raining a bit harder as we pass a shelter off the trail a ways in a small park. We consider hiding out here, but again decide to continue biking. This is the wrong choice though, as about a quarter mile later the real rainstorm begins. For the next four miles we bike through a downpour, puddles building up in our shoes and shorts. We bike fast when we can but have to slow down every time we come to another boardwalk, heeding the warning signs that they may be slick when wet.

Finally the rain eases and then stops altogether, and we ride the remaining seven miles to the hotel gradually drying off. It’s above 80 degrees and humid, so it actually feels refreshing to bicycle wet. By the time we return to the hotel we feel dry enough to be respectable and not TOO embarrassed to be walking our bikes past the concierges. They welcome us back, ask how our ride was, and express surprise that we got wet - it’s been dry all day here in the city.

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Ride stats today: 41 miles, 1,100’; for the tour: 1,060 miles, 30,600’

Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 1,060 miles (1,706 km)

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