The campground was very quiet when I awoke. I guess that comes from having over 150 campsites which are fully occupied on weekends but by Monday morning all the keen mountain bikers have gone home. It was incredibly humid and my tent and sleeping bag were enveloped in moisture. I couldn’t see the sky but it looked and felt like rain was in the air.

After breaking camp and loading my bike I cycled into town. It never ceases to amaze me how when I’m trying to go somewhere it always takes longer than the return journey. Last evening it felt like I would never reach the campground, but in the light of day it was only 3 km from the road to the campsites and a further 6 km to the petrol station where I had stopped for directions. Seemed so much longer yesterday …

There was a cycle path along the road which I followed but it proved to be quite rough so fearing further damage to my wheel I took to the road. The traffic was light so I really didn’t bother them and before too long I found myself in the outskirts of the city itself. After dead reckoning it to the area where I thought the centre of town was I asked directions from a couple of workers standing on the roadside and they pointed me a few blocks down the road. I’ve developed a technique for getting their sympathy—I say ‘excuse me, I’m hopelessly lost and I’m hoping you can help’—and whether it is due to my honesty (I’m usually lost in some way) or just peoples general helpfulness, people have always helped out.

I got to the bicycle shop just after 9 a.m. and it didn’t open until 10. They had a sheltered entrance off the road and I parked my bike by the front door and then sat down and worked on my journal. I’m glad that I had got an early start since about 9:20 it started raining, and didn’t stop for the next 4 hours. This was also real heavy rain with strong winds and sometimes I got wet even though I was well sheltered. Welcome to the land of the Michigan Monsoon.

At 10 a.m. the owner Mike opened the door and seeing me said he’d send out his bike mechanic. Dan arrived a few minutes later as I’d finished packing my computer. I followed him inside and after taking off my panniers took my bike downstairs to the workshop. I was surprised how large it was but they had 4 bike mechanics so obviously cycling is big business in this part of Michigan.

Dan spent the next hour on my bike and did his best to fix the rear wheel. What seems to have happened is that I hit a pothole or something which caused the wheel to significantly flex. The spokes at the point of impact broke in compression and the rim on the opposite side of the impact was bowed out. The big problem was getting the wheel to be round again and he spent some time trying to do this which was very difficult for him. After tidying up the wheel he gave my bike a once over and adjusted my derailleur as well as straightening the derailleur hanger which must have been bent when the bike was shipped. He also showed me the inner tubes that he had put water into and I was amazed that anyone could have cycled at all with such a load on the wheels. It’s surprising just how much water the inner tubes can hold!

After an hour we were finished but since it was still pouring with rain I chatted to the staff. The owner Mike was very friendly and had trekked part of the Annapurna circuit in Nepal so we reminisced about that beautiful country. He had been to Perth Australia but was very keen on coming to N.Z. so I told him how much nicer N.Z. is than Australia and gave him my card to look me up should he ever make it there. Like most shops I’ve been in they had an amazing array of gadgets and things to relieve you of money and some of the most expensive bikes I’ve ever seen. Very nice but I really wonder why anyone needs to spend several thousand dollars on a bike.

By the time I had read all their magazines, gawked at all the gear and gadgets the rain had let up from a heavy roar to a light drizzle so I decided to venture out to ‘Kellogg’s Cereal City’. I was told that this was a museum which told the history of cereal as well as showing you the engineering processes by which it was made. As someone who is keen on both history and engineering it sounded like a must for me so donning my rain gear I headed off the few blocks to the museum. It was interesting, but I was unprepared for the rampant commercialism of the place, I know I should have been but …

After paying my fee I went into a cinema where they told the history of cereal, with particular emphasis on Kellogg’s [by the way, Kellogg’s is so well known that it is in the dictionary for Microsoft ® Word!]. I’m going to cover this in some detail since many of you know that I belong to the Seventh-day Adventist church, but you may not know that Kellogg’s started from our church work.

Our church had its origins in the early 1800s, mainly in New England and New York state. In 1853 one of our pioneers, Joseph Bates, came to Battle Creek to try and start the church work in this city. Not knowing anyone, he went to the postmaster and asked who the most honest person in town was since he thought that he would be receptive to the Bible message of our church. David Hewitt, a pots and pan peddler, was suggested to be the most honest man in town as he was known to walk several miles to return a few cents had a mistake been made. Bates visited Mr and Mrs. Hewitt and after studying with them all day and into the night they accepted the message. Thus began the church in Battle Creek.

Over the next few years the administration and institutions of the church moved to Michigan and a general call went out for church members to help the work develop in the mid-West by moving to Michigan. Our church organisation was promulgated and finalised in Battle Creek by the 1860s and the work grew fairly rapidly.

At the same time one of our leaders, Ellen White, received a vision from God concerning health. She was shown that many of the treatments then in use to treat diseases were as dangerous as the disease they were supposed to cure. These were treatments such as blood letting, arsenic and mercury, and other toxic substances. She was shown that what was needed was a whole-person concept of health and this developed into the eight principles of health which we as a church identify using the term NEW START: Nutrition—have a healty, preferably vegetarian, diet; Exercise—exercise regularly; Water—drink at least eight glasses of water a day and use it for treatments as well; Sunlight—get some sunlight on your skin; Temperance—don’t overeat, overwork or overdo it in anything; Air—get lots of fresh air; Rest—get sufficient sleep; Trust in God. We believe that if one follows these principles one will have a healthy and productive life as God meant us to be able to live.

When I present these principles almost everyone agrees with them. But these were really radical 150 years ago. Then they thought, for example, that tomatoes were poison. The story is told of the crowd who gathered to watch someone in New York eat three tomatoes thinking he was committing suicide. They thought that fresh air was bad for you and that the night air brought disease. Consequently, they lived in closed rooms. Etc.

Our church decided to found a special health centre where people would receive the best scientific treatment then available, but also where they would learn how to present disease through lifestyle changes through nutrition, exercise and sanitation. The centre would be a place where each person was valued as a creation of God and where caregivers helped create a positive healing environment by providing special patient care. In 1866 they founded the ‘Health Reform Institute’ which was later renamed by its medical superintendent Dr. John Harvey Kellogg the ‘Battle Creek Sanitarium’.

Dr. Kellogg was an incredible individual. Not only did he run the Sanitarium, but he regularly operated on patients; authored many books; invented an array of equipment to promote exercise and healing; but he also worked on ways of developing nutritious foods for his patients with the help of his wife and brother Bill Kellogg who also worked at the Sanitarium. It is said that he was inspired to develop an easier to chew breakfast cereal because on of his patients gave him a bill for $10 to cover the cost of the teeth she broke on his existing fare.

After a great deal of experiments, and some blind luck, they worked out how to make cereal flakes which still contained the goodness of the grains they were based on, but were easy to chew. Thus were invented corn flakes. They were not marked outside of the Sanitarium until one of their patients, Charles Post, saw the commercial potential and established Post Cereals which today still make Grape Nuts which was based on what he had at the Sanitarium.

Eventually, Bill left the Sanitarium to develop and marked what became Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, having fallen out with brother John over the commercialisation of their invention. John continued to run the Sanitarium until it was closed in the late 1930s and sold to the US Government.

Battle Creek became the home for cereals and at one time there was about 30 companies making different products there. It is still the home of Kellogg’s and is where they make their flaked cereals such as Corn Flakes.

This, in a cornhusk, is the history of cereal which was shown in the film at Kellogg’s. I had read a lot on it before and so was familiar with it and the film was quite true to what I had read elsewhere, covering the role of people like Ellen White, Charles Post, Bill and John Kellogg with their high and low points. What I wasn’t aware of was the role that advertising played and how Kellogg’s blazed the way throughout the 20^th century with its advertising campaigns. They showed how they developed over time and increased in sophistication. It was quite something to compare the original ‘Snap Crackle and Pop’ from the 1930s to the ones today.

After the film I wandered around the building. It was really aimed at kids (OK, young kids, not overgrown ones like me) but they still had a number of good and thought provoking exhibits. One of the best was where they had the different ‘national’ breakfasts from around the world and contrasted the nutritional content of a cereal breakfast with, say, bacon and eggs. Glad I’m a cereal man (with soy milk when possible). They also had more samples of the advertising that was used over the years and how they used to sponsor shows like the ‘Beverly Hillbillies’ [without a doubt the best to ever come from Hollywood].

I visited the small area where they showed how corn flakes were made. Suffice to say that the process is fascinating and they can churn out (if I recall correctly) over 200,000 boxes per day. At the end of the process they had some bins where we could taste the product, still warm. Very nice. Which reminds me, one of the reasons why Bill and John Kellogg fell out was that Bill added flavouring to the corn flakes to make them tastier and sell better. Having no nutritional value John was opposed to this on principle.

By the time I emerged the rain was definitely on the way out so I went over to the Dr. J.H. Kellogg ‘Discovery Center’ which was nearby. Run by our church, this is dedicated to showing some of the health treatments and equipment developed by Dr. Kellogg. It was very fascinating as he invented and patented the first mechanical horse which was used both in the White House and on the ill-fated Titanic for exercise. He even created a mechanical camel which simulated the camel’s gait. He had vibro-therapy machines which were much like the foot massagers we see all over Asia and even developed a posture chair which had a curved back to enforce proper posture. That felt strange to sit in, but served its purpose. There was another good film on Dr. Kellogg’s life which had some things in common with my earlier film at Cereal City, but was focused on Dr. Kellogg and the Sanitarium.

The small museum was crowded with Philippinos returning from our church meetings in Toronto. Every 5 years the world-wide church meets for a ‘General Conference’ session to work on the business of the church. I would like to have attended but the timing was out by a week: I had to make it over the Sierra and Rockies after the snow melted. They saw my bike and were incredulous at my trip. One of them ‘interviewed’ me on his camcorder.

From there I went over to the ‘Historic Adventist Village’ which is under development and just opened the week before. It is an attempt to bring together a number of buildings associated with people who founded our church onto one large site in the city and to restore the buildings to their condition in the second half of the 19^th century. It is an ambitious project but, once finished, will give a good flavour of the history and events associated with our pioneers. I had mixed feelings about this but we will see how it develops. I found it interesting and they had university students volunteering for the summer dressed in 19^th century clothes explaining about the buildings and the history. I had a long chat with Stanley Cottrell, the director, and suggested some areas to consider changes in light of my visiting so many museums and other exhibits during my trip across America. He seemed to appreciate the constructive comments. While at the village I met Bill Liversidge who is a minister based in the USA who runs Bible study programmes throughout the world. I last saw him over a year ago in N.Z. He was with some family and a friend returning from Toronto. It’s a small world.

It was by now well into the afternoon but the skies were finally clearing and so I set out along Highway 66 north and then on 78 NE towards Lansing. I cycled past the old Sanitarium—now the Federal Building—and was amazed at how massive it was. They had a lot of demand until the depression then they couldn’t meet operating expenses so sold it to the government and downsized. An object lesson for all businesses. All there is now is a historical plaque telling of Dr. Kellogg’s and the Sanitarium’s histories.

The route I followed went parallel to Interstate 69 and was through beautiful country with lots of forests. The sky was blue but as I approached Charlotte it began to darken. It felt like rain was in the air so I went on as fast as I could and just on the outskirts of town it began to rain quite heavily. Fortunately, there was a school so I shot up under the canopy in front of the doors and dried off. I was very fortunate because the rain became very, very heavy and I was really only damp. I unpacked my computer and worked for over an hour and then waited longer for the rain to go down to a light drizzle. This was not a good day for cycling!

I eventually got under way again and headed into town. As per usual in Michigan there were no signs so I got some directions out of town at a gas station and then stopped at an ice cream shop (no, I didn’t have any) to find out how to get to Lansing. The woman in the shop said that the road I was on went there, even though my excellent (!) map indicated otherwise. She was excited to meet someone from N.Z. as she had recently been there on a holiday and loved the place.

After grabbing a vegetarian pita at Wendy’s, I cycled out of town and past a huge Wal*Mart. The road seemed to consist of lots of car dealers, mega stores, although I was soon into the countryside again. It seemed to be a service road as it ran parallel to the Interstate for most of its way. I didn’t mind this as most of the traffic was on the Interstate and it was a four-lane highway with good shoulders.

As I entered Lansing I noticed a delightful river on the side of the road with houses along it. The rivers and trees in this part of the country are very nice to see. The picture below doesn’t do it justice, but this was about 10 minutes from downtown Lansing.

Lansing is the capital of Michigan. Most foreigners I have met thought that Detroit was the capital but for some reason it seems that in many states the capitals are not in the major cities. For example, in Wisconsin it is Madison, not Milwaukee; in California it is not LA or San Francisco but Sacramento; in Nebraska it is not Omaha but Lincoln; etc. I’d love to know how this came about, but nobody has been able to advise me. The capital buildings in Lansing are impressive, as you can see from the photo below.

The city seemed pleasant and was not just a civil service city. GM has a large plant here and I suspect that it is where Oldsmobiles are made since I went past Olds road. It was quite late when I got to the town and I was advised that the nearest camp site was at Ruby Lake, NE of town, so I made my way there.

It was getting dark as I reached the outskirts of town and a woman in a pickup truck stopped to chat. Sue was a very keen cycle tourist and had passed me and driven probably about 5 miles back to see if I was OK. I told her my plans and we chatted about cycling. She was amazing and has not only toured N.Z. but also quite a few tours in the USA. I ended up accepting an offer to stay at her place for the night—she promised her husband wouldn’t mind (or be surprised)—so it was into the back of her pickup with my bike and I sat there as she drove back up where I had come from to her place by Park Lake. I found it so strange to be travelling at such a high speed, although it was probably only about 70 km/h, since I had been pottering along at 15-25 km/h for so long.

We put my bike in the shed and went in where I met her husband Curtis Remington. Curtis is an artist and he showed me some of the incredible things that he had been doing with Adobe Photoshop. After he described it to me I am now convinced that we definitely cannot believe our eyes. At least not when they have some hotshot like Curtis around. Their house was on the lake and was very nice. I was given a futon in the basement. They had the most amazing poster on the stairs going down. For those who have not experienced what I would Avante-Garde art in Europe it would probably be lost on you but I’ll try and describe it. They had got it in Amsterdam where they had been struck by how vivid and eye catching it was. The poster had a black background and a fellow who had a white shirt, white hair and white makeup on. His eyelids and nose were painted red and yellow and he had a tulip in his mouth. I know it sounds bizarre—it looked bizarre—but it really was the most eye catching picture I have ever seen. Lis wouldn’t let it in the house, but you have to admire the artist who executed the idea.

I had a long chat with Sue who has had an array of cycling experiences—Curtis doesn’t cycle—and then chatted quite late with Curtis. Sue had mentioned that he was a Chicago Cubs baseball fan and that they were going to Minnesota to watch a game. I noticed a photo of Curtis as a baseball catcher and that was when I learned just how passionate a Chicago Cubs fan he was.

It is important at this point to explain about the unusual passion that some American baseball teams evoke. Unlike N.Z., who only likes a winner, that is not always an issue when it comes to following baseball teams. If I recall correctly the Cubs have not made it to a World Series final since just after World War II, and last won the pennant in 1908. They did get close once in the 1980s, but are basically an ‘also ran’ team. The Chicago White Sox are much more up with a winning formula, but I have not met any White Sox followers whereas I have met several Cubs followers in my travels.

One of the things that the Cubs do for their (wealthier?) fans is run what is called a ‘Fantasy’ baseball camp. Or at least that is how Curtis described it. After paying a (large—according to Sue) fee, the fans are taken to the camp where the Cubs do their spring training, are given a real uniform and treated like real players, and play ball for a week or so. They have a number of teams (10?) and the highlight is at the end of the camp when they play retired Cubs players in a real game.

It was obvious from Curtis how much he enjoyed it and they even gave them baseball cards with their pictures on them, which is what I had seen in the kitchen along with an enlargement. They are treated really well and in spite of the pain, view it as a very positive experience. What pain? Well, imagine a whole horde of enthusiastic fans with different levels of fitness (or lack thereof) trying to play baseball every day for a week. Sue described how she went out to dinner with them and they pleaded not to go into a restaurant with stairs since their knees couldn’t take it. I chuckled at her description of the fellow with the black eye where he misjudged a catch. I guess it’s a male thing since I thought it was wonderful how these guys could life out their fantasies, and apparently some go back year after year. I reflected on how it would go down in N.Z. but I can’t see cricket or rugby (definitely not rugby) being able to achieve this the way that baseball has.

By then it was extremely late and we all retired. I had a wonderful shower and fell into bed exhausted. It had been a long day, interrupted by frequent rain, but I had still managed a reasonable distance and the kindness extended by Sue and Curtis meant that I had a comfortable bed for a night and great company.