The Battle for the Rubber Chicken

There were eight contestants in the Best BBQ Chicken Wings in the Northern Hemisphere Competition (also called the Ving Off and the Battle for the Rubber Chicken), held yesterday near Pinckney, MI. The contest brought people from as far away as Idaho to sample a broad mix of homemade recipes. Like these Burning Ring of Fire wings prepared by Wendy and Jen. True to their name, they were scorching hot last night and this morning.








Cheeseburger (yes, that's his name) concocts a batter made from Cheeze It crackers and mustard before immersing his wings into a deep fryer.










Chris won the coveted Rubber Chicken trophy with his wok-cooked recipe called Velvet Heat.













Since we sat on the judging panel, we were officially banned from the competition. However, nothing precluded us from delighting our friends' palates with five pounds of swinging sirloin from Fairbury Steaks in Nebraska.




Rocky mountian oysters deep frying in oil, seasoned with Old Bay and a dash of cajun spices.
Sam dips a golden-brown huevo de toro in seafood cocktail mixed with horseradish and hot sauce. Yummy yummy for the tummy.

Pine River

One of the finest canoeing rivers in not just Michigan but the entire Midwest, the Pine twists and turns some sixty miles across the northwestern corner of the Lower Peninsula before entering the slack waters of Tippy Dam Pond. Also reverred for its blue ribbon trout fishery, the Pine is almost entirely encased by the Manistee National Forest and other than the occasional summer cabin or oppulent log home, the scenery is mature hardwood forest or high sandy ridges covered with towering pines. A day on any river is a good day but a day paddling the Pine can make for a most exceptional trip.

Our trip was two years in the making. In 2005, plans were made with old MSU buddy Drew to go four-wheeling in his Jeep in northern Michigan. The weekend before he drove over from Wisconsin, Drew attempted to replace the tire rods. While removing one of the rods with a cutting saw, the metal disc jammed and bound inward into his right forearm. In the span of a half-second, the razor-sharp blade buried itself into the soft tissue above his wrist. Not a good thing. A couple of pints of blood spewed across his garage floor and luckily for him, a neighbor heard the commotion and called for an ambulance. Too make a long story short, for the next several months, Drew underwent several operations and unimagineable nerve pain. That he recovered to where he could hold a canoe paddle two years later is amazing.

Speed ahead to 2007, and the four-wheeling trip in the woods finally happened (as you'll read about in our next posting). But not without additional drama. Thirty miles from the Wisconsin dock to the Ludington Ferry, Drew's Jeep blew an axle seal. Further inspection by a mechanic determined the entire axle was fubar. We considered shit-canning the weekend and then said, hell with it, life is too short. So Day One was spent scrambling old logging trails in our Yota truck and Day Two was spent running the Pine, with cold Labatts delivered on a paddle.


The Pine may not be the Salmon or Owyhee, but nonetheless, the River Banshee demands respect. A gradient of ten feet per mile down a narrow glaciar-carved river corridor creates strong current lines pushing towards logjams on the outside edges of many curves. Add countless stumps and mid-stream rocks and you have a river not for the unintiated. Like these frat boys who flipped 100 yards below the launch. Other than losing their beer cooler and Teva sandals to the Banshee, they were okay. Can't say what happened to them downstream as the river gained momentum and the logjams grew larger- we sped by quickly and wished them luck.

They weren't the only skilletheads on the river. We encountered mullet-haired locals kicking their way down on inner tubes, adolescents stuck in tree branches yelling obscene comments at each other, large flotillas of college dormmates, and a group of Vietnam Veterans from Detroit. One minute we'd witness a brood of wood ducks swimming upstream in a lazy river eddy. Then around the corner, we'd pass 1,200 pounds of humanity loaded in a raft made for no more than 600 pounds. The amazement of a river trip never ceases.

We can't complain about our river mates too much, though. As we passed a college group from Grand Rapids, the girls yelled and asked if we wanted some turkey sandwichs. They made too many- and besides, most people in their party were too busy guzzling Jagermeister to enjoy a proper lunch. Thank you very much. We had a bag of trailmix and probably would have survived the canoe trip without having to eat bark and leaves and whatnot, but the sandwiches hit the spot. The Banshee is both merciless and merciful.

May Day

Canada geese nibble on delicious dandelion shoots as cars speed past on Packard Road, Ann Arbor.

May 2007 is sure flying by quickly. What a great time of year- the flowers are blooming, the weather is temperate, and the days are long. No bugs yet either. In two weeks, we won't be making that claim.

The boat is in the water and running smooth, thanks to new spark plugs.






Over on Ted's farm, the log birdhouse resembles the face of a man who needs a glass of prune juice.






The grill burns off a little grease before another pile of chickens get cooked over applewood coals.

The National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers

Sitting on a hilltop outside Milwaukee and a baseball toss from Miller Park is the General George H. Wood Veterans Home. The building, commissioned in 1865 by President Abraham Lincoln as one of the original federal hospitals for veterans, was initially called the National Asylum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. And for decades, the facility housed generations of injured war heroes from across the nation. Now abandoned, the only sign of life in the building are pigeons roosting in the broken windows on the tower.

Built in a Victorian Gothic style made evident by tall pointed arches in windows and doors and the use of contrasting colors, the hospital once housed over 1,000 men. Long before the evolution of medicinals and rehabilitation allowed injured soldiers to return to their homes and farms, the Wood Hospital was built for those who made great sacrifices for their country, not out of charity, but instead as a reward.

Life at the Wood Hospital paralled life in the military. Men were grouped in companies based on their ailments and issued uniforms, fostering a continuing sense of fraternity and purpose. Rank and discipline ruled their daily existence, just like on the battlefields of Gettysburg and Normandy. Those who were able held jobs taking care of those who weren't. Brass military bands with legless musicians played songs to cheer up the invalid and blind actors performed in plays for men with tuberculosis in wheelchairs. While a modern VA medical center was later built nearby and currently houses many of our soldiers coming back from Iraq, the old Wood Hospital embodies the spirit of a time when those wounded in war lived in dignity amongst themselves. And, according to a source who has been in the building, the sound of old men talking and playing cards or the muted bleet of a calvary bugle can still be heard from the long hallways and empty rooms covered in cracked plaster and water stains.

Along the western edge of the hospital is the Wood National Cemetary, the permanent resting place for 37,661 soldiers and sailors. The first internment was Pvt. John Afton, a Michigan infantryman who died in the Civil War in 1861. Veterans from every war since lie among the orderly rows. Most are from northern states, but two Confederate soldiers from the Civil War represent Southern Pride. If the South someday does rise again, they will be outnumbered significantly.

In the sea of white gravestones, one is of Marine Cpl. David Gander, killed in Beirut, Lebanon on October 23, 1983. 240 other American Servicemen died that horrific day. May they also rest in peace under the shade of lofty oak branches among their fathers and grandfathers and brothers and let us never forget the wives and mothers and daughters and sons whose forever loss gives us our freedom.

Spring Day

The weather has offered up a welcome respite from winter and we're back to normal seasonable temperatures. Finally. Before going to the Lucinda Williams show at the Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor, we went for a hike along the Huron River. It's not quite canoeing weather, but those days are not far off.

An elm lists over the river, soon to fall.








Mother Goose perches on one leg on a downed tree.

Clear waters flow over rocks and pebbles from the basement of time.










Barren trees sway in the brisk wind below the sapphire sky.

Keys Dreams

Seeing how it's mid-April and instead of tulips and robins we're dealing with yet another late-season wintry mix of foul weather, we've decided to drop yet another Florida Keys post. Maybe it will take our mind off what has become a most dreary spring thus far in Michigan.


An egret perches on a scrub brush at Robbie's Marina, Islamorada.














Baby octopi in sesame and sweet jalepeno sauce, seconds before we scarf it down.








Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, Duvall Street, Key West.






Tarpon swim in the shallows at Robbie's Marina, Islamorada.





No sunset is ever the same.

If you're interested in a Keys vacation and staying at a great place for a great price, click here. Your travel guides at River Rant give it our coveted five-star rating.