The AuSable River Canoe Marathon is the highlight of Grayling's summer season. Much of Grayling's existence as a tourist town is owed to the AuSable. Therefore, canoe paddle crosswalks are only fitting.

This was a very odd day. Normally, a sunny 90º day would get us out in the world roaring to play, frolic, and recreate. It started going sideways at Grayling’s little museum housed in the old RR depot and RR hotel. After a late breakfast panini and a craft beer at the Paddle Hard Brewing Company, established way back in 2014, we stumbled across the museum at the far end of town. (A breakfast beer? It’s five o'clock somewhere. Besides, it was already something like 11:30).

This whittler carved out his wooden fish on the main drag of Grayling. I presumed that his subject was grayling trout, although he painted them, or varnished them in every hue except the gray color that is the true grayling trout color. He charged $30 for the varnished versions and $40 for the painted guys.

The Paddle Hard Brewery refers to the AuSable Canoe Marathon.

We took advantage of the outdoor seating on this very warm morning.

I enjoyed their amber beer. The breakfast panini that we split was delicious.

Not since our travels to Holland in 2014 was I compelled to shoot a photo of a urinal. I am afraid that these also compelled a photo.

Time for some murals.

Stepping into the depot museum put us square into the Twilight Zone. We were greeted by a nice elderly gentleman curator. We were clearly the only visitors that he had for some time. The museum was a mishmash of stuff that tried but didn’t quite have a theme. There were some historic Grayling things, however, there was also a bunch of just generic bygone era stuff that was somewhat interesting while not being overly relevant to Grayling. 

The elderly curator was also a relic, and I mean that in the nicest of terms. The town museum couldn’t have chosen a more perfect guy to oversee the place. He was knowledgeable about Grayling’s history and he knew volumes about every object, heirloom, drawing, musty book, yellowing pamphlet, and faded photo in the building. His speech delivery was slow, deliberate, and factual. Whenever he caught us glancing at an object, he would fill us in with loads of snippets and details. 

So, what did we learn? We learned that the town was originally named Crawford. After the short-lived logging boom, the town was left with one asset, the AuSable River. The river was filled with grayling trout. Residents decided to capitalize on the plentiful fish and changed the town’s name to Grayling. Grayling remade itself into a tourist town. There was the nearby Hanson Hills for tobogganing and skiing in the winter, and there were all those graylings in the AuSable River. 

Like the white pines that were logged out, the once-abundant grayling trout were soon gone, victims of overfishing and habitat loss. Yikes, we humans do have a propensity to over-exploit. Anyway, brook trout were introduced into the river and they did, and still do, thrive, along with brown and rainbow trout. The Au Sable became a fly-fishing magnet. 

It also became a canoeing magnet. The river is fast, clear, and beautiful. In 1947, the 120-mile non-stop AuSable Canoe Marathon kicked off. This race is much like any marathon, with tons of professional ultra-competitive racers being egged on by fans lining the river banks wherever possible. The race starts at night near Grayling and ends on Lake Huron.

Grayling's odd Twilight Zone museum.

I had never seen a circular TV before.

Here is a Grayling relevant display. When the AuSable Canoe Marathon began in 1947, this boat style was the standard river racer. Up until recently, a local guy hand-built these boats. I be the curator said they sold for $5,000 to $8,000 depending on the size.

Like the dodo bird and the passenger pigeon, this is just about all that is left of the once abundant AuSable grayling trout: a fin-damaged taxidermy specimen. We were told that the DNR tried to reintroduce the grayling into the river but it didn't work out.

I included this old National cash register because my nephew-in-law works for NCR. Ironically, he heads up the department that developed the cashierless checkout making any kind of cash register obsolete. I'm sorry nephew-in-law, I am not a fan of the cashierless checkout. I guess that makes me a relic like the Grayling museum curator.

It looks like a Norman Rockwell magazine cover, but it isn't. I can't quite make out the actual artist's name at the lower right.

A fur trappers hut. I guess that this goes back to when the French came to the area to trap furs. 

I included this doll house because my sister, Diane, collects this kind of stuff. She would appreciate the amazing miniature furnishings.

I wanted to run a section of the AuSable, so when we were finally released from the Twilight Zone by the curator, we went looking for a suitable stretch of AuSable. One last tidbit about our museum guy. When we asked if he knew of a restaurant in town that had good WiFi, he confessed that he didn’t know what WiFi was. That cemented his perfection for the job in my book. He belonged in that building, in that era, among all those relics. Again, I mean this in only the nicest of terms. 

Back to the AuSable. To run a river, we have some specific requirements. We need to find a put-in and take-out that is connected with a backroad that is fairly short because we only have our ebikes available to set up a shuttle. We found plenty of put-in and take-out spots but no suitable shuttle routes. We either had high-traffic highways or backroads that weaved out-of-the-way for miles-on-end.

Although the AuSable River is small as it passes through Grayling, it is a beauty of a river. The water is clear and runs fast.

After two hours, and much of the afternoon already shot, we gave up. Too bad, because the AuSable looked sooooo inviting. Now what? It was around 4 pm and still 90º. We decided to hit the beach at Otsego State Park.

During the day, the wind slowly but steadily picked up. By the time we reached the beach, it was howling at 40 mph with gusts far higher. No one was swimming. You could barely stand up. After a little wading, we abandoned the park and drove into the nearby town of Gaylord.

There we discovered the North Central Bike Trail, a paved rail-to-trail that runs from Gaylord to Mackinaw City. We put the bike trail on the agenda for tomorrow along with some trail hiking. No more lazy side-tracking tomorrow. This time we are making a plan and sticking to it.

It is hard to show wind in a still photo, but you can kind of see the grass and bushes bending in the stiff wind.

So, we headed up to Gaylord just for the fun of it.

Glossary of terms used for newcomers: 1) V-Jer. The name of our camper. 2) Saturn. The name of our Van. 3) Duende. Our mischievous gremlin that breaks things. 4) Tata. The good gremlin that helps us fix Duende’s dirty work. 5) The Black Hole. This is what we call Walmart because every time we go in for just a couple of items, we come out spending way more than we figured. 6) QT. Quaint Town. 7) Little Buddy. This is what we call our Dyson cordless stick vacuum.

Dave and Wanda

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