washingtontimes--2020-10-11--Kalispell woman hikes Continental Divide Trail in 5 months

Sarah “ Princess ” Williams can count the number of showers she ’ s taken since April on her fingers , toes and two trekking poles .
“ In Missoula I took two , ” she recalled fondly while walking down Camas Road on the edge of Glacier National Park in late September .
On May 4 , Williams started walking north along the Continental Divide Trail ( CDT ) , in Lordsburg , New Mexico , about 100 miles north of the Mexican border .
The CDT is the longest and most rugged of America ’ s long-distance hiking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from Mexico to Canada , paralleling the Continental Divide the whole way .
By the end , hikers climb and descend almost a half million vertical feet , and pass through 20 national forests , several wilderness areas and multiple national parks .
Williams first had the idea in 2018 , while hiking up to Numa Lookout in Glacier National Park .
“ I was getting ready for another backpacking trip and just thought , ‘ Gosh , I really like this ; I should try a thru hike , ’ ” she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ true .
That was my entire process of deciding .
There ’ s no bigger purpose to doing this - I just wanted to.
” Four months , two weeks , five days and more than 2,500 miles after setting out , Williams woke up in Polebridge with her hiking companion , Peter “ Moonshine ” Weinberger .
They packed up camp , ate a huckleberry bear claw from the Mercantile , and enjoyed their final 21-mile hike to the Montana-Canada border .
“ I wasn ’ t 100 % sure I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , much less Canada , ” Williams said .
“ It wasn ’ t until I made it through the halfway point that I realized it wasn ’ t if I would finish ; it was when.
” TO HIKE OR NOT TO HIKE Leaving civilization behind during a pandemic might sound like the perfect way to achieve true social distancing , but members of the trail community were split on whether anyone should be thru-hiking in 2020 .
Over the spring , articles sprang up in The New York Times , Outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thru hiking during COVID .
There were two schools of thought : those who suggested there ’ s no better way to socially distance than by walking through some of the most isolated terrain in the United States , and those who worried about potentially bringing the disease to rural communities along the trails and straining emergency services in already stressed towns .
In March , the Appalachian Trail ( AT ) Conservancy urged hikers to “ postpone your section or thru-hike ” for the year .
The Pacific Crest Trail ( PCT @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long-distance travel on the PCT , ” instead advocating for local , self-supported day hikes .
The Continental Divide Trail Coalition was less clear on guidelines .
Hikers were urged to stay home and enjoy “ local trails and outdoor spaces , ” but other than stopping water-caching operations in southern New Mexico and shuttles to the Southern Terminus , the official position was to follow all guidelines from the CDC , state and local public health departments .
“ At least online there were lots of people saying , ‘ It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Williams said .
“ That stance I think changed over time , but they never actually closed the CDT down like they did the other trails , and I never checked again.
” On the CDT , one of the few official closures was the section through Glacier Park , as the Blackfeet Indian Reservation closed its western border along the park .
Williams and Weinberger rerouted out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness along Hungry Horse Reservoir and stayed on the western edge of the park instead .
Along the trail , Williams @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overwhelmingly positive .
Hitchhiking from the trail into towns was never an issue , and numerous “ trail angels ” bought food after hearing the story - coffee , pounds of dried apricots , and donuts all were made possible through “ trail magic.
” Of the three main long-distance trails , the CDT could be considered the safest to complete in 2020 due to a large popularity discrepancy .
In 2018 , only 92 hikers reported completing the CDT , compared to 1,128 on the AT and 1,177 on the PCT .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ than 3,000 attempts per year , whereas the CDT averages fewer than 200 .
“ On this trail , there ’ s probably less than 50 northbound hikers and we ’ ve only met like 25 of them , ” Weinberger said , contrasting it with his time hiking the AT when every night he would end up at a shelter with 40-50 other hikers .
“ After a while we stopped running into them because we ’ re all going the same speed and we ’ re all spaced apart .
We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other northbound hikers.
” When Williams set off from Lordsburg , her dad flew out to hike a few days with her , but then she was on her own .
Unlike the crowded AT or PCT , where hikers routinely congregate at shelters , bump into hiking companions on trail and swap groups whenever pace or interest dictates , odds were much slimmer of finding someone to cover the CDT with .
About 300 miles into her hike , Williams met Weinberger while staying at a Super 8 motel .
He had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before she had set out .
A rollercoaster painter most recently from Massachusetts , Weinberger didn ’ t plan to do a thru-hike this year .
In early spring he was grieving : his cat had just died and the virus was picking up steam .
Then in April he heard that the Massachusetts governor was about to announce a stay-at-home order .
“ That was basically the catalyst , ” Weinberger said .
“ I was getting really stressed about the virus and the response and figured it would be good to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I just flew down and started hiking.
” A few weeks into his hike , Weinberger was taking an extra rest day ( a “ zero ” in thru-hiker terms ) at the motel to deal with swollen ankles .
He had heard that Williams was packing Epsom salts and hoped they would get him back on the trail .
The two began hiking together and , other than a few short stints apart , spent every day together until Canada .
Weinberger isn ’ t a newbie to thru hiking .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Colorado Trail in 2018 .
His trail name , Moonshine , was established on the AT , when he popped into a liquor store on a town day and all he could find was local moonshine .
As the only hiker in his group packing liquor , it stuck .
Soon after meeting up on the trail , Weinberger bestowed Williams with her own trail name : Princess .
“ At the beginning , every night after I got off my feet I would clean off , get all my supplies straight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ always sit on my mat instead of the ground because I didn ’ t want to get my sleeping bag dirty , ” Williams said .
“ So he gave me the trail name Princess , but there ’ s not too many people out here to call me that , basically just Moonshine.
” The two hikers quickly settled into their self-described “ boring ” routine .
“ I mean , honestly , we walk every day , ” Williams told the Flathead Beacon .
“ It ’ s not always exciting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what you do.
” Mornings started around eight , depending how dark and cold it was .
The duo would make breakfast and hike through the day in roughly two-hour stints , broken up by lunch and snack breaks .
Hiking 8-12 hours a day was necessary to make it through the mileage goal of 20-25 miles a day .
Weinberger had the highest single-day mileage total when he covered 60 miles to get across a section of the Great Divide Basin .
Other than that split , the two were together most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ending each day at the same camp .
“ We pretty much always talk , and I ’ d like to say he retells a lot of stories , ” Williams said .
The duo quickly figured out they had opposite views on politics and trail conditions - she can ’ t stand heat ; he hates the cold and wet - and different ways of approaching hardships .
“ It ’ s a really good thing this trail has thrown us together because I don ’ t think we would have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world , ” she said .
“ That ’ s really cool , especially in our current political sphere .
You have to look the person in the face and disagree with them instead of just screaming over your keyboard.
” As trail companions , Williams and Weinberger operate on a very blunt level with each other .
That was made even more important after Colorado , when they got caught high in the San Juan Mountains by the Durecho windstorm .
They were hunkered down in a tent with another hiker sipping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Weinberger ’ s tent was gone .
The wind had unstaked it and flung all the contents across the mountainside .
By the time they collected everything , a gust of wind had snapped Williams ’ tent pole , driving it straight through the rainfly .
She sent her tent home and shared Weinberger ’ s two-person tent the rest of the journey .
“ It became more important to communicate and listen to each other because you couldn ’ t just zip yourself in your own tent , ” Weinberger said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the tent and it ’ s very consistent.
” “ It was always a bit of a shock coming out of the woods , ” Williams said .
“ We both traveled with masks the whole time but we never really got into the rhythm of living in a COVID community.
” Off the trail , the world is concerned about the global pandemic , upcoming elections , whether fans are allowed at NFL games and undulations of the stock market .
On the trail , life was simpler and insulated .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ food - and bears , ” Williams said .
“ You kind of think of Maslow ’ s hierarchy and we ’ re very much at the bottom of it - shelter , safety , food and water .
And when any of those things get potentially threatened , that ’ s when we get stress and anxieties.
” Over five months , there were a few times when any of Williams ’ basics were put on edge .
One moment was in Colorado , when she ran out of water purification tablets @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could wait for Weinberger and bum some tablets off of him , or continue on .
“ That was a big moment for me as far as assessing the level of risk I was OK with .
In the bigger picture it was very small , but in the moment it was this big , big thing of , ‘ Am I going to go out into the woods by myself and drink dirty cow water ?
’ ” Williams said .
“ My threshold for taking risks has exponentially grown , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after getting bad beta on a section of trail that led to an extra day of rerouting , Weinberger had to ask for food from day-hikers after running out of his own .
Since directly asking for support is a thru hiking no-no , they perfected the art of “ Yogi-ing , ” the practice of casually talking about how difficult it was on the trail and angling for that last Clif bar sticking out of someone ’ s pack .
In general , Williams ’ food supply and overall support was one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ entire hike .
She spent more than six months before her hike cooking and dehydrating all of her food .
With her mother coordinating food drops , Williams received curries , gumbos and self-packaged olive oil for meals , along with baked goods her mom routinely included .
“ The amount of support she ’ s had is just ridiculous , ” Weinberger said .
“ I ’ ve never seen anyone on a trail like that.
” Over the course of the trip , six people joined the hike for separate stints @ @ @ @ @ @ @ letters from various friends and sent them to a trail drop .
“ Taking a step back and seeing my relationships come to me and being so fulfilled by it was one of the biggest things to come out of this , ” Williams said .
“ Once I ’ m back I want to be able to return the love I felt.
” After a short recovery stint in Kalispell , Weinberger will leave for his home in Texas .
Williams will have a few weeks of downtime before she has to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Kalispell .
The downtime is eagerly anticipated .
“ I expected this trail to be more contemplative and more creative , too , ” Williams said .
She kept a journal on the trail and wrote in it nightly , but along the way , entries devolved from detailed musings on the day to merely listing mileage covered .
Added up , it details 147 days on the trail .
“ I don ’ t think I ’ ll realize how big this actually is for a while , ” Williams said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ take time , maybe looking at a map and realizing that ’ s five months and almost 3,000 miles of my life.
” While that sinks in , Williams will be happy settling for a meal that hasn ’ t been dehydrated and her 23rd shower in five months .
“ I ’ m looking forward to having a more varied routine - we ’ re very regimented out here in what we actually can do , ” Williams said .
“ And I ’ m excited to wake up and not have @ @ @ @ @

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) -
Sarah “Princess” Williams can count the number of showers she’s taken since April on her fingers, toes and two trekking poles.
“In Missoula I took two,” she recalled fondly while walking down Camas Road on the edge of Glacier National Park in late September.
On May 4, Williams started walking north along the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), in Lordsburg, New Mexico, about 100 miles north of the Mexican border.
The CDT is the longest and most rugged of America’s long-distance hiking trails. It stretches roughly 3,000 miles from Mexico to Canada, paralleling the Continental Divide the whole way. By the end, hikers climb and descend almost a half million vertical feet, and pass through 20 national forests, several wilderness areas and multiple national parks.
Williams first had the idea in 2018, while hiking up to Numa Lookout in Glacier National Park.
“I was getting ready for another backpacking trip and just thought, ‘Gosh, I really like this; I should try a thru hike,’” she said. “And then it was true. That was my entire process of deciding. There’s no bigger purpose to doing this - I just wanted to.”
Four months, two weeks, five days and more than 2,500 miles after setting out, Williams woke up in Polebridge with her hiking companion, Peter “Moonshine” Weinberger. They packed up camp, ate a huckleberry bear claw from the Mercantile, and enjoyed their final 21-mile hike to the Montana-Canada border.
“I wasn’t 100% sure I’d make it to the halfway point, much less Canada,” Williams said. “It wasn’t until I made it through the halfway point that I realized it wasn’t if I would finish; it was when.”
TO HIKE OR NOT TO HIKE
Leaving civilization behind during a pandemic might sound like the perfect way to achieve true social distancing, but members of the trail community were split on whether anyone should be thru-hiking in 2020.
Over the spring, articles sprang up in The New York Times, Outside Magazine and NPR about the ethics of thru hiking during COVID. There were two schools of thought: those who suggested there’s no better way to socially distance than by walking through some of the most isolated terrain in the United States, and those who worried about potentially bringing the disease to rural communities along the trails and straining emergency services in already stressed towns.
In March, the Appalachian Trail (AT) Conservancy urged hikers to “postpone your section or thru-hike” for the year. The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) Association asked hikers to “avoid long-distance travel on the PCT,” instead advocating for local, self-supported day hikes.
The Continental Divide Trail Coalition was less clear on guidelines. Hikers were urged to stay home and enjoy “local trails and outdoor spaces,” but other than stopping water-caching operations in southern New Mexico and shuttles to the Southern Terminus, the official position was to follow all guidelines from the CDC, state and local public health departments.
“At least online there were lots of people saying, ‘It’s unethical to hike,’” Williams said. “That stance I think changed over time, but they never actually closed the CDT down like they did the other trails, and I never checked again.”
On the CDT, one of the few official closures was the section through Glacier Park, as the Blackfeet Indian Reservation closed its western border along the park. Williams and Weinberger rerouted out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness along Hungry Horse Reservoir and stayed on the western edge of the park instead.
Along the trail, Williams said that the reaction from locals was overwhelmingly positive. Hitchhiking from the trail into towns was never an issue, and numerous “trail angels” bought food after hearing the story - coffee, pounds of dried apricots, and donuts all were made possible through “trail magic.”
Of the three main long-distance trails, the CDT could be considered the safest to complete in 2020 due to a large popularity discrepancy. In 2018, only 92 hikers reported completing the CDT, compared to 1,128 on the AT and 1,177 on the PCT. The AT is crowded, with more than 3,000 attempts per year, whereas the CDT averages fewer than 200.
“On this trail, there’s probably less than 50 northbound hikers and we’ve only met like 25 of them,” Weinberger said, contrasting it with his time hiking the AT when every night he would end up at a shelter with 40-50 other hikers. “After a while we stopped running into them because we’re all going the same speed and we’re all spaced apart. We went hundreds of miles without seeing any other northbound hikers.”
When Williams set off from Lordsburg, her dad flew out to hike a few days with her, but then she was on her own. Unlike the crowded AT or PCT, where hikers routinely congregate at shelters, bump into hiking companions on trail and swap groups whenever pace or interest dictates, odds were much slimmer of finding someone to cover the CDT with.
About 300 miles into her hike, Williams met Weinberger while staying at a Super 8 motel. He had started from the Southern Terminus a week before she had set out. A rollercoaster painter most recently from Massachusetts, Weinberger didn’t plan to do a thru-hike this year.
In early spring he was grieving: his cat had just died and the virus was picking up steam. Then in April he heard that the Massachusetts governor was about to announce a stay-at-home order.
“That was basically the catalyst,” Weinberger said. “I was getting really stressed about the virus and the response and figured it would be good to reflect out in the woods, so I just flew down and started hiking.”
A few weeks into his hike, Weinberger was taking an extra rest day (a “zero” in thru-hiker terms) at the motel to deal with swollen ankles. He had heard that Williams was packing Epsom salts and hoped they would get him back on the trail.
The two began hiking together and, other than a few short stints apart, spent every day together until Canada.
Weinberger isn’t a newbie to thru hiking. He completed the AT in 2017, and the Colorado Trail in 2018. His trail name, Moonshine, was established on the AT, when he popped into a liquor store on a town day and all he could find was local moonshine. As the only hiker in his group packing liquor, it stuck.
Soon after meeting up on the trail, Weinberger bestowed Williams with her own trail name: Princess.
“At the beginning, every night after I got off my feet I would clean off, get all my supplies straight and neat, and I’d always sit on my mat instead of the ground because I didn’t want to get my sleeping bag dirty,” Williams said. “So he gave me the trail name Princess, but there’s not too many people out here to call me that, basically just Moonshine.”
The two hikers quickly settled into their self-described “boring” routine.
“I mean, honestly, we walk every day,” Williams told the Flathead Beacon. “It’s not always exciting or an adventure; it just becomes what you do.”
Mornings started around eight, depending how dark and cold it was. The duo would make breakfast and hike through the day in roughly two-hour stints, broken up by lunch and snack breaks. Hiking 8-12 hours a day was necessary to make it through the mileage goal of 20-25 miles a day.
Weinberger had the highest single-day mileage total when he covered 60 miles to get across a section of the Great Divide Basin. Other than that split, the two were together most days, occasionally walking solo but starting and ending each day at the same camp.
“We pretty much always talk, and I’d like to say he retells a lot of stories,” Williams said.
The duo quickly figured out they had opposite views on politics and trail conditions - she can’t stand heat; he hates the cold and wet - and different ways of approaching hardships.
“It’s a really good thing this trail has thrown us together because I don’t think we would have sought each other out in the real world,” she said. “That’s really cool, especially in our current political sphere. You have to look the person in the face and disagree with them instead of just screaming over your keyboard.”
As trail companions, Williams and Weinberger operate on a very blunt level with each other. That was made even more important after Colorado, when they got caught high in the San Juan Mountains by the Durecho windstorm.
They were hunkered down in a tent with another hiker sipping whiskey when Williams peeked outside and saw Weinberger’s tent was gone. The wind had unstaked it and flung all the contents across the mountainside.
By the time they collected everything, a gust of wind had snapped Williams’ tent pole, driving it straight through the rainfly. She sent her tent home and shared Weinberger’s two-person tent the rest of the journey.
“It became more important to communicate and listen to each other because you couldn’t just zip yourself in your own tent,” Weinberger said. “But we have our own side of the tent and it’s very consistent.”
ASK MASLOW
“It was always a bit of a shock coming out of the woods,” Williams said. “We both traveled with masks the whole time but we never really got into the rhythm of living in a COVID community.”
Off the trail, the world is concerned about the global pandemic, upcoming elections, whether fans are allowed at NFL games and undulations of the stock market. On the trail, life was simpler and insulated.
“Our anxieties are miles and having food - and bears,” Williams said. “You kind of think of Maslow’s hierarchy and we’re very much at the bottom of it - shelter, safety, food and water. And when any of those things get potentially threatened, that’s when we get stress and anxieties.”
Over five months, there were a few times when any of Williams’ basics were put on edge. One moment was in Colorado, when she ran out of water purification tablets. Her options were limited: she could wait for Weinberger and bum some tablets off of him, or continue on.
“That was a big moment for me as far as assessing the level of risk I was OK with. In the bigger picture it was very small, but in the moment it was this big, big thing of, ‘Am I going to go out into the woods by myself and drink dirty cow water?’” Williams said. “My threshold for taking risks has exponentially grown, especially physical risks.”
At another point, after getting bad beta on a section of trail that led to an extra day of rerouting, Weinberger had to ask for food from day-hikers after running out of his own. Since directly asking for support is a thru hiking no-no, they perfected the art of “Yogi-ing,” the practice of casually talking about how difficult it was on the trail and angling for that last Clif bar sticking out of someone’s pack.
In general, Williams’ food supply and overall support was one of the most impressive feats of her entire hike. She spent more than six months before her hike cooking and dehydrating all of her food. With her mother coordinating food drops, Williams received curries, gumbos and self-packaged olive oil for meals, along with baked goods her mom routinely included.
“The amount of support she’s had is just ridiculous,” Weinberger said. “I’ve never seen anyone on a trail like that.”
Over the course of the trip, six people joined the hike for separate stints. One of Williams’ roommates organized letters from various friends and sent them to a trail drop.
“Taking a step back and seeing my relationships come to me and being so fulfilled by it was one of the biggest things to come out of this,” Williams said. “Once I’m back I want to be able to return the love I felt.”
RE-ENTRY
After a short recovery stint in Kalispell, Weinberger will leave for his home in Texas. Williams will have a few weeks of downtime before she has to report to her job at Youth Dynamics in Kalispell. The downtime is eagerly anticipated.
“I expected this trail to be more contemplative and more creative, too,” Williams said. She kept a journal on the trail and wrote in it nightly, but along the way, entries devolved from detailed musings on the day to merely listing mileage covered. Added up, it details 147 days on the trail.
“I don’t think I’ll realize how big this actually is for a while,” Williams said. “I think it’ll take time, maybe looking at a map and realizing that’s five months and almost 3,000 miles of my life.”
While that sinks in, Williams will be happy settling for a meal that hasn’t been dehydrated and her 23rd shower in five months.
“I’m looking forward to having a more varied routine - we’re very regimented out here in what we actually can do,” Williams said. “And I’m excited to wake up and not have to walk anywhere.”


washingtontimes--2020-10-11--Detroit to upgrade municipal parking system, add kiosks

More than 500 parking kiosks will be updated and another 300 new kiosks will be added , the city said @ @ @ @ @ go into existing parking zones and fill in gaps along city blocks .
Pending City @ @ @ @ @ will include an upgraded ParkDetroit mobile app that will allow users to search by events @ @ @ @ @ most cost-effective parking , reserve parking in downtown garages ahead of time , and eventually @ @ @ @ @ scheduling and ticketing .
The upgraded system will have the ability to send text messages @ @ @ @ @ expiring parking session .
The enhanced kiosks will also include touchscreen technology .
“ An @ @ @ @ @ mobility system helps solve congestion issues and drives economic activity , as residents and visitors @ @ @ @ @ in all that we have to offer as a city through a streamlined , state-of-the-art @ @ @ @ @ Hutchings , municipal parking director .

DETROIT (AP) - Upgrades are planned for Detroit’s municipal parking system.
More than 500 parking kiosks will be updated and another 300 new kiosks will be added, the city said.
The additional kiosks will go into existing parking zones and fill in gaps along city blocks.
Pending City Council approval, the system will include an upgraded ParkDetroit mobile app that will allow users to search by events to find the closest and most cost-effective parking, reserve parking in downtown garages ahead of time, and eventually provide users with public transit scheduling and ticketing.
The upgraded system will have the ability to send text messages that alert users of their expiring parking session. The enhanced kiosks will also include touchscreen technology.
“An efficient, comprehensive parking and mobility system helps solve congestion issues and drives economic activity, as residents and visitors find it easier to engage in all that we have to offer as a city through a streamlined, state-of-the-art experience,” said Keith Hutchings, municipal parking director.


washingtontimes--2020-10-11--Interactive bike tour to roll through civil rights sites

DETROIT ( AP ) - History buffs can roll around sites in Detroit as part of an interactive civil rights bike tour .
The Michigan State Historic Preservation Office is launching the tour which can be navigated from a smartphone or tablet .
The recommended route begins and ends at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History .
The entire loop has 20 stops and is about 17 miles long .
King Solomon Baptist Church is one of the stopping points which were chosen by a 14-person board that looked at sites in a concentrated area of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tour .
Most of the sites were associated with the period of the 1950-1970s and the growth of the Black Power movement .
“ The places associated with the struggle for African American civil rights in the city of Detroit represent a particularly fragile class of resource , ” said Martha MacFarlane-Faes , deputy state historic preservation officer .
“ It is vital that we preserve the cultural legacy and story of these important buildings and sites.
” The tour is part of a larger project to identify and document sites in Detroit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civil rights movement .
Michigan ’ s State Historic Preservation Office focuses on the historic preservation of culturally or archaeologically significant sites throughout the state .
It provides technical assistance to local communities in their efforts to identify , evaluate , designate , interpret and protect Michigan ’ s historic above- and below-ground resources .

DETROIT (AP) - History buffs can roll around sites in Detroit as part of an interactive civil rights bike tour.
The Michigan State Historic Preservation Office is launching the tour which can be navigated from a smartphone or tablet.
The recommended route begins and ends at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. The entire loop has 20 stops and is about 17 miles long.
King Solomon Baptist Church is one of the stopping points which were chosen by a 14-person board that looked at sites in a concentrated area of the city that was conducive to a bike tour.
Most of the sites were associated with the period of the 1950-1970s and the growth of the Black Power movement.
“The places associated with the struggle for African American civil rights in the city of Detroit represent a particularly fragile class of resource,” said Martha MacFarlane-Faes, deputy state historic preservation officer. “It is vital that we preserve the cultural legacy and story of these important buildings and sites.”
A National Park Service grant funds the program.
The tour is part of a larger project to identify and document sites in Detroit relating to the 20th Century African American civil rights movement.
Michigan’s State Historic Preservation Office focuses on the historic preservation of culturally or archaeologically significant sites throughout the state.
It provides technical assistance to local communities in their efforts to identify, evaluate, designate, interpret and protect Michigan’s historic above- and below-ground resources.


washingtontimes--2020-10-11--Cherry farmers pitted against gravel quarries over dust

PAYSON , Utah ( AP ) - Ryan Rowley ’ s orchards occupy a special piece of Utah where elevation , soils and topography collude to create an ideal environment for growing fruit , especially the tart cherries that have long been associated with the family name .
But trouble lurks over this high-desert Eden , which also supplies Utah builders with a mineral bounty needed for construction .
“ You think you would be on a nice country road , but there are trucks and nonstop traffic , ” Rowley says over the roar of passing gravel haulers on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ orchards near busy quarries on the southern tip of West Mountain .
“ You can see the dust on the leaves .
The trees look sickly .
It cuts down on photosynthesis , the absorption of sun the trees are able to capture.
” Rowley rubs a thumb across leaves on a recently harvested cherry tree to highlight the damage from mites that proliferate in dusty conditions .
Some trees have already shed half their leaves - and it ’ s barely October .
“ The leaves are falling a month early .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t capture as much moisture , ” he says as he shakes the branch , releasing a cloud of dust as if he were airing out a filthy carpet .
“ We were wearing masks way before it was cool.
” The dust is a testament to a mounting conflict in this still-bucolic corner of ever-sprawling Utah County where sand and gravel quarries extract aggregates to feed a boom in real estate development and road building , pitting important Utah industries against one another .
While the farmers complain the state is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ say they are heavily regulated by multiple agencies and their impacts are “ minimal.
” “ We have limited access to these materials to support the growing economy of Utah , so there is a lot of debate over how do we go forward .
Those issues are in so many places in the state .
A lot of it is driven by demand , ” Stewart Lamb , director of business development with the Kilgore Cos. , said a recent hearing over an expansion of its Benjamin quarry .
“ If there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there wouldn ’ t be seven or eight mines on West Mountain .
How we go forward as a state ?
There is some really difficult discussions going on and some sincere attempts to make it so we can be sustainable as an industry.
” A few miles north of Rowley ’ s orchards , Benjamin residents are fighting Kilgore ’ s expansion , arguing increased truck traffic and fugitive dust emissions are disrupting their lives and threatening their health .
“ There is nothing that addresses cumulative effects .
When is it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resident Julie Sainsbury .
She alleges the pit ’ s dust emissions are unacceptable , made worse by trucks that trail dust even when they are empty .
Seven quarries , covering about 600 acres , operate on West Mountain .
Rowley ’ s orchards are near the entrances to the Keigley Quarry operated by Staker Parson and another called the Cherry Pit .
That the latter quarry ’ s name riffs on the Rowley clan ’ s singular product is a source of annoyance for Ryan Rowley , who fears the fugitive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could doom cherry growing there .
“ There ’ s some mornings that you can see dust coming off this hillside and filling this valley below us , ” Rowley says .
“ Sometimes , as I ’ m out changing water before the sun comes up , there ’ s lines of trucks waiting to get up into that pit .
They ’ re overloaded .
Their fender flares are covered in gravel .
That ’ s ( what leads to ) all the broken windshields we get .
They ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not covering their loads , not washing off their trucks .
And they string dirt clear down these roads .
It turns into dust , and then it ’ s going up in the air , landing on our trees.
” While fruit growers and residents acknowledge Utah needs these materials , they complain that the gravel operations are unnecessarily jeopardizing an important agricultural industry and their peaceful quality of life .
They contend the quarries and their haulers refuse to take steps that would reduce their impacts and dust levels are inadequately @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comment from officials at Staker Parson and Kilgore , the operators of the two major pits highlighted in this story , but neither supplied a response .
West Mountain quarries produce sand , gravel , crushed stone and other low-value materials used in construction and the making of concrete and asphalt .
Some of this material is processed on-site , resulting in additional industrial emissions .
Across the state , nearly 300 quarries produce between 40 million and 50 million tons of aggregates a year , according to the Utah Geological Survey .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 286 million , or about $ 7 a ton .
Because such vast amounts are needed in construction jobs , it is necessary to source sand and gravel close to where it is used to keep down costs , according to Andrew Rupke , an industrial minerals geologist with the survey .
In many cases , that means siting quarries near where people live and farm .
“ Economically , you can ’ t ship it as far , ” Rupke says .
“ They generally have to be closer to where they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urban areas everywhere .
As urbanization occurs , those aggregate operations move farther afield , but they cost more .
There is a real tension over how we do this and do it right.
” Still , West Mountain growers argue , aggregate producers can tap suitable sand and gravel deposits elsewhere ; good luck , they say , finding other places in Utah where tart cherries can be grown economically .
“ They say they can ’ t go out anywhere else to get it .
To that I say BS .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ off the freeway .
Well , I can not grow fruit in Nephi ( about 25 miles to the south ) .
It ’ s too cold , ” says Genola fruit grower Cheryl Fowers .
“ You can do what you want on your property , but if you do something that harms your neighbor , you had better knock it off .
It ’ s in their own handbook .
We have big issues and they want to keep expanding and expanding.
” Aggregates come in two major forms : Sand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that are screened and sorted into various grain sizes .
Crushed stone is blasted and pulverized from bedrock , usually dolomite and limestone .
West Mountain yields both types .
The tensions at West Mountain are hardly unique .
Up and down the Wasatch Front , most visibly at the Geneva Rock quarry at Point of the Mountain , gravel operations are stirring up oppositions from neighbors concerned about dust , noise and truck traffic .
State law limits the opacity of quarries ’ dust plumes to 20 % , or 10 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to enforce and some critics call it “ absurd.
” “ It ’ s about as unscientific as anything you could apply to this situation , ” says Brian Moench , president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment .
“ The whole thing is slanted toward allowing these operators to do whatever they want.
” To reduce dust emissions , his group urges operators to use natural gas-powered trucks instead of diesel , to cover their loads , to clean trucks between trips , and to relocate mines to less windy and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can be found along 2,000 miles of Lake Bonneville ’ s ancient shorelines rimming the valleys of northern Utah , says John Macfarlane , a neurosurgeon on Moench ’ s board .
“ If you go over a valley or two to the west , you can ( mine ) with much less effect because there is no local population , ” Macfarlane says .
“ If they go a little farther away , they can still make their money , just not as much.
” The physicians group insists the Utah Department @ @ @ @ @ @ @ track dust emissions , conduct more frequent quarry inspections , and establish a hotline for residents to report dust incidents .
In addition to visual impacts , the crystalline silica released when rock is pulverized poses a serious threat to human health when inhaled .
Macfarlane says these sharply fractured particles can damage lung tissue and cause cancer .
All the quarries are required to submit a fugitive dust mitigation plan with DEQ , which conducts annual inspections and responds to complaints , according to agency spokesman Jared Mendenhall .
Most of West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its southern tip near Payson .
On the mountain ’ s east slope to the north , Kilgore Cos. operates the newer Benjamin Pit , now steeped in controversy over its approved expansion from 44 to 97 acres .
Kilgore opened the pit in 2011 to secure materials for reconstructing Interstate 15 through Utah County .
Residents were led to believe the pit and its related asphalt plant were temporary , according to Benjamin resident Debi Brozovich , who helped start a grassroots group with Sainsbury called South Utah County Community Voice .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ won approval from the Utah Division of Oil , Gas and Mining and the federal Bureau of Land Management to expand onto adjacent public land .
Under pressure from area growers , the Utah County Commission then changed the zoning to confine mines to their existing footprints , but that ordinance does not apply to federal land , which predominates West Mountain .
The grassroots group contested the Kilgore expansion before the Board of Oil , Gas and Mining , but that industry-centric panel rejected the challenge on procedural grounds last month , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We have become saturated with mining activity , and it is negatively impacting our community , ” Sainsbury said at a recent hearing refereed by DOGM Director John Baza .
She showed pictures of the quarry releasing dense dust clouds in apparent violation of opacity standards .
“ Having a dust-mitigation plan and implementing a plan are two different matters , ” she said .
“ There is inadequate dust suppression going on.
” While conceding they could do more to monitor emissions , Kilgore officials said the quarry is meeting DEQ ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and are in compliance with the permits we have , ” Kilgore ’ s lawyer Graden Jackson said at the hearing .
“ We pledge to you we will continue to be in compliance .
We are a large operation .
We have no desire to be out of compliance .
We live in these communities we serve.
” Those assertions mean little to growers and residents who say dust is coating their orchards and neighborhoods and that haulers operate unsafely without consequence .
Gravel quarries could take steps to better control and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not to , and no agencies are requiring such measures , says Kylara Papenfuss , a field adviser for a fruit-growing cooperative .
“ They can treat the loads to keep the dust down .
They can put up sensors , ” she says .
“ We have examples where they automatically report dust levels and if they are not within the permit , they can get fined .
” While many in Benjamin are unhappy with the mining , some residents of nearby cities support the Kilgore expansion .
“ As Utah @ @ @ @ @ @ @ access to building materials is crucial to keeping costs manageable , ” Woodland Hills resident Debra Dimmick writes in an email to DOGM .
“ The pit provides good jobs for residents of the county and has been a good neighbor to the surrounding area.
” West Mountain is not only a rich and convenient source of aggregates for Wasatch Front builders ; it is also the geographic feature , rising above Utah Lake ’ s southeast shore , that creates a microclimate ideal for fruit production , resulting in a bounty of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , tart Montmorency cherries , marketed as “ Monties.
” Utah is the nation ’ s second-largest producer of tart cherries after Michigan , and most of this harvest comes from Payson Fruit Growers , an eight-farm cherry-processing co-op to which Rowley and many of his cousins , uncles and aunts belong .
These growers account for about 40 million pounds of cherries , most of which are dried , put into jams or juiced , then sold around the nation .
“ We ’ re in a sloping valley , which protects @ @ @ @ @ @ @ blow , it moves that cold air out of here .
And you can ’ t just pick any spot down in the valley and plop a cherry tree because they like to be warm .
They can ’ t be froze out , ” Rowley says .
“ These trees do like to go dormant .
And so we need that snowpack in the winter .
They need a break .
So tart cherry trees love hot summers and cold winters , but not too cold.
” His great-grandparents were fruit farmers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Utah .
Don Rowley , Ryan ’ s grandfather , and his brothers grew fruit in Orem until the 1950s , when the arrival of the Geneva Steel plant displaced orchards with subdivisions .
So the Rowley growers established new orchards in Payson , where they discovered ideal fruit-growing conditions under West Mountain .
Today , several of these growers ’ children and grandchildren are still in the fruit business here and hope to remain .
“ This is more valuable to me than a stack of town homes and cookie-cutter houses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the orchards fanning out from the mountain .
“ This is a livelihood .
This is food on the table .
This is the opportunity for us to give back to the community as well as to hire kids and schoolteachers during the summer to help us harvest.
” The orchards ’ survival is under pressure by foreign competition , food-safety regulations , drought , and now gravel quarries and dust emissions pushing up costs and reducing yields .
“ It ’ s just a madhouse around here.I just want to see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rules ) that keep everybody safe , ” Rowley says .
“ I understand that we need the dirt and the rocks and the gravel to grow , but as we lose this green space around here , we ’ re never going to get it back .
And the quality of life around here is going to go down.
” Ryan ’ s 160-acre operation , called Rowley ’ s Fruit Farms , yields about 1 million pounds a year and supports three families .
“ This has been the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work the land , be out here .
I love my office , ” he says .
“ I want to be able to pay that forward to my kids and their future generations .
Utah County needs to decide whether or not this industry is important to them .
I feel like we ’ ve been overlooked .
We haven ’ t been heard .
”

PAYSON, Utah (AP) - Ryan Rowley’s orchards occupy a special piece of Utah where elevation, soils and topography collude to create an ideal environment for growing fruit, especially the tart cherries that have long been associated with the family name.
But trouble lurks over this high-desert Eden, which also supplies Utah builders with a mineral bounty needed for construction.
“You think you would be on a nice country road, but there are trucks and nonstop traffic,” Rowley says over the roar of passing gravel haulers on a recent morning as he inspects his orchards near busy quarries on the southern tip of West Mountain. “You can see the dust on the leaves. The trees look sickly. It cuts down on photosynthesis, the absorption of sun the trees are able to capture.”
Rowley rubs a thumb across leaves on a recently harvested cherry tree to highlight the damage from mites that proliferate in dusty conditions. Some trees have already shed half their leaves - and it’s barely October.
“The leaves are falling a month early. When it does rain, it won’t capture as much moisture,” he says as he shakes the branch, releasing a cloud of dust as if he were airing out a filthy carpet. “We were wearing masks way before it was cool.”
The dust is a testament to a mounting conflict in this still-bucolic corner of ever-sprawling Utah County where sand and gravel quarries extract aggregates to feed a boom in real estate development and road building, pitting important Utah industries against one another. While the farmers complain the state is favoring the construction industry, quarry operators say they are heavily regulated by multiple agencies and their impacts are “minimal.”
“We have limited access to these materials to support the growing economy of Utah, so there is a lot of debate over how do we go forward. Those issues are in so many places in the state. A lot of it is driven by demand,” Stewart Lamb, director of business development with the Kilgore Cos., said a recent hearing over an expansion of its Benjamin quarry. “If there was no growth in Utah County, there wouldn’t be seven or eight mines on West Mountain. How we go forward as a state? There is some really difficult discussions going on and some sincere attempts to make it so we can be sustainable as an industry.”
A few miles north of Rowley’s orchards, Benjamin residents are fighting Kilgore’s expansion, arguing increased truck traffic and fugitive dust emissions are disrupting their lives and threatening their health.
“There is nothing that addresses cumulative effects. When is it too many mines?” asks Benjamin resident Julie Sainsbury. She alleges the pit’s dust emissions are unacceptable, made worse by trucks that trail dust even when they are empty.
Seven quarries, covering about 600 acres, operate on West Mountain. Rowley’s orchards are near the entrances to the Keigley Quarry operated by Staker Parson and another called the Cherry Pit.
That the latter quarry’s name riffs on the Rowley clan’s singular product is a source of annoyance for Ryan Rowley, who fears the fugitive dust from the pits and passing trucks could doom cherry growing there.
“There’s some mornings that you can see dust coming off this hillside and filling this valley below us,” Rowley says. “Sometimes, as I’m out changing water before the sun comes up, there’s lines of trucks waiting to get up into that pit. They’re overloaded. Their fender flares are covered in gravel. That’s (what leads to) all the broken windshields we get. They’re covered in dirt. They’re not covering their loads, not washing off their trucks. And they string dirt clear down these roads. It turns into dust, and then it’s going up in the air, landing on our trees.”
While fruit growers and residents acknowledge Utah needs these materials, they complain that the gravel operations are unnecessarily jeopardizing an important agricultural industry and their peaceful quality of life. They contend the quarries and their haulers refuse to take steps that would reduce their impacts and dust levels are inadequately monitored.
The Salt Lake Tribune invited comment from officials at Staker Parson and Kilgore, the operators of the two major pits highlighted in this story, but neither supplied a response.
West Mountain quarries produce sand, gravel, crushed stone and other low-value materials used in construction and the making of concrete and asphalt. Some of this material is processed on-site, resulting in additional industrial emissions.
Across the state, nearly 300 quarries produce between 40 million and 50 million tons of aggregates a year, according to the Utah Geological Survey. The haul in 2018 was worth $286 million, or about $7 a ton.
Because such vast amounts are needed in construction jobs, it is necessary to source sand and gravel close to where it is used to keep down costs, according to Andrew Rupke, an industrial minerals geologist with the survey. In many cases, that means siting quarries near where people live and farm.
“Economically, you can’t ship it as far,” Rupke says. “They generally have to be closer to where they are used. This is happening in urban areas everywhere. As urbanization occurs, those aggregate operations move farther afield, but they cost more. There is a real tension over how we do this and do it right.”
Still, West Mountain growers argue, aggregate producers can tap suitable sand and gravel deposits elsewhere; good luck, they say, finding other places in Utah where tart cherries can be grown economically.
“They say they can’t go out anywhere else to get it. To that I say BS. They want to go only three minutes off the freeway. Well, I cannot grow fruit in Nephi (about 25 miles to the south). It’s too cold,” says Genola fruit grower Cheryl Fowers. “You can do what you want on your property, but if you do something that harms your neighbor, you had better knock it off. It’s in their own handbook. We have big issues and they want to keep expanding and expanding.”
Aggregates come in two major forms: Sand and gravel are extracted from unconsolidated deposits that are screened and sorted into various grain sizes. Crushed stone is blasted and pulverized from bedrock, usually dolomite and limestone. West Mountain yields both types.
The tensions at West Mountain are hardly unique. Up and down the Wasatch Front, most visibly at the Geneva Rock quarry at Point of the Mountain, gravel operations are stirring up oppositions from neighbors concerned about dust, noise and truck traffic.
State law limits the opacity of quarries’ dust plumes to 20%, or 10% off-site, but this standard is difficult to enforce and some critics call it “absurd.”
“It’s about as unscientific as anything you could apply to this situation,” says Brian Moench, president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment. “The whole thing is slanted toward allowing these operators to do whatever they want.”
To reduce dust emissions, his group urges operators to use natural gas-powered trucks instead of diesel, to cover their loads, to clean trucks between trips, and to relocate mines to less windy and populous sites. Sand and gravel deposits can be found along 2,000 miles of Lake Bonneville’s ancient shorelines rimming the valleys of northern Utah, says John Macfarlane, a neurosurgeon on Moench’s board.
“If you go over a valley or two to the west, you can (mine) with much less effect because there is no local population,” Macfarlane says. “If they go a little farther away, they can still make their money, just not as much.”
The physicians group insists the Utah Department of Environmental Quality should do more to track dust emissions, conduct more frequent quarry inspections, and establish a hotline for residents to report dust incidents.
In addition to visual impacts, the crystalline silica released when rock is pulverized poses a serious threat to human health when inhaled. Macfarlane says these sharply fractured particles can damage lung tissue and cause cancer.
All the quarries are required to submit a fugitive dust mitigation plan with DEQ, which conducts annual inspections and responds to complaints, according to agency spokesman Jared Mendenhall.
Benjamin’s plight
Most of West Mountain’s quarries are clustered on its southern tip near Payson. On the mountain’s east slope to the north, Kilgore Cos. operates the newer Benjamin Pit, now steeped in controversy over its approved expansion from 44 to 97 acres.
Kilgore opened the pit in 2011 to secure materials for reconstructing Interstate 15 through Utah County. Residents were led to believe the pit and its related asphalt plant were temporary, according to Benjamin resident Debi Brozovich, who helped start a grassroots group with Sainsbury called South Utah County Community Voice.
In 2016, Kilgore sought and eventually won approval from the Utah Division of Oil, Gas and Mining and the federal Bureau of Land Management to expand onto adjacent public land. Under pressure from area growers, the Utah County Commission then changed the zoning to confine mines to their existing footprints, but that ordinance does not apply to federal land, which predominates West Mountain.
The grassroots group contested the Kilgore expansion before the Board of Oil, Gas and Mining, but that industry-centric panel rejected the challenge on procedural grounds last month, enabling Kilgore to move forward.
“We have become saturated with mining activity, and it is negatively impacting our community,” Sainsbury said at a recent hearing refereed by DOGM Director John Baza. She showed pictures of the quarry releasing dense dust clouds in apparent violation of opacity standards.
“Having a dust-mitigation plan and implementing a plan are two different matters,” she said. “There is inadequate dust suppression going on.”
While conceding they could do more to monitor emissions, Kilgore officials said the quarry is meeting DEQ’s environmental safeguards.
“We follow and are in compliance with the permits we have,” Kilgore’s lawyer Graden Jackson said at the hearing. “We pledge to you we will continue to be in compliance. We are a large operation. We have no desire to be out of compliance. We live in these communities we serve.”
Those assertions mean little to growers and residents who say dust is coating their orchards and neighborhoods and that haulers operate unsafely without consequence.
Gravel quarries could take steps to better control and monitor dust emissions, but operators opt not to, and no agencies are requiring such measures, says Kylara Papenfuss, a field adviser for a fruit-growing cooperative.
“They can treat the loads to keep the dust down. They can put up sensors,” she says. “We have examples where they automatically report dust levels and if they are not within the permit, they can get fined. ”
While many in Benjamin are unhappy with the mining, some residents of nearby cities support the Kilgore expansion.
“As Utah County continues to grow, having ready access to building materials is crucial to keeping costs manageable,” Woodland Hills resident Debra Dimmick writes in an email to DOGM. “The pit provides good jobs for residents of the county and has been a good neighbor to the surrounding area.”
West Mountain is not only a rich and convenient source of aggregates for Wasatch Front builders; it is also the geographic feature, rising above Utah Lake’s southeast shore, that creates a microclimate ideal for fruit production, resulting in a bounty of apples, peaches and, most famously, tart Montmorency cherries, marketed as “Monties.” Utah is the nation’s second-largest producer of tart cherries after Michigan, and most of this harvest comes from Payson Fruit Growers, an eight-farm cherry-processing co-op to which Rowley and many of his cousins, uncles and aunts belong.
These growers account for about 40 million pounds of cherries, most of which are dried, put into jams or juiced, then sold around the nation.
“We’re in a sloping valley, which protects us from frost. As the winds blow, it moves that cold air out of here. And you can’t just pick any spot down in the valley and plop a cherry tree because they like to be warm. They can’t be froze out,” Rowley says. “These trees do like to go dormant. And so we need that snowpack in the winter. They need a break. So tart cherry trees love hot summers and cold winters, but not too cold.”
His great-grandparents were fruit farmers who came from England and established orchards in Utah. Don Rowley, Ryan’s grandfather, and his brothers grew fruit in Orem until the 1950s, when the arrival of the Geneva Steel plant displaced orchards with subdivisions.
So the Rowley growers established new orchards in Payson, where they discovered ideal fruit-growing conditions under West Mountain. Today, several of these growers’ children and grandchildren are still in the fruit business here and hope to remain.
“This is more valuable to me than a stack of town homes and cookie-cutter houses,” says Ryan Rowley, gazing over the orchards fanning out from the mountain. “This is a livelihood. This is food on the table. This is the opportunity for us to give back to the community as well as to hire kids and schoolteachers during the summer to help us harvest.”
The orchards’ survival is under pressure by foreign competition, food-safety regulations, drought, and now gravel quarries and dust emissions pushing up costs and reducing yields.
“It’s just a madhouse around here.I just want to see them have some regulation and follow (the rules) that keep everybody safe,” Rowley says. “I understand that we need the dirt and the rocks and the gravel to grow, but as we lose this green space around here, we’re never going to get it back. And the quality of life around here is going to go down.”
Ryan’s 160-acre operation, called Rowley’s Fruit Farms, yields about 1 million pounds a year and supports three families.
“This has been the most blessed way to live ever, to work the land, be out here. I love my office,” he says. “I want to be able to pay that forward to my kids and their future generations. Utah County needs to decide whether or not this industry is important to them. I feel like we’ve been overlooked. We haven’t been heard.”


washingtontimes--2020-10-11--Pigeon Family Market to close after 40 years in business

PIGEON , Mich. ( AP ) - After operating for 40 years , the Pigeon Family Market announced it will be closing at the end of the month .
The market announced its closure in a Facebook post on Oct. 1 , which extended thanks to all the customers , vendors , employees and other people that have become family to them over the years .
Shirley Ashmore , the general manager for the market , told the Huron Daily Tribune that ever since the Meijer in Bad Axe opened , their sales have gone down .
“ We think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ going to get worse , ” Ashmore said .
The closure leaves the village of Pigeon without a grocery store to call its own , with residents having to travel outside of town to do their shopping .
Dennis Hug , the store owner who lives in the Harbor Springs-Petoskey area of Northern Michigan , has owned the store for about four years after buying it from the Schuette family .
He also owns the Caseville Family Market , with both known as IGAs before taking their current names .
Hug said a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the store when he purchased it , but the residents of Pigeon did not respond the way he hoped after cleaning and fixing the place up .
“ When you invest money , you expect a return , ” Hunt said .
“ After operating the store for so many years , we were not able to take one penny of revenue out of it , we just kept putting money into it.
” Oddly enough , Hug said the coronavirus pandemic was good for the grocery business , since people were eating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out to restaurants , but they did see an immediate decline once Meijer opened .
“ Every store has a basic level of service needed for customers , and you need people working there for a good shopping experience , ” Hug said .
“ When you can ’ t get enough revenue to support that , you have to make a decision , which is where we found ourselves.
” The market currently employs between 10 and 12 people , with more usually employed over the summer .
Hug said that some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Caseville Family Market , while he is confident the rest will be able to find work as other businesses are hiring .
The meat and deli departments were the areas Hug acknowledged were the backbone of the market , with Todd Schuette , one of the previous owners , selling his sausages there .
“ We were fighting against Walmart for a while and we were doing fine because our meat and produce was better , ” Hug said .
“ Meijer just brought a whole new level.
” Hug acknowledges @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Walmart do fulfill some shopping needs , since they are not just grocery stores , but also hardware and clothes stores .
He also had come criticisms for dollar stores , where price trumps everything ahead of good customer service and being clean .
“ Doesn ’ t every town want a grocery store of their own so people don ’ t have to drive somewhere else ?
” Hug said .
He also said the prevalence of online shopping and low gas prices were other reasons people weren ’ t coming into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when people shop at a dollar store , Meijer , or Walmart , all the money they spend on goods flows out of the community .
The Pigeon Family Market has employed all local people and the money flowing into it has not left the community .
“ What ’ s going to happen to main street in Pigeon and Caseville is the small stores will struggle to stay open , ” Hug said .
“ The Caseville Family Market is going to survive because of the summer crowd .
We ’ ll @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them in the bank to survive through the winter months.
” The market will remain open until the end of the month , which is how long the inventory is expected to last .

PIGEON, Mich. (AP) - After operating for 40 years, the Pigeon Family Market announced it will be closing at the end of the month.
The market announced its closure in a Facebook post on Oct. 1, which extended thanks to all the customers, vendors, employees and other people that have become family to them over the years.
Shirley Ashmore, the general manager for the market, told the Huron Daily Tribune that ever since the Meijer in Bad Axe opened, their sales have gone down.
“We think that during the winter, it is going to get worse,” Ashmore said.
The closure leaves the village of Pigeon without a grocery store to call its own, with residents having to travel outside of town to do their shopping.
Dennis Hug, the store owner who lives in the Harbor Springs-Petoskey area of Northern Michigan, has owned the store for about four years after buying it from the Schuette family. He also owns the Caseville Family Market, with both known as IGAs before taking their current names.
Hug said a lot of money was invested into improving the store when he purchased it, but the residents of Pigeon did not respond the way he hoped after cleaning and fixing the place up.
“When you invest money, you expect a return,” Hunt said. “After operating the store for so many years, we were not able to take one penny of revenue out of it, we just kept putting money into it.”
Oddly enough, Hug said the coronavirus pandemic was good for the grocery business, since people were eating their food at home instead of going out to restaurants, but they did see an immediate decline once Meijer opened.
“Every store has a basic level of service needed for customers, and you need people working there for a good shopping experience,” Hug said. “When you can’t get enough revenue to support that, you have to make a decision, which is where we found ourselves.”
The market currently employs between 10 and 12 people, with more usually employed over the summer. Hug said that some employees will have positions available for them at the Caseville Family Market, while he is confident the rest will be able to find work as other businesses are hiring.
The meat and deli departments were the areas Hug acknowledged were the backbone of the market, with Todd Schuette, one of the previous owners, selling his sausages there.
“We were fighting against Walmart for a while and we were doing fine because our meat and produce was better,” Hug said. “Meijer just brought a whole new level.”
Hug acknowledges that big box stores like Meijer and Walmart do fulfill some shopping needs, since they are not just grocery stores, but also hardware and clothes stores. He also had come criticisms for dollar stores, where price trumps everything ahead of good customer service and being clean.
“Doesn’t every town want a grocery store of their own so people don’t have to drive somewhere else?” Hug said.
He also said the prevalence of online shopping and low gas prices were other reasons people weren’t coming into the market.
Hug also noted that when people shop at a dollar store, Meijer, or Walmart, all the money they spend on goods flows out of the community. The Pigeon Family Market has employed all local people and the money flowing into it has not left the community.
“What’s going to happen to main street in Pigeon and Caseville is the small stores will struggle to stay open,” Hug said. “The Caseville Family Market is going to survive because of the summer crowd. We’ll be able to put the money from them in the bank to survive through the winter months.”
The market will remain open until the end of the month, which is how long the inventory is expected to last.


washingtontimes--2020-10-11--Fake asteroid? NASA expert IDs mystery object as old rocket

CAPE CANAVERAL , Fla. ( AP ) - The jig may be up for an “ asteroid ” that ’ s expected to get nabbed by Earth ’ s gravity and become a mini moon next month .
Instead of a cosmic rock , the newly discovered object appears to be an old rocket from a failed moon-landing mission 54 years ago that ’ s finally making its way back home , according to NASA ’ s leading asteroid expert .
Observations should help nail its identity .
“ I ’ m pretty jazzed about this , ” Paul Chodas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s been a hobby of mine to find one of these and draw such a link , and I ’ ve been doing it for decades now.
” Chodas speculates that asteroid 2020 SO , as it is formally known , is actually the Centaur upper rocket stage that successfully propelled NASA ’ s Surveyor 2 lander to the moon in 1966 before it was discarded .
The lander ended up crashing into the moon after one of its thrusters failed to ignite on the way there .
The rocket , meanwhile @ @ @ @ @ @ @ orbit around the sun as intended junk , never to be seen again - until perhaps now .
A telescope in Hawaii last month discovered the mystery object heading our way while doing a search intended to protect our planet from doomsday rocks .
The object promptly was added to the International Astronomical Union ’ s Minor Planet Center ’ s tally of asteroids and comets found in our solar system , just 5,000 shy of the 1 million mark .
The object is estimated to be roughly 26 feet ( 8 meters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s in the ballpark of the old Centaur , which would be less than 32 feet ( 10 meters ) long including its engine nozzle and 10 feet ( 3 meters ) in diameter .
What caught Chodas ’ attention is that its near-circular orbit around the sun is quite similar to Earth ’ s - unusual for an asteroid .
“ Flag number one , ” said Chodas , who is director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA ’ s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Earth , not tilted above or below , another red flag .
Asteroids usually zip by at odd angles .
Lastly , it ’ s approaching Earth at 1,500 mph ( 2,400 kph ) , slow by asteroid standards .
As the object gets closer , astronomers should be able to better chart its orbit and determine how much it ’ s pushed around by the radiation and thermal effects of sunlight .
If it ’ s an old Centaur - essentially a light empty can - it will move differently than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outside forces .
That ’ s how astronomers normally differentiate between asteroids and space junk like abandoned rocket parts , since both appear merely as moving dots in the sky .
There likely are dozens of fake asteroids out there , but their motions are too imprecise or jumbled to confirm their artificial identity , said Chodas .
Sometimes it ’ s the other way around .
A mystery object in 1991 , for example , was determined by Chodas and others to be a regular asteroid rather than debris , even though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s .
Even more exciting , Chodas in 2002 found what he believes was the leftover Saturn V third stage from 1969′s Apollo 12 , the second moon landing by NASA astronauts .
He acknowledges the evidence was circumstantial , given the object ’ s chaotic one-year orbit around Earth .
It never was designated as an asteroid , and left Earth ’ s orbit in 2003 .
The latest object ’ s route is direct and much more stable , bolstering his theory .
“ I could be wrong on this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ appear overly confident , ” Chodas said .
“ But it ’ s the first time , in my view , that all the pieces fit together with an actual known launch.
” And he ’ s happy to note that it ’ s a mission that he followed in 1966 , as a teenager in Canada .
Asteroid hunter Carrie Nugent of Olin College of Engineering in Needham , Massachusetts , said Chodas ’ conclusion is “ a good one ” based on solid evidence .
She ’ s the author of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Some more data would be useful so we can know for sure , ” she said in an email .
“ Asteroid hunters from around the world will continue to watch this object to get that data .
I ’ m excited to see how this develops !
” The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics ’ Jonathan McDowell noted there have been “ many , many embarrassing incidents of objects in deep orbit … getting provisional asteroid designations for a few days before it was realized they were artificial.
” Last year , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , announced that an asteroid in solar orbit was likely the abandoned lunar module from NASA ’ s Apollo 10 , a rehearsal for the Apollo 11 moon landing .
While this object is likely artificial , Chodas and others are skeptical of the connection .
Skepticism is good , Howes wrote in an email .
“ It hopefully will lead to more observations when it ’ s next in our neck of the woods ” in the late 2030s .
Chodas ’ latest target of interest was passed by Earth in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and 2002 .
But it was too dim to see from 5 million miles ( 8 million kilometers ) away , he said .
He predicts the object will spend about four months circling Earth once it ’ s captured in mid-November , before shooting back out into its own orbit around the sun next March .
Chodas doubts the object will slam into Earth - “ at least not this time around.
” The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute ’ s Department of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responsible for all content .

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - The jig may be up for an “asteroid” that’s expected to get nabbed by Earth’s gravity and become a mini moon next month.
Instead of a cosmic rock, the newly discovered object appears to be an old rocket from a failed moon-landing mission 54 years ago that’s finally making its way back home, according to NASA’s leading asteroid expert. Observations should help nail its identity.
“I’m pretty jazzed about this,” Paul Chodas told The Associated Press. “It’s been a hobby of mine to find one of these and draw such a link, and I’ve been doing it for decades now.”
Chodas speculates that asteroid 2020 SO, as it is formally known, is actually the Centaur upper rocket stage that successfully propelled NASA’s Surveyor 2 lander to the moon in 1966 before it was discarded. The lander ended up crashing into the moon after one of its thrusters failed to ignite on the way there. The rocket, meanwhile, swept past the moon and into orbit around the sun as intended junk, never to be seen again - until perhaps now.
A telescope in Hawaii last month discovered the mystery object heading our way while doing a search intended to protect our planet from doomsday rocks. The object promptly was added to the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center’s tally of asteroids and comets found in our solar system, just 5,000 shy of the 1 million mark.
The object is estimated to be roughly 26 feet (8 meters) based on its brightness. That’s in the ballpark of the old Centaur, which would be less than 32 feet (10 meters) long including its engine nozzle and 10 feet (3 meters) in diameter.
What caught Chodas’ attention is that its near-circular orbit around the sun is quite similar to Earth’s - unusual for an asteroid.
“Flag number one,” said Chodas, who is director of the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
The object is also in the same plane as Earth, not tilted above or below, another red flag. Asteroids usually zip by at odd angles. Lastly, it’s approaching Earth at 1,500 mph (2,400 kph), slow by asteroid standards.
As the object gets closer, astronomers should be able to better chart its orbit and determine how much it’s pushed around by the radiation and thermal effects of sunlight. If it’s an old Centaur - essentially a light empty can - it will move differently than a heavy space rock less susceptible to outside forces.
That’s how astronomers normally differentiate between asteroids and space junk like abandoned rocket parts, since both appear merely as moving dots in the sky. There likely are dozens of fake asteroids out there, but their motions are too imprecise or jumbled to confirm their artificial identity, said Chodas.
Sometimes it’s the other way around.
A mystery object in 1991, for example, was determined by Chodas and others to be a regular asteroid rather than debris, even though its orbit around the sun resembled Earth’s.
Even more exciting, Chodas in 2002 found what he believes was the leftover Saturn V third stage from 1969′s Apollo 12, the second moon landing by NASA astronauts. He acknowledges the evidence was circumstantial, given the object’s chaotic one-year orbit around Earth. It never was designated as an asteroid, and left Earth’s orbit in 2003.
The latest object’s route is direct and much more stable, bolstering his theory.
“I could be wrong on this. I don’t want to appear overly confident,” Chodas said. “But it’s the first time, in my view, that all the pieces fit together with an actual known launch.”
And he’s happy to note that it’s a mission that he followed in 1966, as a teenager in Canada.
Asteroid hunter Carrie Nugent of Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts, said Chodas’ conclusion is “a good one” based on solid evidence. She’s the author of the 2017 book “Asteroid Hunters.”
“Some more data would be useful so we can know for sure,” she said in an email. “Asteroid hunters from around the world will continue to watch this object to get that data. I’m excited to see how this develops!”
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics’ Jonathan McDowell noted there have been “many, many embarrassing incidents of objects in deep orbit … getting provisional asteroid designations for a few days before it was realized they were artificial.”
It’s seldom clear-cut.
Last year, a British amateur astronomer, Nick Howes, announced that an asteroid in solar orbit was likely the abandoned lunar module from NASA’s Apollo 10, a rehearsal for the Apollo 11 moon landing. While this object is likely artificial, Chodas and others are skeptical of the connection.
Skepticism is good, Howes wrote in an email. “It hopefully will lead to more observations when it’s next in our neck of the woods” in the late 2030s.
Chodas’ latest target of interest was passed by Earth in their respective laps around the sun in 1984 and 2002. But it was too dim to see from 5 million miles (8 million kilometers) away, he said.
He predicts the object will spend about four months circling Earth once it’s captured in mid-November, before shooting back out into its own orbit around the sun next March.
Chodas doubts the object will slam into Earth - “at least not this time around.”
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


washingtontimes--2020-10-11--Ads, sometimes nasty, play key role in Georgia Senate race

ATLANTA ( AP ) - On TV and online , a seemingly endless stream of ads accuse Republican Sen. David Perdue of being “ corrupt ” and “ out for himself.
” The senator isn ’ t pulling any counterpunches , casting his Democratic rival as “ too radical ” and backing a “ socialist agenda.
” With in-person campaigning dampened by the coronavirus , advertising has taken on even greater importance in Perdue ’ s race against Democrat Jon Ossoff .
Polls show a neck-and-neck battle and the candidates , as well as outside groups , are spending huge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ run back-to-back .
The advertising arms race highlights Georgia ’ s newfound position as a top political battleground , with two Republican-held Senate seats on the ballot and a close race projected between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger , former Vice President Joe Biden .
Ads in the race between Perdue , 70 , and Ossoff , 33 , have at times been downright nasty .
“ The politics of 2020 right now is no-holds-barred .
It ’ s bare-knuckle , ” said Kerwin Swint , a professor of political science @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it fits the moment.
” Ad spending data from Kantar/CMAG shows that since January 2019 , Perdue ’ s campaign has committed $ 13.2 million to television and digital advertising , including past spending and future reservations .
Ossoff ’ s campaign has committed $ 21.3 million .
Outside groups on both sides have poured tens of millions more into the contest .
More than $ 150 million has been committed to ads in both of Georgia ’ s Senate races combined , including past spending and future reservations , according to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Dollar General and Reebok , is running for a second term as Republicans try to hold the White House and Senate majority .
Ossoff is the CEO of a company that produces investigative reports on corruption for news organizations .
He gained notoriety by breaking fundraising records during a 2017 special election loss for a U.S. House seat .
While Georgia hasn ’ t elected a Democratic senator in two decades , public polling shows a tight race , forcing Perdue to go on offense .
Not surprisingly , each campaign accuses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In a recent attack ad by Perdue ’ s campaign , a narrator intones : “ Riots destroying cities .
Officers hunted down .
But Jon Ossoff supports defunding police.
” Footage of fire and destruction plays in the background .
Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support defunding police and instead wants reform .
Ossoff communications director Miryam Lipper said Perdue has “ resorted to flagrant and outlandish lies.
” Another Perdue ad falsely claims that Ossoff has been endorsed by the Communist Party USA .
Perdue ’ s campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that it never happened .
And in July , Perdue ’ s campaign was forced to take down a digital ad featuring a manipulated picture of Ossoff , who is Jewish , with an enlarged nose .
Ossoff called it “ the oldest , most obvious , least original anti-Semitic trope in history.
” Perdue ’ s campaign said the senator has a record of “ standing firmly against anti-Semitism ” and said the ad was an “ unintentional error ” by an outside vendor .
Other ads from Perdue tout his experience @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jobs in business .
In his ads , Ossoff has sought to use Perdue ’ s own words to highlight the senator ’ s close relationship to Trump , amid growing dissatisfaction with the president ’ s handling of the coronavirus pandemic .
Perdue has been one of Trump ’ s staunchest defenders in the Senate , though his own ads are completely devoid of any connection to the president .
One ad from Ossoff ’ s campaign that debuted over the summer cuts together statements from Trump and Perdue downplaying the seriousness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ killed more than 213,00 people in the U.S. “ The risk to the American people remains very low , ” Trump says in an audio clip .
“ The risk of this virus still remains low , ” Perdue says in a clip that follows .
“ We ’ ve had flus before , ” audio from Trump says , followed by Perdue saying , “ We ’ ve had ordinary flu seasons with more deaths.
” Perdue ’ s campaign defended his record on the pandemic , saying he “ has secured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ while working with the medical community to secure PPE and life-saving drugs.
” Ossoff has also positioned himself as someone who will fight corruption and work to reform health care .
In another ad , Ossoff says he ’ ll work to change a law that blocks Medicare from negotiating with drug companies in order to lower prescription drug prices , calling the arrangement “ straight up corruption.
” Both campaigns have largely avoided holding big public rallies because of COVID-19 .
Ossoff has skirted in-person events in favor of virtual townhalls , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the past few months with mask requirements , safety measures and social distancing in place .
Perdue has also transitioned to virtual meetings but has been slightly more bullish on in-person events .
His campaign says he attended 15 events in the month of September with masks , social distancing and additional precautions .
He attended a Sept. 25 rally for Trump in Cobb County where few people in the tightly packed audience wore masks .
Perdue and Ossoff are set to have three debates , the first of which is Monday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ race , Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler is trying to hold the seat she was appointed to less than a year ago .
Other top candidates in that race include Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Rep. Doug Collins .

ATLANTA (AP) - On TV and online, a seemingly endless stream of ads accuse Republican Sen. David Perdue of being “corrupt” and “out for himself.” The senator isn’t pulling any counterpunches, casting his Democratic rival as “too radical” and backing a “socialist agenda.”
With in-person campaigning dampened by the coronavirus, advertising has taken on even greater importance in Perdue’s race against Democrat Jon Ossoff. Polls show a neck-and-neck battle and the candidates, as well as outside groups, are spending huge sums on primetime TV spots that often run back-to-back.
The advertising arms race highlights Georgia’s newfound position as a top political battleground, with two Republican-held Senate seats on the ballot and a close race projected between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Ads in the race between Perdue, 70, and Ossoff, 33, have at times been downright nasty.
“The politics of 2020 right now is no-holds-barred. It’s bare-knuckle,” said Kerwin Swint, a professor of political science at Kennesaw State University. “So it fits the moment.”
Ad spending data from Kantar/CMAG shows that since January 2019, Perdue’s campaign has committed $13.2 million to television and digital advertising, including past spending and future reservations. Ossoff’s campaign has committed $21.3 million. Outside groups on both sides have poured tens of millions more into the contest.
More than $150 million has been committed to ads in both of Georgia’s Senate races combined, including past spending and future reservations, according to the data.
Perdue, the former CEO of Dollar General and Reebok, is running for a second term as Republicans try to hold the White House and Senate majority.
Ossoff is the CEO of a company that produces investigative reports on corruption for news organizations. He gained notoriety by breaking fundraising records during a 2017 special election loss for a U.S. House seat.
While Georgia hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in two decades, public polling shows a tight race, forcing Perdue to go on offense.
Not surprisingly, each campaign accuses the other of embracing mudslinging over substance.
In a recent attack ad by Perdue’s campaign, a narrator intones: “Riots destroying cities. Officers hunted down. But Jon Ossoff supports defunding police.” Footage of fire and destruction plays in the background. Ossoff has repeatedly said he does not support defunding police and instead wants reform.
Ossoff communications director Miryam Lipper said Perdue has “resorted to flagrant and outlandish lies.”
Another Perdue ad falsely claims that Ossoff has been endorsed by the Communist Party USA. Perdue’s campaign has stuck by the ad despite evidence that it never happened.
And in July, Perdue’s campaign was forced to take down a digital ad featuring a manipulated picture of Ossoff, who is Jewish, with an enlarged nose.
Ossoff called it “the oldest, most obvious, least original anti-Semitic trope in history.” Perdue’s campaign said the senator has a record of “standing firmly against anti-Semitism” and said the ad was an “unintentional error” by an outside vendor.
Other ads from Perdue tout his experience in the Senate and his record creating jobs in business.
In his ads, Ossoff has sought to use Perdue’s own words to highlight the senator’s close relationship to Trump, amid growing dissatisfaction with the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Perdue has been one of Trump’s staunchest defenders in the Senate, though his own ads are completely devoid of any connection to the president.
One ad from Ossoff’s campaign that debuted over the summer cuts together statements from Trump and Perdue downplaying the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 213,00 people in the U.S.
“The risk to the American people remains very low,” Trump says in an audio clip. “The risk of this virus still remains low,” Perdue says in a clip that follows. “We’ve had flus before,” audio from Trump says, followed by Perdue saying, “We’ve had ordinary flu seasons with more deaths.”
Perdue’s campaign defended his record on the pandemic, saying he “has secured billions of dollars in assistance for families while working with the medical community to secure PPE and life-saving drugs.”
Ossoff has also positioned himself as someone who will fight corruption and work to reform health care. In another ad, Ossoff says he’ll work to change a law that blocks Medicare from negotiating with drug companies in order to lower prescription drug prices, calling the arrangement “straight up corruption.”
Both campaigns have largely avoided holding big public rallies because of COVID-19.
Ossoff has skirted in-person events in favor of virtual townhalls, holding just a handful of in-person gatherings over the past few months with mask requirements, safety measures and social distancing in place.
Perdue has also transitioned to virtual meetings but has been slightly more bullish on in-person events. His campaign says he attended 15 events in the month of September with masks, social distancing and additional precautions. He attended a Sept. 25 rally for Trump in Cobb County where few people in the tightly packed audience wore masks.
Perdue and Ossoff are set to have three debates, the first of which is Monday.
In Georgia’s other Senate race, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler is trying to hold the seat she was appointed to less than a year ago. Other top candidates in that race include Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Rep. Doug Collins.