Finally, Battle Creek has an independent bookstore!
Located downtown on West Michigan Ave., Battle Creek Books is brimming with great books both new and used along with newspapers, magazines and other merchandise.
Owner Jim Donahue holds up the merch!
The store also has a great space for events, and I will be a featured author here for
Spring into the Arts, Friday, May 15
from 5-9pm (I'll give short readings at the top and bottom of each hour)
and
Saturday, May 16 I'll give my Great Lakes ISLANDS presentation at 2pm
Great space!
Come to downtown BC and check out this great addition to my hometown! Battle Creek Books is one of the indie bookstores participating in the "Indies Only" release of my Great Lakes Islands book.
Here I am with owner Jim Donahue
For the complete list of stores that will have the book on their shelves on May 1, go HERE.
The booming and skimming efforts continue at several points along the Kalamazoo River. These first photos are from today (Friday, July 30) at Historic Bridge Park.
There is still a lot of oil on the surface of the water and even some small chunks of crude floating by, but it has decreased since I went there on Wednesday.
After checking out the river, I drove some supplies to Marshall. Here, at Crossroads Church, they are collecting what is needed to clean and rehab wildlife injured by the spill.
They are also collecting bottled water to distribute to residents who live near the spill.
To learn more about what they need and when, join the Facebook Group: Kalamazoo River Oil Spill.
The overpowering smell of oil on the river is a much stronger warning than the signs which are posted for miles along the Kalamazoo River. I stopped at three points along the river for maybe 15 minutes total, and came away with a fierce headache.
This river flows through the center of Battle Creek (where I live), then through the towns of Galesburg, Kalamazoo, Plainwell, and Allegan. Then, finally, between the cities of Douglas and Saugatuck before joining LAKE MICHIGAN. There are many wetlands along the way and the river harbors much wildlife. I've kayaked stretches of this river and have seen deer, turtles, blue heron, trout, and muskrat.
Estimates of the amount of oil have been raised to one million gallons. Why was the oil allowed to gush for hours before the flow in the pipeline was shut off? We're still waiting for an answer from Enbridge Energy.
The last photo here is of the Ceresco Dam in Marshall. The EPA is using a Coast Guard helicopter to survey the extent of the spill. This is just a mile or two from origin of the spill. The second photo shows how the crude oil is gathering in the vegetation.
Watch the video below for a closer look at the spill.
This final day of this segment I said goodbye (and a huge thank you) to Vickie. She dropped me back in the town of Denmark and I walked the trail, then country roads all the way to Manitowoc.
It was fantastic to finally be back on the shores of Lake Michigan. I walked my longest day this day, 25 miles, then took the midnight ferry across the lake to Ludington, Michigan. It's a 4-hour passage and the lake was calm and foggy.
A father and son were on the ferry making their way from the city of Green Bay to (of all places) Battle Creek for a baseball tournament. They gave me a lift to my home town. Thanks, guys [and if you e-mail me your mailing address, I'll send you two hats!].
