Day 5 - Belleville - Ann Arbor - UP - Alanson - Ann Arbor

Today was an early start to get to Ann Arbor to meet up with Chris Taylor, who is also a beer can collector and is a member of the Rusty Bunch Chapter of the USA club. When I asked on the website if there was anyone who would be able available to take an Aussie out dumping for old beer cans Chris generously took up the challenge.

Chris is the Editor of the chapter magazine and is always providing stories of his dumping exploits and I knew he would be an excellent teacher and be able to show me the correct ways of doing things.

I arrived at Chris’s home just before 8am and he was ready to go. Chris is also a musician and spent last night playing a benefit concert for one of his band members who has some serious medical problems. Chris grabbed a couple of cans of caffeine as we headed off north on the I-75. The place we are going to is in Alanson, Michigan and Chris has been coming to the same block of land for over 20 years and with many other collectors is still finding cans out of the dump. The land is a large bushland that was used as a waste dump from the early 1900’s till the 1950s.

As we headed off it was raining and Chris said the forecast was for the weather to fine up around lunchtime. The constant rain and patches of fog were not an inconvenience and we sat on 75 miles per hour most of the way. We met up with another collector Dan Bora at a Burger King on the side of the interstate on the way up. Dan and his wife and 3 boys were away holidaying for the weekend and we spent about 30 minutes with them catching up. Dan is the webmaster of the Rusty Bunch website and is a magician on the computer. I catch up with him each year at the Canvention so have gotten to know him quite well.

Chris said he was going to take me to see the Mackinaw Bridge where the two sections of the state of Michigan are joined by this amazing engineering structure and that we were also going to cross over the bridge to stop at one of the casino/s on the other side. Dan suggested the one at Sault Ste Marie in the UP. UP is the local’s word for Upper Peninsula Michigan. When we crossed the bridge the ramp directly to the I-75 was closed and we did not see a detour sign so continued up the wrong road trying to find a way back to the right way. Even studying maps we could not find one so we had to turn back towards the bridge until we were able to find the original turnoff.

I would normally trust Dan with anything he told me but he told us that Sault Ste Marie was not a long drive. IT was in fact about and a three hour return trip by the time we got back to the Mackinaw Bridge. We also had a small problem finding the casino, we followed the signs which were only small ones at eye level on the road edges but one the final one was missing and we did not get to turn off correct. We eventually found it and even then we got it wrong and walked the wrong way when we went inside and had to back track to the gaming room. I was a bit luckier that the other day and was able to walk away with some extra money plus three different chips for the collection.

We then had to drive all the way back down the U.P. and coming towards the Mackinaw Bridge I was running low on petrol so we had to drive through the town before the bridge to fill up with petrol. Crossing the bridge again we headed to Alanson and Chris directed me towards the bushland where the dump is. This is a big wooded area where the locals used to drive into and dump rubbish up to the 1950’s.

When Chris was a young boy he and his brother used to collect beer cans they found lying around anywhere. Their father shared the pastime with the boys and during a holiday at Alanson they were told about the block of land that the townsfolk used to use as a dump.

Due to the roughness of the ground and the amount of bottles and shrubs on the ground we both wore trousers and heavy boots to ensure that our feet were safe. The ground was literally covered in rusted cans, bottles and fallen tree trunks. There was so many rusted cans that you just had to turn over the soil and you would find more cans sitting under the surface. Within 10 minutes I had found some cans that you could clean up to see the labels had plenty of colour.

Although collectors have picked over this site yearly for many years there is still plenty of cans still to be found. We were there moving around on the site for a couple of hours and I ended up bringing away six cans to clean up plus a rusted 1953 Ohio car number plate that Chris thinks will clean up well. It was tiring work with plenty of sweat in the afternoon heat.

We finished up at the site just before 7pm and after cleaning up and getting into some clean clothes we headed off for the long drive back to Chris’s place. We arrived just on midnight and it was not long before I was asleep.

I covered over 650 miles driving for the day on the round trip. I must thank Chris for his hospitality, his expertise, his patience explaining everything to me and also his generosity for putting my up for the night on his couch. He is a real great person and a great ambassador for our hobby. Thanks Chris.