Taking on the Next Big Adventure

“Embrace discomfort, choose to do hard things, have a purpose.”

By Ross Boissoneau | Oct. 7, 2023

Ah yes, the golden years. That time when you qualify for an AARP membership and there’s nothing better to do than sit in the rocker on the front porch and sip lemonade while the days drift by.

Or not.

These three adventurers certainly chose the “or not” route. Ginny Coulter started a new business, one close to the earth and close to her heart. Michael Brown got away from his construction business to criss-cross the country on a bicycle. And David Ball retired to spend more time paddling, including a 41-day sojourn on the Manistee River.

Flower Power

Ginny Coulter hails from Old Mission Peninsula pioneer stock dating back to 1855. She grew up on a farm across the road from where she now lives, having moved back to the area with her husband Lew after college.

A flower-lover from an early age, she opted for horticulture over floriculture at school, then took another turn and spent years in governmental positions, first on the planning commission for Peninsula Township and then working for Grand Traverse County.

“I was tied to a desk, and there was administration upheaval. My husband retired, and I decided that was a good time to move on,” Coulter says. “I left in June 2015.”

So then what? The couple grew cherries, but could there be more? Coulter started to dream. “We had this side yard we hadn’t done much with. It had been a pumpkin patch, then left fallow.”

And so, Old Mission Flowers was born.

Her husband tilled that fallow land, and Coulter decided to try growing some flowers. “One thing led to another,” she says, by which she may be referring to the fact she now has cosmos, sunflowers, statice, asters, glads, and zinnias growing every which way. Lupines, roses, and lilies. Snapdragons, daisies, and some 40 varieties of peonies. The list goes on and on.

Though the garden ties them to the area during the summer—it’s nearly a full-time job to keep all those flowers happy—Coulter says that’s fine with her. “We like it here in the summer. The kids come home and bring the grandkids.”

The self-serve cutting garden is open from dawn until dusk from Mother’s Day through Labor Day. Depending on the weather, the season may be earlier, or maybe later. Because they’d had the pumpkin patch, Coulter says they were used to having strangers on the property, which is why they went with the self-serve method. Like many of the fruit, veggie, and flower stands on the peninsula, guests are expected to pay on the honor system whether that’s by cash, check, PayPal, or Venmo.

From planning and buying seeds and bulbs in the winter, planting in the spring and fall, and weeding and watering in the summer, the garden is a year-round endeavor. “The work list for today includes tidying some beds and mulching the edges, cutting down the spent sunflowers and deadheading the bloomed out gladiolus,” Coulter tells us.

Coulter says she’s not looking to get rich selling flowers. “One of the beauties of starting a business at this point is our livelihood is not dependent on it. I always liked to grow plants, but didn’t have this vision necessarily.”

Visit during the flower season at 16550 Center Rd in Traverse City. oldmissionflowers.com

Biking Brown

As the longtime president of Traverse City’s Burdco, Michael Brown has been in the construction industry for some 30 years. The company specializes in the design and construction of medical, senior living, and other specialty commercial buildings.

To get away from the busyness of the day-to-day, he took up biking, though he was unenthusiastic at first. “When I would see a touring bike, it made me wince,” Brown admits. A good friend who rode motorcycles, kayaked, and rode bikes, insisted he would like it. “I resisted initially,” Brown says with a laugh.

After finally giving in, he says he became more and more enamored with the sport and began longer rides. Eventually he set himself a challenge: to see if somebody in their 60s could ride for 50 or 60 miles a day, and do it day after day, eventually crossing the country. “Do you have the persistence and drive?” he asks rhetorically. “It was kind of fun.”

As he considered the concept, there was another thought in mind. “Then I was motivated to be an example for my grandkids: Embrace discomfort, choose to do hard things, have a purpose.”

Brown says once he decided to go for the cross-country adventure, he began longer rides as he prepared. “I’d leave work and train for it. It’s nice to have a goal in front of you.”

Then came what he called a test of concept ride, riding 65 miles every day for six days. He went from Traverse City to Ludington, took the ferry across Lake Michigan to Manitowoc, then went up to and through the Upper Peninsula.

After passing that test, he set out on what he called the big kahuna: Riding from Washington to the U.P., which worked out to riding six days a week for six weeks, 65 miles a day. He was accompanied by a friend and had a support vehicle for the trip in August and September 2021. The next year his friend didn’t want to go, so he rode solo and self-supported, pulling a small trailer, from Ludington to Buffalo.

This year, the finale of the cross-country trip saw Brown mostly solo and self-supported as he rode from Buffalo to Bar Harbor, Maine. “My brother met me at the New York-Vermont border,” he says.

The 68-year-old Brown says by the last 45 minutes of his daily grind, he couldn’t wait to get off the bike. But the next day he’d get up and do it again. “It was a great adventure,” Brown says. “The biggest thing I learned is there are so many kind, loving people.”

Just Keep Paddling

Edwardsburg resident David Ball frequently visits the northland, as his wife Cara Lawson-Ball is an artist and shows at both Crooked Tree Arts Centers.

Much of the time he’s Up North, you can find him paddling on the rivers. (His favorite is the Manistee River, though pretty much any of them will do.) He and a group of college friends gather each summer for a 10-day adventure on rivers from Michigan to Missouri, Wisconsin to West Virginia.

His love of the rushing water was such that not only would he canoe with his college buddies, he took pains to acquaint youngsters with outdoor activities. In his career as a social worker, he was able to secure grants to help kids experience the great outdoors. “That got me into the whole Outward Bound [type] experience. I started in the early ’90s for 15-20 years,” says Ball.

Ball later became a financial advisor, eventually retiring at age 68 in 2021.

“I wanted to do something as a gift to myself. My original goal was 90 days on the river,” Ball says. He decided that might be a little daunting, so he then set a goal of 30, “but that didn’t sound epic enough.” So he settled on 41.

The Manistee is surrounded by state land, providing both solitude and places to camp. This summer, he spent the days paddling his 16-foot Mad River Explorer canoe up and down the river, drinking filtered water directly from the Manistee, and spent the nights camping alongside the shore.

He was joined at various times by his wife, son, grandsons, and friends. Roughly half the time, however, Ball was by himself. He says the solo experience offered a sense of peace and connection to nature he’d never experienced, from the marsh marigolds blooming in early spring and the iris at the end of June, to the sound of birds singing, animals calling, and the wind whispering through the pines.

“What was most valuable was the quiet time in the woods just listening. I had a sense of contentedness … being grateful for my life,” he says.