Huron Street in Lexington
Hello Everyone. It’s been a sunny and beautiful week here in Michigan, and I’ve been out exploring the peninsula that juts out into Lake Huron and is lovingly referred to as “The Thumb” of the state. If you’ve never looked closely or thought too much about it, Michigan is shaped like a mitten, and if you ever meet someone from Michigan they will inevitably point out wherever they are talking about on their hand, which is really quite endearing and very Midwestern. It is a quiet and less populated part of the state with some great small towns and tremendous lake views. I finished off the week with a run of old industrial towns and the Bavarian village of Frankenmuth. It’s been considerably cooler this week and it’s often been down in the 50s when I’m going to bed which is just perfect for me. I’ve seen some great spots this week and I can’t wait to tell you all about it.
Classic Cars in Harbor Beach
When I finished this post last week, I headed out of Port Huron and made my way north to the quaint little lakeside town of Lexington. I spent some time wandering the streets and taking some photos which you can see here. I thought it was a great little place and I really enjoyed my stroll. From there I moved up the coast through Port Sanilac to Forester Park. I don’t normally stay in campgrounds, but I decided I wanted to stay on the lake for a couple of nights and not worry about it. When I went to make the bookings, this site looked like it was right on the lake, but on arrival it was actually behind a row of private homes which blocked any possible view of the lake. The map was somewhat deceiving and I was pretty disappointed with the whole thing. Soon after pulling in, I got word that my very good friend’s father passed away, and while it wasn’t sudden or unexpected, it was still hard news to get, especially just days before Father’s Day. It was a bit of a rough afternoon and I went for a walk around the campground to clear my mind a bit. When I came back to my site, there was a big 5th Wheel pulled in right next to me. I introduced myself to the man who it belonged to and we had a wonderful chat for an hour or so. I really needed a bit of companionship in that moment and just like that, it was there. I felt a whole lot better afterwards and cooked up some dinner which I enjoyed from the picnic area which was overlooking the lake.
Pointe Aux Barques Lighthouse
Thursday I meandered up the coast and spent some time in Harbor Beach, a town with a massive manmade harbor which was built to provide a safe haven for ships caught out in bad weather between Saginaw Bay and the St. Clair River at Port Huron. The town had a nice lighthouse, a pretty little beach and a long pier out into the harbor. I enjoyed a stroll to the end of the pier and then went for a wander around downtown. I particularly liked the library which had an incredible set of murals on it which paid tribute to local history and people. It seems the most famous person to come out of Harbor Beach was Frank Murphy who served as Mayor of Detroit, Governor of Michigan, Governor General of The Philippines, Attorney General of the U.S. and finally as a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. During World War II he was serving on the high court and moonlighting as an army officer (seriously). Apparently his most noteworthy action on the court was writing the descent against the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war which he called out for the blatant racism which it absolutely was. Harbor Beach was interesting and learning about Murphy was as well.
Me and Shadow Catcher at Lighthouse Park
In the afternoon, I headed further up the coast to Lighthouse County Park, right where the thumbnail would be on The Thumb. Everything that Forester Park wasn’t, Lighthouse Park was and then some. My campsite was right on the lake with an expansive view in every direction. It was just beyond the shadow of the Pointe Aux Barques lighthouse and right on the outside edge of the park. It was clean and quiet and the people working there were unbelievably friendly. I spent the afternoon working on some blog posts and photos and on my podcast and then had a nice dinner and went for a sunset stroll along the lake. When I got back to camp, I lit my campfire and settled in for a relaxing evening of watching the fireflies and heat lightning on the lake. It was so nice that I booked another night before I went to sleep.
Princess Wenonah in Bay City
The next day I finally finished my podcast which made me feel good after over a year without putting out an episode. If you’ve never listened to my podcast, I try and reach into the history of the states I travel through and pull out stories of the people and events that make the state unique and different. The stories are reasonably concise because I don’t have much of an attention span myself, and I add some local music to help liven things up a bit. This episode is one I wrote at home in Washington D.C. and features stories on the D.C. origins of Ronald McDonald, the Old Brick Capitol which has an amazing story behind it, a triceratops statue called Uncle Beazley which locals under 50 will remember from their childhood, Ben’s Chili Bowl, our contribution to the American potluck, and Edward Brooke, the country’s first popularly elected Black senator. The music for this episode came from D.C. based singer-songwriter Ken Francis Wenzel. I like how the episode turned out and you can listen to it here directly on this site, or by searching “American Anthology” wherever you get your podcasts. Let me know what you think. After finishing that up, I spent the rest of the day relaxing by the lighthouse and looking out over Lake Huron.
City Hall in Bay City
On Saturday, I made my way down the inside of the thumb along the eastern shore of Saginaw Bay and through some beautiful little towns. I stopped in at the Michigan Sugar Festival in Sebewaing and got a bratwurst before finally ending up in Bay City. When I arrived, I headed for the dock and took an afternoon boat cruise up the Saginaw River aboard the Princess Wenonah with Bay City Boat Lines. It was pretty cloudy when we boarded and it looked like the whole thing could be a bust, but we went out anyway and the clouds slowly broke up and it had turned quite sunny and warm by the time we reached the mouth of the river and its opening into the Saginaw Bay. We went under two drawbridges on the way out and on the way back and I enjoyed watching them go up and down from the water. There were also swing bridges for the trains which I think are really cool, but they were open when we passed by them. We passed by some nice marinas, an old retired lighthouse and several industrial plants on our way. It was a nice little cruise. When we disembarked, I headed off into the downtown area to take some photos as the day wore on. I was particularly impressed with their City Hall, but there were a bunch of other neat old buildings as well. I enjoyed a few beers at the Dry Dock Beer Garden which went to support a local high school booster club and then had a delicious steak at Gatsby’s Saloon before calling it a night.
Saginaw Castle History Museum
I kicked off my Sunday Funday with breakfast at Zef’s. I should have realized that everywhere would be packed because of Father’s Day, but I didn’t think about it until I was in the midst of it. Zef’s was my third choice, but I wasn’t waiting in line for breakfast, but the whole thing turned into a bit of a disaster. When I went to the bathroom, the hostess took my table to make a bigger table for a group she wanted to seat and I had to wrestle it back from them. When my meal came out wrong, I ate what they brought, and they ended up bringing me what I had ordered in a to-go box so I had omelets all day long. After breakfast I took a peak in the massive antique shops in town and then headed off to Saginaw. My destination was their wonderful history museum housed in the town’s old Post Office which was built to look like a French castle. I’ve been in a lot of local history museums in my time, and this was one of the better ones I’ve seen. Whoever put it together put a lot of thought and time and effort into it. It was very uncluttered and easy to follow and told the story of the town through its wonderful artifacts, photos and descriptions. It was great. When I left the museum at closing time, I went looking for some vestige of the town I had seen in the museum, but it just wasn’t there. With the exception of the Temple Theater and a very small handful of buildings left downtown, Saginaw is just a shell of what it once was which was very sad. I tried to find some reason to stay, but there really wasn’t one – especially on a Sunday afternoon, so I packed up and headed west to Mount Pleasant.
Broadway Theater in Mount Pleasant
Mount Pleasant was a very pleasant little town, and I had a nice walk around the compact downtown area. They had two nice theaters and a lot of cute little shops. I went to the Island Park in the bend in the Chippewa River to enjoy my omelet dinner and then went to look at the old Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial School. This was one of several experimental schools around the country (the most famous being in Carlisle, PA) which took Native American children from their families in an attempt to “civilize” them to western lifestyle and culture. While these schools were mostly well-intentioned, the results were horrendous and many children died in the care of these institutions. I would have loved to have taken a closer look, but the land is owned by the city and definitely signed No Trespassing. I wish this place were preserved and open to the public to tell this important and oft-overlooked story. I did get to see some deer on the property which made me smile. As the day was fading, I headed out to the Soaring Eagle Casino to spend the night. Casinos are usually a great option for a free overnight stay and many even have designated RV lots. I found a good spot and went in for a look around and a very short dance with Lady Luck. I won $5 playing keno and called it a night.
Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth
I was up relatively early on Monday because I wanted to be at the Ziibiwing Center of Anishinabe Culture and Lifeways right when it opened. This museum is one of the biggest museums on Native American culture in the Midwest and I was really looking forward to my visit, but it was closed when I arrived and will be for the foreseeable future. It was a big disappointment, especially since it was an hour each way to get there from the path I was on. I stopped briefly in Midland on the way back to see the whimsical Santa House gift shop and beautiful and unique county courthouse which was cool. Midland is the hometown of Herbert H. Dow and therefore the home of Dow Chemical, which has kept the town doing well for a very long time. It’s amazing what a successful industry can do for a small town.
Zehnder’s Right Across From The Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth
From Midland, I made my way out to the Frankenmuth, Michigan’s Bavarian Village. When I got there I headed straight for the Bavarian Inn and put my name on the list for a table for lunch. The Bavarian Inn and Zehnder’s across the street sell thousands of chicken dinners a day to silly tourists like me enjoying the faux-Bavarian theme of the town. The chicken is steamed and lightly fried and was good but not great, but it was a fun place to have a meal. From there, I wandered up the hill to the brewery (when in Rome, right?) which was, amazingly, closed on a sunny midweek afternoon in the middle of summer in a tourist town. I had a long wander around town and took some fun photos of this weird and wonderfull little town, which I’ll get to you later this week. After the Glockenspiel did its thing at 6, telling the un-edited and frightful tale of the child-snatching Pied Piper, I headed on down the road. I had two people recommend a place called Tony’s in Birch Run which is pretty locally famous for their deep fried and plentiful bacon, so I stopped in and got a club sandwich to-go which I would eat later for dinner (I actually only ate half, and even that was a ridiculous amount of bacon). I stopped into Starbucks to get some work done and then moved on to Clio to the Walmart there for the night. The temperatures dipped into the low 40s at night, but I was cozy as could be in the back of my van.
Flint Riverwalk
Yesterday I headed into Flint with the hopes of seeing the Sloan Museum in the morning and then wandering around town in the afternoon. The Sloan Museum was completely closed for renovation, so I turned towards my Wednesday plan of seeing the Crossroads Village and Huckleberry Railroad. This was also closed on a Tuesday (open Thursday-Sunday), so I headed over to Stepping Stone Falls, a nearby manmade waterfall which was at least open! I headed downtown to the Farmer’s Market and saw a place selling poke bowls which got me excited and I didn’t think that I was ordering this Hawaiian sushi-style dish in landlocked Flint, Michigan. It took forever and was truly terrible. Just when it finally arrived, the skies opened up, so I ate my terrible lunch in my van and then decided a nap was in order. Thankfully I’ve now either seen (or often not seen) most of the museums I wanted to see in the state with the notable exception of one in Kalamazoo which I know is open. Soon it’s just going to be hiking and lakeside towns with no opening or closing hours for a while. I did have an enjoyable walk around downtown Flint, which I found quiet and pleasant. I enjoyed seeing signs about people who I know nothing about and yet their names would be hard not to know. Names like Louis Chevrolet, David Buick and Walter Chrysler. There is a small historic area called Carriage Town which tells the story of Flint’s onetime designation as the largest producer of carriages in the world. I also found plenty of beautiful murals to photograph which definitely kept me smiling. Around 8, I headed over to Tenacity Brewing Company where I spent the night. I booked it through a group called Harvest Hosts which connects travelers to breweries, wineries and farms to spend the night at. I really enjoyed the experience and a few beers in the brewery before bed. It was housed in an old firehouse which I thought was even more cool.
Flint’s Capitol Theater
Today I got up and made one more round of Downtown Flint for some more photos and then packed up and made my way here to Lansing. When I finish up with this post today, I’m hoping to catch up with my friend, Eric, who I met almost 15 years ago when we were both interviewing for teaching jobs in New Orleans. We both ended up getting the job and both taught math in junior high schools just a few miles apart. I remember coaching my football team against his which was a lot of fun. Some of you may remember that when I was in Toledo 2 years ago, Eric was opening up his own branch of his insurance company and I rode up for the grand opening. I’m hoping we can catch up a little bit this week.
Tenacity Brewing Company
That’s been my week, y’all. Definitely a good one and I’ve seen and done a lot, but also took some time to relax and enjoy my surroundings. That’s an important part of this journey for me post-pandemic and I’m trying to hold myself to it. I feel good, healthy and happy and am really looking forward to the week ahead. The biggest determining factor as to what happens next will come when Shadow Catcher goes to the mechanic on Friday. I must get this transmission leak sorted out, and I’m really hoping he can fix it in a reasonable amount of time. If he can fix it, I’ll be in Lansing until it’s done. From there, I’m on a cross-state run through Battle Creek for my cereal fix and Kalamazoo for craft beer and museums before arriving on the west coast of Michigan, which is on the east coast of Lake Michigan. It’s all north from there and I’m really looking forward to beaches and lighthouses and the small towns of West Michigan. It’s going to be awesome and I hope to be on the lake shore by the time I write this next week. I’ve got a couple of other friends to catch up with in the next couple of weeks as well, and familiar faces are always a welcome sight when you’re on the road. I’m really looking forward to seeing them. That’s it for now but I hope you’re all having a wonderful summer wherever you are. Hard to believe that the 4th of July is already coming up on us quickly. Have a great week out there and I’ll see you right back here, same time next week.
-Mike
The Main Drag in Frankenmuth