The start of our two-day drive to Michigan for the Fourth of July 4 boded ill. In keeping with the holiday we tried to take the famous American escape route from the British, the George Washington Bridge. An accident near the bridge caused a detour. Two hours later we finally managed to exit of the Isle of Manhattan via the Lincoln Tunnel and drove hard across New Jersey.
The interstate (I) highway system, like motorways and autobahns worldwide, is built for getting from A to B without seeing anything in between. Every now and then I can’t take it anymore and we peel off onto the blue highways. We found respite, both culinary and spiritual, as we crossed over the New Jersey State border into the civilization of Bloomsburg, a small Pennsylvania college town. Bloomsburg was founded in 1802 like much of Pennsylvania, by German Burghers, and it shows in its weighty architecture. It’s a town I would like to go back to and explore more along with the dairy and quilting shops of the Amish that lie just to the South. Pennsylvania is in fact an interesting section of I-80 that takes the entire afternoon to cross. In the east, rolling wooded hills give way at the mighty Susquehanna River to the central Pennsylvania Wilds, an area just south of the Allegheny Appalachia, comprising deep valleys and gorges.
These are followed by hilly farmland with beautiful red barns, and fields — that look as if brushed to make them tidy — reminiscent of the Schwabian alps.
Crossing into Youngstown, Ohio the land flattens and the immense size and emptiness of the country becomes apparent, two hundred miles of pancake flat farmland, three times the size of Holland, dotted with red and white barns and farmhouses and the newer steel silos.
We failed to make it to Toledo and ended up in a dingy but dog-friendly Motel 6 in Milan, OH just off the highway. Jack at least was thrilled because he realized instantly that a day in the car and a shabby motel means he gets burgers twice a day.
In the US you can travel for half a day without seeing a change in the landscape but surprisingly the state borders are often points of abrupt change. Wooded field borders signal the transition from Ohio to Michigan.The spruce begin even in the lower peninsula of the Michigan snowmitt.
We drove up the middle of the lower peninsula sandwiched between Lakes Michigan and Huron. Five hours later we crossed the Mackinaw Bridge. The beauty of the Great Lakes is breathtaking. In summer, Lake Michigan sparkles a deep blue. In winter the white sand beaches are lined with snow and ice.
Michigan’s Upper Penninsula, UP, is hailed by the local airline industry, American Eagle, as a playground for Chicagoans. In winter its snowy forests offer skiing and snowmobiling, but in summer its tundra nature is a force to be reckoned with and mosquitoes pound onto the window screen and feast on unsuspecting tourists. It’s a strange world of beautiful shorelines, towns with the exotic names of its Native American, French fur trapper, and Catholic Missionary past.
Deep forests and wildlife that bring with them an unsettling underbelly of hunters — knife shops are the most frequent tourist shop along the road after pasties and smoked fish. The Mackinaw bridge empties into the Hiawatha Forest.
Its logging and mining past is very interesting - this is Paul Bunyan territory with Tall Tales of lakes of blueberry pie and tree felling sagas that held my children spellbound around the campfire many years ago.
The beaches are spectacular and empty, the water is clear and, lacking salt, is very refreshing. Jack did not agree. His coat and paws are made for snow and ice and not for swimming. He would prefer the snowy beaches in winter. Besides he was eager for his third burger at Clyde’s, a family roadside drive-in in Manistique.
Four hours later we passed through Escanaba and then sighted the big concrete bear and the Thirsty Whale in the next major town of Norway and arrived in Iron Mountain in the early evening.
The cabin, nestled on the Menominee River, was beautiful but the mid-west heat wave struck the same day, driving the temperature to 105°F. We sweltered under the neighbor’s pines and camped out on Dave’s sister’s shady porch sipping gin and tonics, the tried and true British remedy for the heat and mosquitoes.
Jack came down with an ear infection that required an interesting trip to the local vet. The clinic had an interesting wood carved totem of an indian lifting a bear cub that somehow got deleted from my phone. The vet clinic backed onto the iron mining museum and was situated near the few remaining miners cottages of Iron Mt. In the 1800s The UP was a major center for mining of iron and copper. Irish, Cornish, Italians and Scandiavians and others left their homelands to work for a dollar a day in the Michigan mines.
Twenty-five years ago we found a very old book in the basement from Dave’s uncle with the history of the mining in the U.P. The Cornish brought with them mining skills from their local tin mines and of course their beloved pasties, now a local delicacy. The book told stories of how the Irish would march out into the woods on a Saturday night to drink and brawl in “Hell towns” in the woods like Calumet, now a remarkable ghost town that I need to go back and photograph. It described the silent Scandinavian bachelor farmer types memorialized in “Lake Wobegon stories” and the Italians, short and stocky, who provided the muscle in the mineshafts and a few Dutch from the lower peninsula thrown in for good measure. They came by the boatload through Staten Island and Sault Ste. Marie. Dave’s 40th class reunion told it all – tall blonds with short Mediterranean husbands – a melting pot of Izzos, Santinis, Eriksons, Van Lanens and Frendeweys (Vroegindeweij).
On July 3rd the Frendewey's took a trip around the Spread Eagle Chain of Lakes just across the border in Wisconsin while picnicking on the pontoon boat. The three brothers relived their youth and dived into the lake with the nephews and nieces.
At dusk we gathered with neighboring boats for the firework display. It was lovely, each boat lit by a single light gently rocking together in the calm and breeze of the lake. As the moon rose, candle lanterns were sent up. Then the fireworks began.
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