"Michigan seems like a dream to me now.
It took me four days
To hitch-hike from Saginaw.
I've come to look for America."
It took me four days
To hitch-hike from Saginaw.
I've come to look for America."
I hope the reader of this blog is not annoyed by the music of the 60s! We haven't even reached Winslow, Arizona or Memphis yet. But today we will reach Michigan, a state that I know only in my dreams but will discover in reality. That is what is so exciting about traveling in completely new places; not knowing what is around the next corner, the open road constantly rising up before us and bringing new things. Tennyson comes to mind again:
"But every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things
We had gotten lost two or three times, spectacularly and comically lost. For some inexplicable reason, for example, the street we were supposed to turn left on a mile outside of Lisbon (Lincoln Road) had a completely different street sign (Thomas Road), as we learned much later in the morning. So we would be driving along and suddenly realize that dozens of Minis were driving the other way, some of them making hand signals that we should turn around. Minis everywhere would be braking into driveways, circling parking lots, gazing at their GPS devices and their printed directions. As in life itself, there is but one thing to do in such a situation (after the Navigator cannot resist making a sarcastic comment or two to the Driver!): Stay calm and carry on. Adjust, and get back on course. We never knew whether these misdirections were deliberate or not - sometimes it seemed as if Mini USA wanted us to get lost, so that we could learn to laugh and be more flexible, or perhaps merely enjoy seeing the beauties of an unplanned detour.
Our Surprise and Delight for the day was a visit to the Gourmet Cupcake Shoppe in Midland, Michigan, which we located after circling the block twice. We were early, having departed quickly from the morning program in Detroit, and thus the Mini crew member with his green flag was not yet positioned to wave us into the parking lot in a small strip shopping center. The Shoppe, well-known by locals, had prepared delicious cupcakes and hundreds of little Mini-shaped cookies. We enjoyed, here and elsewhere, talking to locals attracted to a Mini convertible covered with decals and stickers. "How much snow do you get up here?" "Do you live here year round?" "Do you realize that in a little while this parking lot will contain hundreds of Mini Coopers? And you have only one bathroom?" We found friendly people everywhere we went, and that is cause for hope, is it not?
We drove north through dark Michigan hardwood forests, dotted with bogs and little lakes. And white birches, which I have not seen for a very long time. The houses here were smaller and closer to the road and easier to heat than those big, high-ceilinged houses of the South with their spacious front porches to sit on and enjoy the cool of the evening. As I said earlier, it was so exciting to discover a new road, new scenery, new landscapes unfurling around us! The joy of simply motoring. Shifting up through the gears, downshifting, swinging into tight corners, up and down hills in alternating sun and shade on country roads. Soon we reached orchards of cherry trees, on both sides of the road, and roadside stands along the way, just like the little apple stands that pop up in our part of the country in the fall of the year and that I remember from my childhood on Connecticut. Have I ever eaten a truly ripe cherry before? So sweet and finger-staining fresh! We bought some and shared them with Mini owners in the next few cities.
Then we could see Lake Michigan off to the west, and Lake Huron to the east, as we continued northward (the East shore of Lake Michigan is lined with very expensive vacation homes, and it reminded us of country-club homes in Highlands) and finally arrived at the Mackinac Bridge, one of the greatest engineering feats of the Twentieth Century (and the first of two great suspension bridges we could cross). For some reason "Mackinac" is pronounced "Mackinaw," by the way. A local man we met later in the day told me there was an amazing video on You Tube about this bridge and I found it:
We had signed up many weeks ago for a cruise under this bridge, and despite the rain that suddenly blew in, we enjoyed it greatly, visiting with other Mini owners who were not afraid to brave a little choppy water and chug beneath this mighty bridge.
Every restaurant in St. Ignace was packed to capacity after the cruise, so we found ourselves in a tiny place on State Street called Bentley's B-N-L Cafe. They serve something called "pasties" in this part of the country (rhymes with "nasty", but that is the only similarity with that word) - delicious little meat pies that I remember reading about in British books. (It turns out that they were brought to this country by Cornish farmers in the 1800s.) But we settled for humble take-out grilled-cheese sandwiches tonight and returned to our room after a long day.
When we had arrived in St. Ignace earlier, we had been a little unprepared for the tiny and delightful little Bear Cove Inn, where every room was occupied by a Mini owner. And every room was a forest-themed one, with big trees everywhere, as if we were camping out in the Michigan woods.
We drove north through dark Michigan hardwood forests, dotted with bogs and little lakes. And white birches, which I have not seen for a very long time. The houses here were smaller and closer to the road and easier to heat than those big, high-ceilinged houses of the South with their spacious front porches to sit on and enjoy the cool of the evening. As I said earlier, it was so exciting to discover a new road, new scenery, new landscapes unfurling around us! The joy of simply motoring. Shifting up through the gears, downshifting, swinging into tight corners, up and down hills in alternating sun and shade on country roads. Soon we reached orchards of cherry trees, on both sides of the road, and roadside stands along the way, just like the little apple stands that pop up in our part of the country in the fall of the year and that I remember from my childhood on Connecticut. Have I ever eaten a truly ripe cherry before? So sweet and finger-staining fresh! We bought some and shared them with Mini owners in the next few cities.
Then we could see Lake Michigan off to the west, and Lake Huron to the east, as we continued northward (the East shore of Lake Michigan is lined with very expensive vacation homes, and it reminded us of country-club homes in Highlands) and finally arrived at the Mackinac Bridge, one of the greatest engineering feats of the Twentieth Century (and the first of two great suspension bridges we could cross). For some reason "Mackinac" is pronounced "Mackinaw," by the way. A local man we met later in the day told me there was an amazing video on You Tube about this bridge and I found it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IKjIKKdLUw
We had signed up many weeks ago for a cruise under this bridge, and despite the rain that suddenly blew in, we enjoyed it greatly, visiting with other Mini owners who were not afraid to brave a little choppy water and chug beneath this mighty bridge.
Every restaurant in St. Ignace was packed to capacity after the cruise, so we found ourselves in a tiny place on State Street called Bentley's B-N-L Cafe. They serve something called "pasties" in this part of the country (rhymes with "nasty", but that is the only similarity with that word) - delicious little meat pies that I remember reading about in British books. (It turns out that they were brought to this country by Cornish farmers in the 1800s.) But we settled for humble take-out grilled-cheese sandwiches tonight and returned to our room after a long day.
When we had arrived in St. Ignace earlier, we had been a little unprepared for the tiny and delightful little Bear Cove Inn, where every room was occupied by a Mini owner. And every room was a forest-themed one, with big trees everywhere, as if we were camping out in the Michigan woods.
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