We started out in Ludington where we spent a few hours with Ryan Spencer Reed. He gave us a tour of the downtown building they are refurbishing to an art gallery, studio space, and two apartments – one for him and Erica and another for future artists in residence. The space is filled with history that the renovation will highlight while making necessary upgrades for functionality. Ludington is lucky to have someone like Ryan committing to revitalizing and enhancing the community through a lot of hard work. After the tour we stopped in at The Mitten Bar – a small bar next door selling solely Michigan beer and wine. Over delicious Michigan beers, we enjoyed good conversation with Ryan. The time was short but certainly better than none.
Our next stop was Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area. This place is just plain good for the soul. Not sure if it’s the water, clean sand beach, woods covered dunes, storms coming in over the lake, or refreshing morning swims but even being there for only one night brought on contented happiness.
Continuing north, we drove along the coast and up into the Leelanau Peninsula, made our way to Traverse City, Charlevoix, Petoskey, Mackinac City, and finally into the Upper Peninsula. Along the way we stopped at Pond Hill Farm for a quick walk around and a snack and ended up chatting with the intern who was pouring wine at their newly opened tasting room. Tony, originally from Ohio, had lived 5 years in Denver so of course we had an easy conversation starter. Turns out that Tony is an aspiring farmer who plans to go back to his home town in Ohio and do the good work of growing food for his community after his season internship at Pond Hill. Best of luck Tony!
For those of you who think that Michigan is just another state in the Midwest, think again! The Upper Peninsula is a place of amazing beauty that is just far enough away from everything to keep it relatively untouched. The coast of Lake Superior is a combination of long rocky sand beaches, 200+ foot cliffs, fern filled forests, and beautiful waterfalls. We hiked and kayaked for a couple of days to take it all in. They call it Pictured Rocks for a reason!
As we started our drive toward Wisconsin, we made two final stops – Au Train for pasties and Lakenenland. The pasty stop was recommended to us by the friendly folks who rented us kayaks – delicious beef, potato, onion, carrot, and rutabaga filled dough pocket! The wonderfully strange Lakenenland we first drove by but decided that we must make a u-turn and check out. As we drove in there were very clear NO TRESPASSING signs intended only for all planning and zoning board members – all others are very welcome to tour the free sculpture park. So glad we made the u-turn and explored this quirky little sculpture park.
We reached Escanaba, MI and were back on Lake Michigan heading to Wisconsin – oh yeah, we have now dipped our toes in all five great lakes! How cool is that?!?!
Check out Michigan pictures HERE.
Hey ya'll! good to hear things are still going well! I'm just back from South Africa, where things went really well! Keep up the hard work. Don't let the breakneck pace wear you down too much.
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