Part 1 June 8, 2013
Here are our rules of the road: 1. We travel to enjoy the road and thus no interstates, no chain hotels and no chain restaurants (with exception of occasionally Marriott because we need the points). 2. We do not drive more than 4-5 hours a day. 3. We look for "Americana" and have jotted the location of all National Parks on our map. We carry every state map and every AAA lodging directory and various reference books, as well as computer power. One of us drives, the other is the navigator and record keeper. We have till this moment, driven over 1500 miles and are today having a rest day in Mackinaw City, MI.
Have we already seen a National Park? No, correction actually yes, because, while with our friends Ron and Janet, who chauffeured us around in Northern Ohio, Ron pointed out a trail he likes to bicycle on in the Cuyahoga National Park. We were on our way to a cemetery, where we visited President Garfield's Mausoleum, after seeing the one room log house he was born in. He was the last of the log house presidents.
We have just fast forwarded to the grand weekend, we had at Ron and Janet's palazzo
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| only twice as large as what you seem to see now |
and more about that later in this blog, but we started our adventure on Wednesday May 29th headed towards our favorite restaurant - Brix - in Lexington, VA, where we did our 10 week externship, so that our culinary degrees could be awarded.
We had a wonderful night with chef Nate Fountain who fed us well and we sampled more wines then we should.
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| WV river with butterflies you don't see |
After waking up from the waft of wine, that next morning, we had a wonderful drive for 4 to 5 hours through the West Virginian mountains, on roads dotted with butterflies, towards Beckley WV without seeing the interstate on which we could have reached Beckley in less than 2 hours. Local roads allow you to observe for 20 minutes or so how yellow middle of the road striping is now automated with the use of electronics on a truck with a vat of yellow paint that sprays exactly the surface of the old stripe with new paint, whether it is a long "no pass" double stripe or a "pass with caution" intermittent stripe. We could not pass this truck driving 10 miles an hour without getting fast drying yellow paint on our red Range Rover.
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| no whitewater |
I was interested in Beckley for 2 reasons: 1. whitewater rafting and 2. the mine museum. None of those happened for me. There was no water coming down the river fast enough for us to see white water, which seems to be an essential ingredient to whitewater rafting.
And the mine was visited by a school bus full of 6 year olds with a string of parents and us as the only regular visitors. The prospect of being herded in a mass of loud children, with parents unsuccessfully trying to schuss them, was enough for me to accept Sandee's "suggestion" to start moving to Hudson, Ohio.
Against rule 1 we took the interstate to fast forward to a new area of "Americana", Amish country and after that ending up in Hudson with our friends Ron and Janet.
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| there is the golden dome |
By the way, as we are taking right now one of our rest days in a hotel room in Mackinaw, we reflect on the fact, that the only natural horror show we endured, were the Mayflies tormenting us Friday and Saturday.
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| look closely and you see mayflies everywhere |
No balcony access and going out to dinner requires wading through a cloud of them. This seems to be an act of nature delayed until June like most acts of nature this year. Some research clarified to us, that after a year of living below the water surface in Lake Michigan as naiads or nymphs, moulting multiple times as they mature, these Mayflies enjoy their last part of adult life one to two days above water, where the males have so much sex that they die (we presume with a smile on their face.) I am not sure how long the well visited dames lived after those two days.
But let's return to Ohio where our GPS found the farm of the Yoder family, who are former Amish, turned English. There we got an education in how the Amish lived in the past and how they live today. There were two homes, one as they lived a century ago with outhouse and water being brought in as needed, as well as the one and only heating and eating source, the wood stove. The other one as they live to date, larger, with toilet and bathtub and running water, with battery operated lights and a gas stove on a propane bottle.
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| a hat cabinet |
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| new Amish home |
There seem to be 8 orders of Amish all interpreting, the life of humility and living separate from the corrupting world, differently in today's world, some of them even allowing cell phones for business purposes only.
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| the old Amish home living room |
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| still the only vehicle they ride |
It was an enlightening visit with so much info, that I could dedicate a blog to it. But for those among you that like more info, Wikipedia is a quite enlightening beginning.
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| Ariel' harem |
We spent a lovely relaxing weekend in Hudson and I will spare you the boring details on what we ate, what we talked about, even details about our tour around the area including Cleveland, where we visited 2022 Seymour Avenue, now boarded up, where for more than a decade 3 women were kept by Ariel Castro. The police car in front of the house guarantees nobody trespasses. Just know that it was a wonderful weekend and we deeply appreciated their hostility.
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| Garfield in his finest coat |
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| Daughter Mollie and Husband in the Urns |
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| the Mausoleum Dome |
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| One day maybe we could own one |
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| One day maybe we could own one |
Another interesting visit was President Garfield's Mausoleum. Garfield was from a very poor family but brilliant, i.e., he was at 29 president of his college in Hiram Ohio. His 6 term political career culminated in the presidency in 1880. He was shot 4 months into this service to his country and was killed by his 12 or so doctors, who with unwashed hands all took turns on the spot of the shooting, poking in the bullet hole for the bullet, that had not damaged any organs. The unwashed hands killed the president a few days later.
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| One day maybe we could own one |
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| Sandee found her mother's Rambler |
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| The Wright brothers first plane |
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| Humble beginnings |
After the weekend we sped on to Dearborn and stayed in style in the Marriott Dearborn Inn in one of the original wooden homes behind the hotel.
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| Our Dearborn Inn Suite |
The Ford Museum and Greenfield Village is a must see for any of you who may ever come to Dearborn.
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| Farmer's Market Children Petting Corner |
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| John's Ancestral Home |
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| Big Red near Holland on Lake Michigan |
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| Bo and Paul during dinner at their home |
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| One of 15 Military Vehicles |
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| Iraq era rocket |
where a private collection of war memorabilia, such as ammo, deactivated rocket launchers, and military vehicles galore were stored. Just look in awe at some items of the collection, amazing. Pierre is often asked to participate in various local Memorial Day parades.
The next morning we started out in some rain along an AAA dotted road, which indicates beauty for the eye as we travelled north toward Mackinaw City, on a beautiful road.
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| Tunnel of Trees |
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| Lake along the road for mile after mile |
The tunnel of trees and the cute little townships and lighthouses, the "Sleeping Bear Dunes", it was everything that we aimed to see and more. We especially loved the trip from Traverse City up a 18 mile peninsula in the middle of the Grand Traverse Bay driving among numerous wineries and fruit orchards and finding an old country store in Old Mission with wares we had not seen in ages.
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| Old Mission Country Store |
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| A new Walmart Slogan |
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| pickles galore |
Yesterday, we did the Michigan variant of Williamsburg, the Island of Mackinac, with hydro-jet and carriage tour ending at the fort, where re-enactors brought us back to the war of 1812, where America twice lost the Fort to the British.
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| Re-enactors at work |
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| View from Downtown at Fort |
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| 1 Foot tall Woodpeckers did this |
We bought fudge as everybody else does here, we admired The Grand Hotel, we gawked at the Arch, like everyone who was on our carriage, preceded by people on other carriages and followed by many after ours.
Whereto from here? Well that is a blog for another day.
Greetings from the road.
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