CREATIVE: Grand Traverse Light

The Grand Traverse Light in itself is well worth the drive from Traverse City, not to mention the beautiful scenery of cherry fields and the Leelanlau State Park. In fact it was this very lighthouse that began my love for these buildings that you'll find all around the Great Lakes. 

          

Luckily my love for Michigan lighthouses has always been forfilled with the cross stitch kits from Presque Isle Needleworks just so I have an excuse to mark my visits not only in photographs but in the craft I love the most. You might remember I've already stitched 40 Mile Point and Mackinac Point lighthouse - another two lighthouses we visited on our autumnal drive around the Lower Peninsular back in October 2013. After moving I knew hidden away in one of my cross stitch boxes was the kit for Grand Traverse lighthouse and it was high time I got around to stitching it. 

While it's stitched with a limited colour palette, I love their designs for how bold and eye catching they are. It's simple but they really do reflect the likeness of the lighthouse. Luckily enough they are just the right size for fitting within a 6" embroidery hoop to add to that old hoop wall of mine. 

You can always remind yourself with my original post the Grand Traverse Light here. I'm going to have to get around to eyeing up some more lighthouses just for the mere excuse of then being able to stitch them. 

TRAVEL: Dear Michigan

Oh Michigan, you funny little state you. You are a piece of land where your populace describes where they live using their hands. Where you can live happily in the thumb and the UP is more than a direction. It's a state of odd sounding and weirdly spelled place and road names, of Mackinaw, Mackinac, Ypsilanti to Dequindre and Schonherr. You know it's a place you call home when A2 makes sense as a city name, people argue over where "up north" actually begins, and you know that Hell freezes over when winter rolls around and it's down the street.

Source

Of course you like to trick outsiders when calling liquor stores a party store but those are for insider giggles. Just like calling soda, pop and Vernor's ginger ale sits in our cupboards for both beverage and medicinal reasons. Call Michigan home and you know the difference between a coney and a chili dog, where people queue for hours for a paczki when pancake day rolls round and you prefer a coffee from Biggby over Starbucks any day of the week.

Harbor Springs

It's a land where road trips can be undertaken in the fall just as an excuse to see the changing tree colours and what a beautiful sight they are. Summertime can be spent along the coastline, a state with the most lighthouses (116 of them) in America, with grand sand dunes, clear waters and national forests. Yet any trip probably involves many a Michigan left and avoiding all those potholes our state seems to pride itself in and the elected don't want to agree to fix. Only the winter brings relief in filling said potholes for those chilly months with snow. Only for them to be even worse when spring rolls around.

The Michigan Left (source)

Michigan, you are a state which pits Detroit against everyone else, Detroit is the states downfall, it's Detroit against the lawmakers, Detroit against it's own suburbs, Detroit against Michigan. And even if your not a huge sports fan, it's always Michigan verses Ohio. Ohio you can thank us later for those algae blooms as we thank you for being close enough for Yuengling supply trips.

That's not to say you're all a jolly state dear MI. I always wonder how a state can go from being so darn cold to being so humid months later. Your politics could do with working on, and well actually getting things ya know, done. Lets face it those roads won't fix themselves. Plus lets not forget the underlying racism, sexism and homophobia that still hangs around.  

Mackiac Bridge

Empty your pockets and you'll find just as much Canadian coinage as American but you may never stepped over the boarder. But leave the state and the Pure Michigan signs welcome you back like you never left.

You may have been the state were pop/soda was invented, the home of the first traffic light, state-fair and typewriter. It's the only place in the world with a floating post office (yes really - it even has it's own zip code), singing sand, the worlds largest tire, crucifix and weather vane. Home of the automobile and Motown, well Michigan, you don't like to brag about any of it really. 

Forty Mile Point, Rogers City

Your beauty and places rarely feature on anyone's bucket list. Your cities and Midwest rust belt towns might not attract the thrill seeking tourists, those which crave New York City or Disney who never travel to find the real America outside the bright lights.

Yet that gives us, those that call Michigan home the excuse to keep it's beauty our little secret.

CROSS STITCHING: Mackinac Point Light

Another pretty cross stitch project all complete - this time back to a more traditional design from Presque Isle Needlework of Mackinac Point - another of the lighthouses we saw on our travels up north last October. I love these designs for how bold the coloring is and even though it's a very limited color selection, it works wonders - although the full colours don't really come out in the above photograph due to how dark our apartment is for photo taking. Nevertheless I do love being able to compare the finished needlepoint design to the real thing, but it took me a while to figure out just which angel I'd stitched it from.

It's pretty much a squashed in version of the bottom photograph which was taken from what I would have consider the backside of the lighthouse (just mentally remove the tree and shed and you're there). Granted there's a little artistic license been taken with the repositioning of the bridge but I can live with that. Luckily it just fits into a 6" embroidery hoop to add to the hoop collection - they certainly just give you enough aida to stitch the piece on that's for sure.

What are you crafting at the moment?

You can also find my completed 40 Mile Point lighthouse cross stitch here.

MICHIGAN: 40 Mile Point Lighthouse

It's probably wrong to have lighthouse favorites but the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse just a couple of miles north of Rogers City has to be mine, maybe it's the richness of the red bricks against that warming October sky, or the amazing view point over the lake by which is sits, having a shipwreck there certainly works in it's favor. 

You'll find 40 Mile Point Lighthouse along a small tree lined road, one that opens up into a huge, welcoming space. The lighthouse doesn't mark a harbor, nor even a river mouth, it's mere purpose to guide ships between Mackinaw Point and the Saint Clair River - that a ship should never be out of sight of a light to be guided by. 

Creeping along a small trail you'll come to find the final resting place of the SS Joseph S. Fay - a wooden steamer built in 1871 - one of the first freighters built for carrying iron ore on the Great Lakes. On a rough October night in 1905 while heading south, the Joseph S. Fay was swept onshore by the powerful winds of the night. While the ship broke free of the ship she was tugging, yet she was sinking and a strong wave washed the ship aside onto the sandy beach a short walk away from Forty Point. Now all that remains in it's final resting place is 150 feet of it's wooden side complete with metal rods and spikes.

While we there there I picked up a cross stitch kit of the lighthouse design which now all completed, sits on my embroidery hoop wall.  Since our trip Joe brought me two other kits from Presque Isle Needlework for the lighthouses we visited - the Grand Traverse Light and the Mackinac Point Light - which I can't wait to get started! 

I must admit I love how it turned out!

View Larger Map\

 

You can find 40 Mile Point Light house along;

County Park Rd Rogers City, MI 49779 ‎

TRAVEL: Mr Teds Lighthouse Adventures

Mr Ted has a lot of travel miles under his little belt. He's jet setted his way between East Yorkshire and Detroit three times (although granted once was stuffed within a tight padded envelope which he didn't particularly agree to) he's visited Edinburgh, Pittsburgh, passed through London and stayed in Chicago. Luckily he doesn't ask too much of his human companions but he does like to sight see - in this instance lighthouses. As Mr Ted had read yesterdays post about our beer road trip, he thought it was high time I got around to publishing his lighthouse road trip.

Original source

Our original plan was to drive between Mackinaw City down to Bay City following the tourist scenic drive along the lakeside taking in many of the lighthouses along the way. That was the plan at least - didn't really happen like that we only managed from McGulpin's Point to Forty Mile Point both circled in the map above. But that's for later - i'll let Mr Ted take over from here.

Hello everyone. The first stop was passing the Old Mackinac Point again, this lighthouse one which marks the junction of Lake Huron and Lake Michigan and sits a little away from Mackinac Bridge which actually rendered it obsolete in 1957. Beginning it's operation in 1890, Old Mackinac Point helped guide ships through the dangers of the Mackinac Straits. 

Driving back on ourselves and heading about three miles eastward, me and my human companions took a peek early morning style at McGulpin Point - another lighthouse built to aid the navigation of ships through the Straits and in fact is one of the oldest surviving lighthouses in these parts. Costings $20,000 to build in 1869 and operated until 1906 when the Lighthouse Board judged the aforementioned Old Mackinac Point lighthouse to be doing a better job. The lighthouse was then turned into a private residence and is now open to the public since 2009. Nevertheless this lighthouse design - of a true light tower attached to living quarters is one that went on to feature in many other lighthouses around Michigan and the Great Lakes (Eagle Harbor, White River Light, Sand Island Light) - maybe me and my human companions will see them one day.

Leaving Mackinaw behind we headed along US 23 to Cheboygan - home to quite a number of lighthouses .

Oddly the first we came across was located in a parking lot, somewhat away from the lake if I care to mention it myself. Anyhow, the Cheboygan Front Range lighthouse was constructed in 1890 to guide sailors up the Cheboygan River.

A little further down the road and in Gordon Turner Park you'll find the relocated Cheboygan Crib light - sadly Rachael pointed her camera at the wrong end of the pier there's an internet image for you to admire. Originally the light which was built in 1882 was built offshore and daily the local lighthouse keeper would have to have rowed in all weathers to maintain the light as there were no accommodations in the building. Like with the closing of many of the former lighthouses of the Great Lakes, this light was decommissioned, yet with the support and help of the local community the light was relocated onto firmer ground. 

The good thing about those modern camera contraptions you humans love is being able to capture what I believe is the Fourteen Foot Shoal lighthouse far into the distance. Being one of the first automated lighthouses it marks the shallow depth of Lake Huron at this point (14ft) and appears to remain an active navigation guide.

All this lighthouse talk makes a little Yorkshire bear hungry, so we parked up and ate Cornish pasties - nothing like the English version but a bear must eat all the same. 

Carrying on a little further south we happened upon what has since become mine and Rachael's favorite lighthouse - Forty Mile Point (in fact it's worthy of a post alone). It's a beautiful, fully restored light one built in 1896 there's also a foghorn building and outhouses not to mention a shipwreck which is mighty fun for a bear. It remains in operation to this day. 

We all had hoped to continue the journey along US 23 past Alpena and into Saginaw Bay before heading south back to Detroitland ... just the car had other ideas has it came to a grinding halt and broke down outside of Rogers City much to the dismay of my human friends and I was actually starting to miss my two kitty friends back home. I did overhear them mention a road trip around the entire Lower Michigan Peninsula to see all the rest - there's too many to for a bear to count on his lighthouse map. But I shall hold the humans to that plan all the same.  

MICHIGAN: The Tourist Trap of Mackinaw City

Mackinaw City is the most northern point of the Lower Michigan Peninsular. It's also the most tourist trap-themed place I've yet to come to visit while in the US. If you took your Whitby or your Scarborough on a smaller scale and threw it into America and looked to see where it landed - you'd find Mackinaw (however here it's by a huge lake rather than a seaside ... but there's still sand all the same). Replace candy floss stands with fudge and popcorn factories and you're well on the way to imagining what it's like. 

The city is most often used as a base for either heading over Mackinaw Bridge into the Upper Peninsular or as a parking lot for the short ferry ride over to Mackinaw Island. It's probably something of a tourist crime to not visit the island - something which is considered one of the places to visit in Michigan, but our main reason was to see the Headlands Dark Sky Viewing Area once the sun had set. Until then we visited the Popcorn Factory - home to such flavors as Maple to Nacho's, explored around the Old Mackinaw Point Lighthouse and peered through the wire around Colonial Michilimackinac - a representation of the former French and then British fort - yes us British have a long history in these parts until we were somewhat chased off onto the Island .. enough said.

Mackinaw is a huge cultural difference to the quaint fisherman towns along the shores of Lake Huron and Michigan that I had come to love, it sadly seems a little too much built for tourists and little else, just row up row of hotels and motels. While it was worth a visit and there's certainly things I want to do given more time (visiting Mackinaw Island, Ice Breaker Tour to taking a boat trip out to visit the lighthouses) but i'm certainly coming to prefer my smaller, out of the way USA.

How do you prefer your seaside and lake side towns - has tourist traps or small and quaint?

MICHIGAN: To the Lighthouse

If you ever get the time or the inclination to do so there's a gorgeous lakeside scenic road tour around Lake Michigan which we happened to drive along on a day trip out from Traverse City. At times you'll forget they are even lakes they are so vast, their stretch seems endless like the seas which ultimately lead the lakes to be also known as the Sweetwater Seas. Making the drive north we headed along the lake side to Leelanau State Park to visit the Grand Traverse Lighthouse one set in a popular beauty spot, tourist destination and growing wine region. 

Many take the time to visit not only do the Lake Michigan circular tour, but to stop at all the lighthouses along the way - in fact Michigan has more lighthouses then any US state with 115 still standing although many are now decommissioned. Lighthouses and foghorns during the late 1800's when many of them were built marked and signaled the only way to guide ships through the Great Lakes that surround Michigan, guiding ships between Chicago and out towards New York, you might be surprised to hear that the Great Lakes are some of the most treacherous waters out there.

The Grand Traverse Light built in 1858 guards the entrance between Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay right on the very tip of the Leelanau Peninsular and now sits within the Leelanau State Park. While decommissioned in 1972, for a small fee you can now climb your way to the light and gaze out to a further two lighthouses in the far distance. Climbing down onto the beach we were met with a mass of stone snacks, some featuring some incredibly well balanced arrangements of stones marking people's visits over the years. a modern man made monument striking in it's volume although I can imagine many fall victim to rough winter storms.