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: 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?