FOOD: The Chicory Cafe

The Chicory Cafe seems to be a very welcomed edition to the main street of Rogers City. Specialising in local and organic foods, the Chicory Cafe offers warming and filling soups, huge thick sandwiches and the most delicious of coleslaws as a side. Walking in your met with a farm house feel - wooden tables and chairs, an old oven range celebrating local produce for sale, small chalk boards suggesting the specials of the day. Behind which the wall is painted, the menus chalked, notated upon it, old fashioned paninis offered alongside buffalo meatballs or squash soup with an organic soda to wash it down. Whatever your fancy you'll feel satisfied. For $8.75 you can feast on a full sandwich with a side, granted it's more than your Subway but it's tastier, the ingredients local, free range and organic. As a couple who eat predominantly eat organic fruit and vegetables, it's great to find local businesses offering the same. 

With free wi-fi you you could make this our home for an hour or so, local art lines the wall, old classic cars drive along the street, you can sit a while soaking up the real America, the local America. 

You can find The Chicory Cafe at;

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179 N. Third St,

Rogers City, Michigan. 

LIFE: Shores, Rocks and Walls

I've typed, deleted, tried to retype so many words to describe this snapshot of a random weekend in Rogers City that occurred last October .. yes really, October. It was an unexpected three night stay in a motel by Lake Huron after our car ground to a halt driving back to the 'burbs from Mackinaw City. Home seemed a long way away when you're car-less in a place not really geared for tourists. Yet it led itself as opening an opportunity of learning about a community embedded within it's local quarry and a lake - the memories of men loss and serving at the later forever remembered at the Great Lakes Maritime Museum. We treated ourselves to walks along the lake shore, delicious treats at the Chicory Cafe - a delightful organic cafe and enjoyed sitting on the balcony watching the sunrise and the sunset.

Sometimes things just happen for a reason, this was a good one.

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!

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You can find 40 Mile Point Light house along;

County Park Rd Rogers City, MI 49779 ‎

MICHIGAN: The World's Largest Limestone Quarry

Now I really want to see the random things that America has to offer, you know from the mom and pop diners to crazy roadside oversized objects. Once we found out we could stop at the viewing sight overlooking the world's largest limestone quarry just outside of Rogers City, we knew it was a must. Founded in 1910, although production did not begin until 1912 The Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company with the construction of both the quarry and a port, transported the limestone out to everywhere from Chicago to Detroit and Cleveland. 101 years later, the quarry continues to be mined and stands at around 5 miles long and 2 miles wide - it's even more impressive once you see it from the air.

Source

Stepping up onto the viewing platform is like being transported into another world. One cut up, blown up and carved into an unrecognisable unearthly landscape somewhat how you might imagine the surface of the moon to be with it's craters and mountains. It's even more unworldly when you consider the immense scale of the quarry as trucks drive across the vista dwarfed by the height of the cliffs and ledges because you know the truck in the third image down is going to dwarf you if you ever stood beside it.