Like the old children’s game connect the dots, a carefully planned vacation to parts unknown that includes recreational activities, historic sites, natural beauty, creature comforts and gourmet delights can produce a complete picture that reflects the sum of its parts.
The following travelogue represents a dot-by-dot exploration Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, “The Mitten,” as it is known to Michiganders, that great promontory of land bordered on the east by Lake Huron and on the west by Lake Michigan.
GREENFIELD VILLAGE
Nearly every trip to Michigan begins in Detroit, the Motor City, which was founded in 1701 by the French adventurer Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac on the shore of the Detroit River — River of the Strait — because it connects Lake St. Clair with Lake Erie.
After you have explored the downtown area, with its appealing river walk, take a short drive to the town of Dearborn. It was here in 1928 that Henry Ford, the man who revolutionized the auto industry, laid the cornerstone for a unique museum devoted to America’s technological past.
The museum is a four-star attraction offering a cornucopia of remarkable objects and exhibits: from Ford’s original Model T’s to gargantuan steam locomotives, Buckminster Fuller’s visionary Dymaxion House and even the limousine that John F. Kennedy rode in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
Adjacent to the museum, on 90 acres of land, is Greenfield Village, Ford’s painstakingly collected and reassembled homage to an America gone by. Constructed from actual historic buildings (and tourable by Model T) this living-history museum is a hands-on community where weavers work on traditional looms and potters turn out ceramic crockery alongside tinsmiths, metalworkers and glass blowers practicing their crafts. There’s even a working roundhouse.
The greatest treasure of Greenfield Village is its brick-by-brick, piece-by-piece reconstruction of Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park laboratories. This is not a re-creation. Ford bought Menlo Park lock, stock and barrel.
To enter these laboratories is to enter the past. You can almost hear Edison reciting “Mary Had a Little Lamb” into the first phonograph. Greenfield Village provides a wonderful way for parents and their children to connect with an America that was.
m The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village are open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Christmas and Thanksgiving days. Tours are available.
m Information: www.TheHenry Ford.org, 313/982-6100.
ANN ARBOR
As we drove north from Detroit on Michigan Route 23, it was obvious we were approaching Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, when the entire side of a rustic old barn proclaimed “Go Blue!”
Founded in 1937, the university dominates the town, from its Gothic Revival architecture to the throngs of students that fill its bookstores, coffee bars and specialty shops.
One of the best ways to explore the campus is to take a self-guided walking tour that includes visits to the President’s House (1840), Tappan Hall (1894), the first university hospital (1869) and the impressive Clements Library (1923) on the Law Quadrangle.
m For information, visit www. umich.edu/pres/history. A more inclusive architectural guide to the city of Ann Arbor — founded in 1824 — is offered by the Huron Valley Chapter of the Michigan Architectural Foundation: 734/332-9008.
LAKE HURON
As a born-and-bred California beach boy, I had a hard time accepting the fact that Lake Huron is a lake. How could any body of water that big not be the ocean? Our destination was the town of Oscoda.
Ideally situated on the shore of Lake Huron and at the mouth of the AuSable River, Oscoda offers miles of beaches to explore (but watch out for nasty, biting sand flies). The town is also the perfect jumping-off place for exploring the densely wooded trails and perfect canoeing ponds that weave through the Huron National Forest. In late July, Oscoda hosts the AuSable River International Canoe Marathon, a world-class competition that has been held annually since 1947.
m For information: www.oscoda. com, 989/739-3211
MACKINAC ISLAND
It’s a short ferryboat ride from Mackinaw City (at the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula) to Mackinac Island and its most famous architectural landmark, the Grand Hotel. Every bit as grand and stately as its name implies, the hotel, which opened July 10, 1887, dominates the island like an enthroned dowager from a bygone era.
To step onto its stately, 880-foot white colonnaded front porch (claimed to be the longest in the world) is to find yourself transported to the 19th century. It’s no wonder the Grand Hotel was chosen as the ideal backdrop for the 1980 romantic time-traveling film “Somewhere in Time,” starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.
The timeless nature of the hotel is enhanced by the fact that Mackinac Island is a world without cars, where everyone gets about either on foot, by bicycle or in an endless procession of horse-drawn carriages.
It is truly an idyllic experience to sit sipping afternoon tea on the endless porch, looking out on the passage where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan flow together, listening to the clip-clop as carriages pass.
Dinners are served in the hotel’s 3,400-square-foot dining room, the Main Dining Room, by liveried waiters. The Grand Hotel’s room rates include breakfast and dinner, and a variety of guest packages are available. The hotel is open from May through October.
m For Grand Hotel reservations: www.grandhotel.com, 800/334-7263. For other Mackinac Island accommodations and activities: 906/847-3331.
SLEEPING BEAR DUNES
After rounding the top of the peninsula, we followed Michigan Route 22 south through Glen Haven and Empire on our way to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, a realm of mountainous sand dunes and rivers ideal for canoeing.
Erosion has exposed vast sandy slopes here by the lake. The tallest of these, at the Lake Michigan Overlook, rises 450 feet from the shore. Steeply pitched, the dune offers a serious workout. Going down is a snap. It’s a helter-skelter rush to the bottom. Getting back up is a slog.
If there is an official state sport in Michigan, with its thousands of lakes, it has to be canoeing, a favorite summer pastime. For a beginner like me, the gentle course of the Lower Platte River (from the village of Honor off Scenic Highway 5042) provided a wonderfully peaceful experience.
After putting in, we paddled downstream past thick woodlands, passed through the placid water of Loon Lake and a few hours later emerged at Sugar Sand Beach on Lake Michigan. More adventurous paddlers may prefer the swifter-running water of the Upper Platte.
m For information: Riverside Canoe Trips, www.canoemichigan.com, 231/325-5622
WICKWOOD INN
Saugatuck is to Michigan as Carmel and La Jolla are to California. It’s a quaint, decidedly artsy waterfront village dedicated to vacationing tourists and recreational boaters. The streets abound with boutiques, art galleries and a wide variety of eateries, many of which feature al fresco dining.
Saugatuck is also home to the Wickwood Inn, a boutique-style bed-and-breakfast cottage whose owners are Bill Miller and Julee Rosso of “Silver Palate Cookbook” fame.
Located on a quiet, tree-lined side street away from the hustle and bustle of the shoreline, the Wickwood Inn offers individually decorated, but somewhat overdone, rooms and a congenial, get-to-know-your-fellow-guests environment.
The breakfasts, conceived with culinary precision by Miss Rosso, are the Wickwood’s signature attraction — a delicious, ever-changing buffet of seasonal creations and delights.
m For information: www.wickwood inn.com, 269/857-1465
Our tour complete, our dots all connected, we chose to drive on to Chicago rather than returning to Detroit. There we boarded the California Zephyr for a leisurely train trip back home — but that’s another story.
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