Ann Arbor to Munising, MI

So, we left off driving down Stadium. and then I had a sap-fest. Before that, there was just more sap. Pictures of me, pictures of me and my cat, pictures of me and my dad and then of course the quintessential bon-voyage portrait of my mother and I looking nervously optimistic about sharing the road together for two weeks.

The "what are we doing?" look

Dad has been a big support, even
though I know it has been hard.
Can't wait to be pen pals, though!

And he has this lady for
support : )

 Today's goal was rather ambitious given our tendency to side-track. There was this notion that we might make it up to the Porcupine Mountains. However, we had barely gotten past Flint when we encountered our first distraction. "Cops and Donuts?" a garish yellow billboard with a poorly photoshopped group of policemen caught mother's attention. It looked so cheesy that I was skeptical. "What, is that like a thing?"

"Thats what the sign said. We could get coffee there!"

"It didn't say that....but we could get donuts there...or a cop!"

With that, we were re-routing to Clare, Michigan which was a good 45 miles inland from the first billboard sighting. Luckily, it was also an equidistant alternative route for our trip. After about a half an hour, we were beginning to wonder whether we had read the sign wrong. Then there it was again, in its  overbearing font and haphazard design. I began to wonder what kind of a place Clare might be if they needed a cafe that attracted cops. I was imagining folgers poured into flimsy styrofoam cups colored with that same unsettling hue on the billboard and bright convenience store lights showcasing waxy-looking "confections" that could be mistaken for dollhouse food. I was imagining a desolate community of suburban houses and churches occupied by overprotective families with cops that patrolled empty roads at all hours, building superficial ego boosts. Well, paint me yellow cause I was dead wrong. Downtown Clare consisted of a small strip of local businesses residing in buildings that maintained the character of their old architecture. I was expecting the cafe to jump out at us but it blended so well into the environment that we almost missed the block. I was buying a bumper sticker before I had even tasted the coffee. The place was snazilicious.

Back in 2009, in a full-throttled effort to prevent this 1896 bakery from shutting down, Clare's nine-cop squad had single-handedly (well, eighteen-handedly) buckled down and saved it. for good reason to. This was the kind of bakery that pulled your nose off of your face from blocks away. Glazed donuts of every creed, fudge-topped brownies, giant peanut butter cookies, loaves of artisan bread and half a dozen types of pie all attacking your senses at once. The coffee was their own "cops coffee" brew and served in travel mugs to buy or mugs with their glazed and badged donut insignia. They had postcards, bumper stickers, t-shirts, sweatshirts, baby shirts, shorts, swimwear, pickles....all developed in their fundraising effort. And I now have that same gaudy billboard design bumper-stickered to the back of my car.

After an early distraction, we stayed course save for a wet and chilly dart about Mackinaw City where a few tourists darted in and out of Fudge Shops or sporting stores. I was on a secret mission for Traverse City Naturally Nutty Pepitas Butter but the town didn't accommodate much local business beyond its sugary confections. 

Labeled "Moose Capital of Michigan" we thought that Newbury might be an interesting pitstop. In the information booth under a sign that bragged such a title, mother asked a kind woman about sighting a moose. "Yeah, good luck. I've been up here a long time and I think I've only ever seen one"

"So how did it get the name "moose capital" then?"

"They wanted to put Newbury back on the map. So...they did."

Our critter encounters weren't much more successful at our next stop. Seney Wildlife Refuge offered a much needed stretch from the drive with a 1.5 mile trail along the marshes and ponds but for the most part, the animals were feeling unsociable. I resorted to taking pictures of decrepit tree tanglings, an even more common photo subject for me than sunsets. 

And we weren't completely alone. besides the fact that I felt very knowledgeable when I was able to identify all we saw: "Chipmunk! Squirrel! Swan! Goose! Seagull!" We did see some impressive holes in both the birch and the soil and from a viewfinder in the visitor's center, we saw the rustling head of a nesting Osprey or "Sea Hawk." We also saw some interestingly colored birds, heard some impressive croaks and near the end of our walk, managed to startle something rather large into the water. 

Also learned that we can thank J.N "Ding" Darling for the Wildlife Refuge System. I have no idea where the "ding" comes from. 

We traveled a bit of that green part there, going to see Miner's Castle.

We opted to end our day in Munising, at least a good three hours from the Porkies. Back on the coffee train, I am poised to hunt down all the local cafes and our first stop was Falling Rock Cafe and Bookstore. The atmosphere and the service were definitely feel-good local niche. Nancy the owner came right up to talked to me when she saw that there was a new face wandering about. The place had been in business for ten years and seemed to be the most vibrant building on the small business strip. Its outer walls were covered with a mural of the pictured rocks lakeshore and inside, shelves upon shelves supported local artists and musicians and authors, scattering merchandise of theirs among a full two rooms of books. Hand-painted wooden signs hung overhead with labels ranging from the commonplace "mystery" and "history" to the more specified "plays", "gardening" and "native." An old popcorn machine sat popping away in the doorframe where people could help themselves, donation only, to a bag. A group of musicians made up of a violin, cello, banjo and a few other instruments began to warm up on stools at the front of the store as we took a seat at a table next to a shelf of boardgames. The waitress who cleared our food popped her head out the window next to me when she came by and exclaimed "I just want to see my friends bikes! They travel year round and pass through twice a year. I've never seen their bikes!" The food itself was of "grin and bear it" quality. It made an honest attempt at hiding its small town fare quality but the salad was packaged and the dressings brought out in fastfood packages. I tried to bury my pampered and pompous taste buds and at that moment, realized it is going to take a lot of practice.

 

Before giving in and checking into our *inn* for the night, we went and walked a short trail to the Munising Falls. Between 1868 and 1877, the area was part of the Schoolcraft Iron Co. and apparently the overlook there was once home to a large "Blast Furnace" used to meld shipped Iron Ore, locally mined limestone and charcoal into "Pig Iron" bars which were then used to make tools. There wasn't much to say about the waterfall itself except that the erosion there was constant and erratic and rock might fall on your head. How informative.

All shame for Inning it aside, the inn was really nice and welcoming. It was painted in pretty, beach-housy colors and we were one of the only guests there so Michael, the greeter on hand was very conversational. I set up a comfortable nook and messed around with this somewhat confusing template situation on the blog, wearily got my first post going and finally went to bed.



And the dream drama continues. Another sign that I have some reflecting to get through is that I have been having very jarring dreams. The week I left, I was visited by a murderous, mutant Saisha, a series of ominous black storms obliterating my paths as I dodged from random building to random building and a floating platform in the sky that held a tent supposedly set there by my parents to keep me safe, only to be ridden with holes. That night in the hotel, my car was in my dream, parked in a grassy field, equipped with the roof-top carrier and my cat. I was meant to go dancing and a car load of friends left me behind as I was getting ready. When I went out to the lot, I found my car carrier toppled over and Saisha limping about. She wasn't vitally harmed but someone had come and cut all of the fur around her tail and stolen a sleeping bag out of the carrier. One of my friends came back for me and led me shaking into the house as a group of teens walked outside snickering, holding the sleeping bag. I am intrigued and mystified by the workings my mind is working through in these dreams, but I should probably take some waking time to figure it out so that I can get some good sleep.

They could very well simply mean: I miss my cat.