We gave ourselves buffer days. On Thursday 7/14, we both took the day off to do the packing and finishing everything up. So I packed, she packed, we packed, we cleaned up some things that we wouldn’t want to leave around and continued cleaning. We got most things done, and we took naps, and had a nice leisurely evening.
Friday 7/15
We didn’t have to get up to early, as we were limited by the dropping off of the cats for boarding. So we had a relatively leisurely early morning, and got things ready to go and loaded the car to an extent (trunk items). A little before 10, we gathered the kids up, and let me state that it was challenging to get Mani and Iðunn, We arrived just a little before 10 and checked the kids in. We went back, at a quick early lunch, finished packing the car then decided to head out. Luckily for us, the Trash and recycling trucks came and so we were able to stow away empty bins.
We travelled a well travelled road for us, and when we got close to Iowa City, we sent a message to our further guest (one of my little brothers) that it was where we were headed. The construction in and around Iowa City compressed and compacted the traffic, and it took 50 or 60 miles to get everything to settle out again.
We usually add some little side trips along the way as I tend to get bored driving, or can’t sit for that long or etc, so we headed towards Ottawa, to visit a memorial to the Radium Girls. I read a book on them early in 2021, so it was there in my head. We had been there for a little bit and my lil brother caught up to us and then we headed to our next stop.
The next stop was in Joliet, IL. To a gas station. Why that? It has a replica of the Blues Mobile…so why not?
We found a place to eat (Smash Burgers, not bad), since we had only had an early lunch, and then continued on.
We hit a lot of traffic going form Joliet to Michigan. On top of that, the rain we had been chasing all day, and cough up with it. It ranged from downpours to just barely rain, and traffic and construction. It was a relief to get to the clear roads of Michigan.
As a side note, I do not want to register an account for the Illinois tollway. I don’t want to associate a plate number, I don’t want to associate a name or address, and I don’t think I should have to. At the toll road I we took there were two choices, IPass and camera scan. No pay at a booth or etc. In fact there was no notice what the toll would be…that either of us saw.
We got into Dowagiac pretty late, ran to the grocery store and tried to wind down. Nice little place. Common issues with many places, including hotels (outlets). I’ve learned to bring my own surge suppressor and charging devices, but with that, I still need a place to put them. That being said, we adapted quickly and got settle in.
States covered: Iowa, Illinois, a touch of Indiana, and Michigan,
Saturday 7/16
My brother wanted to go to the Ford Museum in Dearborn, we had bought tickets to see the Frank Lloyd Wright houses in the northern Detroit suburbs. We first stopped at the Affleck House (LTU).
Originally set in a wooded landscape, the Affleck house has this calming presence, even as you can hear the traffic go by. At one point in time the stream would trickle through led by some work done by the Affleck’s. it has many of the access you expect, but also has some items that are perhaps unexpected as the is a speaker unit, a natural air conditioning, and a covered by the house fully shaded area (which as it wasn’t that hot, but was humid, felt pretty nice). As with many of the houses it has become a bit of a money pit. This seems to be what happens. Enjoyable home in active use by the college, and occasionally by visiting professors (which seems like a good deal). There was quite a bit of discussion afterwards, but eventually we left and headed over to the Smith house. Docent was very good.
The Smith House (Cranbrook), is located a bit more off the path, thought still quite close to the Affleck. We got a bit early and started taking photos around the outside of the house. It was on a nice piece of land next to a pond. So a couple of things here that I learned there, that reminded me of the general disparity. First they were redlined, because they were Jewish, however, using their Americanized name of Smith they were able to make choices that wouldn’t normally be allowed to them. They fell in love with the FLW design, and scrimped and saved, as teachers, to get the money for the land, then the plans from FLW. As it stands, it’s a nice story about how they built it themselves, worked with other people, paid in installments for many things and eventually it became the house that it is. Docent was very good and there was a lot of art from Cranbrook that got into the house, purchased, gifted or etc.
Then, having some time, we filled out the day by visiting the Cranbrook Art Museum (fairly small) and then we were about to start wondering around the campus and taking pictures, when my brother showed up, we headed to another suburb to go to Union Woodshop. We got there just a bit before it opened and there was a line outside the door waiting to be let in, which, is usually a good sign.
Union Woodshed’s food was pretty good, I’m glad we picked it, after further limitations on where we would go. Decent meat, decent sauces, the sides that weren’t totally disappointing (as some BBQ places outsource their sides to food service companies). I really enjoyed the baked beans, the battered fried pickle spears, and pretty much everything else. Have I had better this, that and the other? Sure. But given the situation, no complaints.
We headed back to our place with the ~2.5-3 hour drive, which is a hike after a long day of waking up early, driving and driving back.
Sunday 7/17 - South Haven
This was a much more leisurely day. Lets skip past the part where there is some miscommunication between the sub group and etc, and just realize that we ended up at a sister restaurant of the place we went to and ate lunch there instead of a breakfast type of meal. We chatted and had a bit of conversation with this subset of the family, and after a visit to the blueberry store, cause how can you not go to the blueberry store, we headed to the place where the majority of people were staying, with fine woodworking, beautiful wood details through out, we spent the day around this house chatting and listening, and at one point welcoming a friend of the family for a visit.
Shannon and I headed down to the public part of the beach (srsly, fu if you think you own part of a giant lake), and I took more pictures, some of which I was actually not upset with, and dipped our toes in Lake Michigan.
We ate dinner, watched a slide show, I think Shannon woke me up at least once. The kids that were around started to get a wee bit rambunctious, so we abandoned the central house and escaped home.
Shortly after Shannon and I got back, my brother showed up, and we finished watching Catch Me if you can, drew up a vague plan for South Haven II: Electric Bugaloo, shot the shit for a bit longer after Shannon went to bed, and then I continued to write a bit longer while I got drunk of the first time on the trip (right now).
Monday 7/18 - South Haven II
Having missed out on the dining out, Shannon craved a breakfast, so we searched around a bit and made the wise decision to go to the Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor. This was apparently located in the arts district, which has a mixture of odd shops and open spaces. It did have some nice features, some green space, cute places to sell art. We ended up even using the plastic egg machine and got a pice of art (hoping for a magnet, got a sticker). Breakfast was quite good, one could complain here and there (more rye in the marble rye toast, etc), but overall, good nice variety of food, done well and tasting good.
My brother left to join up in “beach day” and we wandered around Benton Harbor for a bit. While coming back towards our car, we got invited to a new, opening today, dispensary called “Nobody’s Home” which appears to be setup sort of like an apple store. The name tickled my funny bone a bit.
We headed down to St Joseph to go to the St Joseph Lighthouse. The light house has a red roof and a white building along with a center metal loading structure? that runs down the center of the pier. The concrete pier has metal support structures in the lake that appear to protect the concrete. This also makes it interesting as occasionally the waves of the lake will throw up water in a spurt. We wandered out closer and closer to the lighthouse and took pictures along the way. It creates an interesting perspective change of looking towards those on the beach, or the houses down the way, the boats, or just the lake.
Even further out on he pier, with some cautions of not using during inclement waves or weather, was a white walled and black topped second lighthouse. There was some damaged concrete here and there, and some uneven levels, but for the most part, everything was in not terrible shape. As we started to come back, we started to notice things like the seagulls , ducks and etc.
Afterwards we headed north to South Haven to visit the light house there. This lighthouse is red with a black top, while the opposite side is white green white. We have effectively did the same thing, by walking out to to the lighthouse, taking pictures along the way. While we were headed to the north beach side lighthouse, we ran into my father who was at the beach…welll walking near the beach, as papa does.
This day was getting a bit warmer and we had to park quite a bit away, since there were a lot of people at the beach, but we eventually got out there.
Unlike the St Joseph Lighthouse, I was able to get a few spurts of water thrown up in the air by the lake, at St Joseph, the lake was toying with me. We wandered back to the land and decided to go out to eat, rather than join the family (we did invite anyone that wanted to join us). We went to Clementines which was…ok. After a debate of future ice cream vs ice cream in the present on the family reunion chat, we went to Sherman’s and had a bit of ice cream (quite good), in the present.
Because of planning by Lovina, we were able to take a sunset cruise on the Friends Good Will 1810 style top sail sloop. This was quite interesting as the ropes went up, down, tightened, the sails swapped where they were, we toured part of the boat. Listened to stories and descriptions of the boat and just took a lot of pictures. Dad stayed home with the youngest and a handful of others skipped out, but for the most part the entire family was there.
After the sail returned home, we headed to Dowagiac, with the ~50 minute drive. On our way home we saw a hot air balloon be inflated.
Tuesday 7/19 - Grand Rapids for Us, Updated for the Family: Holland
Due to a “reservation” that had to be early(ish), most people adjusted their place and headed to Holland, instead of Grand Rapids as originally “planned” (please note, only individual people planned things, some for the whole family, there was no family plan). We however, had (free) tickets to visit the Meyer May House. So we headed there.
This house had fallen into major disrepair and I, personally, am grateful that the Steelcase CEO at the time decided to restore it. At both the Smith and Affleck houses the docents made jokes at how much money is spent (noting that the Smith house came with a supporting endowment, and the Affleck house can be problematic to the costs for the associated college), when I asked bout it, the docent stated that one does not tell people the price of a gift to the community, which is a fair point. You can tell in the film about the rebuilding of the house, including making custom fibers for custom rugs, that there was quite a bit of money spent. That being said, I get it.
Apparently Steelcase now uses it as a place to present to artists, and work with large buyers and etc. Which that is quite fantastic as well. I always like to know that hey are being used, even in a limited sense..
So parts of this house reminds me of other houses (some to the Dan Thomas House built 1902-4 vs 1908-9).
The house in and of itself is quite beautiful, and makes me feel that extra calm feeling that I feel in the FLW houses. I do like the art/stained glass, I liked the glass in the brick lines around the fireplaces. the carpet designs, and the furniture. The lines on the areas around the house, both the horizontal lines and the base where it makes it feel affixed to the ground. The private door, but the tiled pathway to it. There were the stories about the boiler sales were in the covered porch should be, and how it was broken into apartments, and added on to (for a growing family, without consultation). I’m glad we visited.
As a note, I missed the light to the entrance door, multiple times, and it makes me wonder how many other details I missed.
Afterwards we drove around the Heritage neighborhood a bit then headed to lunch. We ended up at Brewery Vivant. We had duck nachos and I had a few samplers. As a point of oddity, I loved their bathroom sinks. Loved them.
It would be entirely impractical as a sink used for things like shaving or etc, but as a place to wash hands? Yes please.
Anyways, food was pretty good, beer was also good. I picked up a number of things including a glass.
Knowing our time was short, headed over to Founders. We were going to sit down for a beer, but it felt crowded and loud, so I got a shirt (liked the design on the front, I’ve never had their hard seltzer) and a beer and we headed back to South Haven for the “reservation”. We got back bit early and explored the South Haven shops burning the rest of the time before dinner.
Heading over to the restaurant, we got there a bit before we were triggered and after asking the family reunion who made the reservation we said we were the first of the group to arrive. This is where things started to go askew. The hostess looked concerned and apparently after a series of information slips. At a bit before 5, they had over 100 people in line waiting to be seated, so sit they did. Did this delay our reservation a bit, I suppose, did I get a little angry about it cause I was hungry, I did.
So part of me went through the, “is there restaurant misleading” or is this a ploy by the reservation maker to get us there on time? the lake of knowledge made me annoyed to be sure and it was also an overreaction.
Dinner was fine, We sat at a separate table with Brent and my brother. Eventually as more people left we were joined by more family members so people can eat better.
We headed back to the big house (quite pretty), to have ice cream with the family.
Once again we headed back to Dowagiac. This time, in about the same place we saw the hot air ballon it appear they are having a fair? Perhaps a county fair? Rides and etc. Looks interesting.
Wednesday 7/20 - Holland
So my brother left this morning and started the long trek back home. Everyone else started their trek home as well, we, however are not quite done with Michigan.
As a family we had talked about how cute the Root Beer Barrel was in Douglas MI, so we figured it was worth a drive by, we stopped, took a couple of pictures before they opened up, then went kitty corner across the street to Outside Coffee and the Woosah outfitters. We got some pretty good coffee, and I liked a couple of shirts, though they didn’t have my size, and Shannon got one. Then we continued on to Holland, Michigan.
We both like flowers and gardens and ended up going to the Windmill Island Gardens and the DeZwaan Windmill contained within. We wandered our way over to the windmill, taking shots along the way, listened to a few stories by some guides and regular visitors. One of the regular visitors captured Shannons attention and told several stories including how a former governor may have broken the windmill, on accident, when he pulled on the break at the dedication. Anyways, I think that story was second or third hand when it made it to us. But it struck me as a bit funny.
We looked at the displays on the way up and after we got to the view deck, I tried to go out there and my anxiety acted up and I went back inside and sat down while Shannon took photos. My heart started to calm down, and we headed back downstairs took photos around the building, a few funny ones, then wandered around the village more. in the gift shop I saw cat salt and pepper shakers, and some owl ones that remind me of my grandma.
Afterwards we, appropriately, headed to the New Holland Brewery and had lunch. I noticed in here that some people, not me, were getting 5G, and other people (me) were not getting a phone signal.
We drove around after lunch and ended up stopping at a marina, while Shannon finished coating herself in sunscreen, I got my self re-oriented, and we headed to see the Big Red Lighthouse.
We tried to at least. Apparently this is now hidden by some rich people who don’t want to be bothered by the masses, Their actions make this publicly owned landmark unavailable to the public.
So we drove around the Macatawa Bay to the other side to take some photos, and due to strong winds and waves, we were unable to go out to the pierhead, to get photos from there. The wind was a nice relief from the humidity of the day and although it prevented us from doing something we wanted to do, its as still nice.
On our drive in, we saw a reference to OZ (as in the wizard of), so we figured out what that was and then went back to explore that park. The Centennial Park, which had the live plant that was dedicated to the author, who spent summers in Holland. There was a fish pond, fountain, gazebo. We went back around and walked on the boardwalk and next to the bay and went to dinner at Big Lake Brewing (can you sense a pattern here?)
We took the 1 hour and 20 minute drive back to our AirB&B and called it a day.
Thursday 7/21 - Kalamazoo, etc
We ended up going to the Gilmore Car Museum as part of our Kalamazoo day.
Look, I’m not a car guy, as I wore a shirt with a vague computer joke on there and most of the gentleman had car related t-shirts on. It was interesting to see the different types of cars, and also brands that I had never heard off (I think I consistently dragged on the Franklin brand for…not being a brand). Some cars where inherently interesting, some it was the story related to it, and you could generally see how designs changed over time. It was clearly dedicated to American made cars, and perhaps mostly Michigan related. We walked around parts of the campus, which focused on other brands, or motorbikes.
I think we spent the most time on the display about the Green Book (book not movie), including looking up what was “ok” in Iowa (a depressing little).
Because I am who I am, we headed to Bells Brewing for lunch. Food was ok, had some, I suspect, one offs (mead and cider) and then picked up a few things at the shop.
This really is the plan isn’t it?
We then headed over to the Confections with Convictions ( https://confectionswithconvictions.com/ ), as Shannon saw them somewhere in her search. Interesting history, great goals. I noticed a “parts” book which is what my therapist practices as well. We got 4 pieces each and enjoyed them a lot. We chatted about what we did and what we had done and the idea of me dragging Shannon to a couple more breweries and perhaps a distillery or two, didn’t seem like a great idea. So we decided to call it a bit earlier then we had been.
We drove by the small collection of FLW homes (private) in the Kalamazoo area and looked at them in their place.
We drove around a bit and made one more stop and headed the 50 or so minutes back to our AirB&B
Friday 7/22 - Re-visit? / Dowagiac / etc day
We woke up when we felt like, after a bit of planning the night before we started out our day, but going to the Dowagiac history museum.
For a fairly small museum, it was actually done pretty well, unlike many small museums. It had a fairly limited scope and focused on business and famous history and there were many things that we found out, for example that the founder of Tidy Cat lived in the County. We also found a olympic bronze medalist that went to Iowa State Fun, clean, nice flow and free!
We had a light lunch at Caruso Candy & Soda Shop. I got a blueberry malt, it was pretty good. We ate some other things that were ok. Service was a bit disorganized, but was a cute place to go and I did really enjoy that blueberry malt (probably because it’s the most sugar I’ve had in a long time).
We headed towards Niles, and, unlike other drives, this was quite short, as we made a stop at the Fernwood Botanical Garden. We came no where close to exploring the 105 acres, but did walk around a bit and took some shots, including setups with model trains, small and large ponds (including a shy turtle). Apparently I scared the turtle and they jumped off his log perch and to hide in the pond. But as we hiked one way then back, the turtle slowly made his way up the stick to warm in the sun again.
We explored a bit more, but a wedding was starting to arrive so some pictures became harder and harder to take, as they probably should have the right of way, so we headed out and hit the art display (very nice, but way out of our price range) and headed to Niles to explore it a bit.
Between the Dowagiac History Museum and Fernwood we got there shortly before the Fort St Joseph Museum closed. We did not need much time. This fell into the more disorganized side of museums where some things look like they are placed there seem to be an indication of “this person made a donation therefore, here’s the thing she wanted to display” with no real consistent topic or flow. It did not take us long (we did notice a glass fire (stopper) bomb, which was interesting but for the most part…not much to share.
We headed over to Sister Lakes Brewing, in Dowagiac to have dinner and call it an early night as we were traveling the next day. Beer ranged from ok to good, I bought some stuff to take home and we went home to pack up and get ready to leave. We got packed, prepped everything to load and take off in the morning.
Saturday 7/23 - Indiana Dunes National Park and Home
We took off around 7:30 AM Eastern and headed to the Indiana Dunes National Park. Let me note here, Shannon was right, I should’ve filled up in Dowagiac. It was a much easier drive crossing borders as we were not as challenging since we were not driving in and out of downpours.
The Dunes were nice, we paid our fee and headed in to visit this part took photos of the Century of Progress Historic District and then the various beaches. It was interesting to see the buildings of Chicago across the lake. We drove around the Indiana state park of the dunes to the more western part and took more photos there.
Certainly worth spot a nice part of nature where it changes dramatically based on the how things merge together.
Afterwards we did our best to not spend any money in Indiana, and get to Illinois to fill up the tank. As a note, going to the dunes makes it less reasonable to hit the Joliet pathway, so we had to drive through Chicago. We got to the Chicago suburbs before I felt we had to stop and get petrol. This was shortly after the tank went from 41 miles left to under that last gallon. We filled the tank, ate at a lack luster place that we hadn’t heard of (was a chain, we didn’t know). And headed the rest of the way home.
We got home around 7 central, which would have been to late to pick up our cats, as we expected, so we unloaded and figured out what happened while we were gone.
One of the ‘energy” beverages that I was gifted after I stopped drinking them sprung a leak as we let the house heat up, as we were gone. I spent quite a while cleaning up the shelf, wall, cupboard, all the things it leaked on, behind that stuff, the floor.
I was able to run two loads of dishes of these things and then…the sink drain clogged.
I was worried that this might be a whole house clog, but it wasn’t, it was just the kitchen line.
I knew it was a Sunday so I waited for the next day to call the experts to get it cleared up (now fixed).
So we’ve got the rest of Monday to adjust back to real life. I got on my air bike today and am catching up on all the bills and etc. Most auto-pay, but, you know, tracking and stuff.
Some stats:
