Somewhere in Time in Michigan

"Why Michigan?"

That was the question most of our fellow travelers said they were asked by relatives and friends when they revealed their travel plans to tour the mitten-shape Midwestern state. Why Michigan, indeed?

Many expressed their own reasons and I have mine that a few others shared as well. This requires some explaining later, as to why Michigan was in my bucket list of places to visit. I must confess though that America has 90% of the places in that bucket list; which begs another question: Why America? There are more spots and patches that are  hidden gems in this country to last anyone and everyone a lifetime to visit and to experience them all. There is so much more beyond the popular sites and familiar tourist destinations for anyone willing to venture and immerse in America, even if only briefly. We could and should set aside moments to experience the charm of small towns or understand the unique histories of those who were here first and those who later made America what it is today. You will know why.

Mackinac Island and The Grand Hotel that was the setting of the 1980 film, "Somewhere in Time", were the two main reasons that motivated me to choose this particular journey. For years after watching that movie, off and on, I'd talk to my wife that perhaps someday we could visit the island. It took many decades to fulfill the yearning but, at last, we did. And to spend two nights at The Grand was the proverbial icing on the cake.

As it turned out, there was more, a lot more, about Michigan that made this trip akin to discovering more "best kept secrets" of places we never thought of or anticipated. After just a week and a day I am compelled to say, 

"Indeed, why not Michigan?"

So, we flew from Houston to Traverse City, MI. Now, you've heard of Traverse City, if you haven't before. The Cherry Capital Airport, so named for the cherries that the county of Acme, MI is known for, is a flight destination by commuter planes - typically from O'hare International in Chicago, IL or Detroit, MI. Mild weather travelers that we (my wife and I) are, this is the perfect time to be in this area. Autumn, when fall colors are at their best,  would have been great but we did not want to risk abrupt cold weather fronts to dampen our enthusiasm. Actually, for a couple of days the weather did turn colder but thank goodness, only briefly.

Coming from two huge airports of Houston and Chicago's O'Hare - both associated with the din and fast walking travelers - the Cherry Capital Airport was as quiet as a library on Sunday. But that did not take away the gentleness and sweet demeanor of the Mid-western residents there.

Our first impression was immediately and firmly set by the folks we first met when we landed. Traverse City, sparsely populated by people like the retired administrator for Los Alamos National Laboratory who picked us up from the airport with his Uber Lincoln MKX, foreshadowed everything about Michigan and Michiganders. The tour director quickly pointed out that there is no "Michigoose". Just Michiganders.

We were fortunate to have for a tour director a native Michigander who grew up in a small town and who loves the state. She was the quintessential tour director with a mind full of information sprinkled with humor and a mid-westerner's clear delivery. And it is always the little things, as often the case, that mattered the most. For example, carrying a bagful of extra warm clothing for travelers caught wanting when the weather turned unexpectedly cold.  She went about it tirelessly, checking on everyone to make sure they were warm and comfortable. And there were more extra little things she did to make sure everything went well and doing it with such energy and calm demeanor that I thought exemplified the tour director's Michigander spirit. She is the only tour director we've had the pleasure to travel with who unfailingly called our room at each arrival after check in, like clock work, to make sure we found everything "okay". 

Not to be taken for granted were fellow passengers with whom we shared the journey. These seasoned travelers - retired accountants, doctors, military retirees, a farmer, teachers, newspaper editor, etc. - were  the finest people from across America who have a similar fervor to see more of the country while they still can, as are we. 

Took these photos below on our first day just before the sun slipped under the horizon. Used to viewing sunsets from the shores of a Pacific island I thought this one over Lake Michigan was equally captivating.

                

Late in the year, this coach that took us mile by mile around Michigan was not a common sight as it would have been in peak summer season. Come to think of it, we saw only one other coach.

First stop was at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore. Lake Michigan, like all the Great Lakes, was gouged out from the terrain by glaciers thousands of years ago and when they retreated as the planet warmed up the lakes were created and sand dunes and beaches rimmed the water lines. Michigan's coastlines are almost equally shared by two of the Great Lakes - Lakes Michigan and Huron.

Before steam ships and oil-fired engines, but after man-powered canoes, sail-powered schooners like this one - "The Manitou" - carried people and goods across and around the lakes. This ship was manned by just a crew of four, two young women and two men; and one of the ladies was the captain.

When the captain asked for volunteers to help raise the sails, men volunteered but it was obvious the young lady crew member (foreground) did most of the work. 

The Music House Museum in Acme County is truly one of a kind. An architect and an engineer decided in 1979 to restore, refurbish and preserve old automated musical instruments and housed them in an old barn which they also restored. It was worth every minute we spent there listening to two of the most animated tour guides - Tom and Christina - who regaled us with stories behind the instruments that were displayed there. Anyone, music lover or not, will be fascinated by what the museum offered. Not only did the instruments played by themselves, the sounds were unbelievably live and acoustically reflective of the era. The place was filled with antique music boxes, vacuum tube receivers and jukeboxes, etc.
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A reproducing piano is different from an automatic piano player in that additional perforations on the paper roll coded nuances like pedal force, softness and quickness of the key strokes, "expression and phrasing", that were there during the actual recording. The above reproducing piano played the "Rhapsody in Blue" as it was originally played by George Gershwin himself. It was as if Gershwin's ghost was playing when the piano was turned on, especially since this recording included extra codes that the artist/composer added by recording "over" the first one for additional lyrical notes, as if twenty fingers or four hands of Gershwin were on the piano. 

The 1922 Montier Dance Hall Organ, its face as large as the facade of a small barn and one of only two remaining working instruments in the world, played "can-can" that took the listeners back in time to that era.


Herbert Henry Dow founded Dow Chemicals in 1897 when he invented a method of extracting bromine that was trapped underground in Midland Michigan. Its headquarters is still in Midland. While Dow is widely well known, there is a little footnote that can only be learned while visiting. His son Alden three years into a chemical engineering degree dropped out to pursue a career in architecture. In the 1930's, long before the concept of "home-office", he built a house that served as his office and work area for draftsmen and other architects while his family lived in upstairs bedrooms. We were not allowed to take photos of the interior but his fondness for straight lines, triangles and even hexagons were evident, which showed up in buildings he designed - two of them we saw around Midland. His home, now a museum, is in the background.

Note the triangles and straight lines of the exterior of the Alden Dow "home-office".

A tour of Michigan would not be complete without visiting Detroit.  The city, by the way, is undergoing a revival after years of decline due to suburban migration. It would not be complete without visiting the assembly line of a modern automotive facility - known as the Rouge Factory. We visited this Ford assembly plant where the world's most popular vehicle (of any make or model), the Ford pick up truck F-150, was being put together in real time by workers and robots during normal work hours from a viewing gallery above the assembly floor area (but we were not allowed to take photos). Keep in mind it was Henry Ford who came up with the first assembly line production of motor vehicles - an idea he picked up from a meat processing plant. It was the production of the Model T that first put ordinary Americans on the road. 15 million Model T's were produced. The Henry Ford Museum also had one-of-a kind exhibits: the original bus where Rosa Parks made Civil Rights history in Montgomery, AL on Dec. 1, 1955 (as a footnote, Ms. Parks moved to Detroit afterwards and lived there until she died at age 92). Four Presidential limousines, including the Kennedy car, are on exhibit there. No new modern Presidential limousines will ever be displayed ever again because they are destroyed after their service life is over in order to avoid revealing any modern counter measures and special materials used in the production. Visiting Michigan and Detroit in particular would not be complete without visiting Motown's landmark recording studio, but we were more fortunate that the tour set aside an evening of dinner and dance to Motown music performed by Phase 5 live with their rendition of "My Girl" and other old favorites. Fellow travelers could not and did not resist dancing to the songs.

The Rosa Parks Bus

My wife was a trooper for going through with the trip despite barely finishing her radiation treatment for cancer, the journey I described in the blog just preceding this one. 

Phase 5 performing Motown favorites.

  

Oldies dancing to the oldies

The 240-acre Greenfield Village, adjacent to the Ford museum, was created to accommodate pieces of Americana that Henry Ford acquired. It includes Thomas Edison's original workshop, the Wright brothers bicycle shop before they built the first airplane, the first Ford wooden building and rides that include the Model T. It would take two days, if not more, to explore both the museum and village. 

Common theme, as in almost all human developments, everything started small. The first airplane flight was only 120 feet long, Edison's first light bulbs did not last for very long and he failed 1000 times before getting it right. Of course, Edison's take on the failed attempts was that, "I've not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work".

Note wooden bicycle rims

One of Edison's work tables

Let me get back to the 1980 film, "Somewhere in Time" with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. The film met lukewarm reception  from movie critics back when it first came out  but was popular among those who liked romantic movies, or "chick flicks" as they're often labeled. And it was definitely not a box office block buster, even though this was two years after Superman, which established Reeve's star power and Jane Seymour's portrayal of Solitaire in a James Bond film, "Live and Let Die". It only made $9.7 M on a $4 M budget. Today, Amazon reviewers overwhelmingly give it a 4.7 out of 5 Star ratings and a fan club whose members are counter-intuitively shy about telling other folks of their  light headed obsession for the film and story. It is worth a Netflix or streaming rental, given the kind of movies we are offered these days. A DVD costs less than $10 online.

The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island on Lake Michigan was the setting of the aforementioned movie. The 1972 book it was based on had set the story in Hotel Del Coronado (San Diego). Grand Hotel was picked because it is clearly reflective of the period, whereas Del Coronado was already surrounded by modern structures that included TV towers and modern buildings around. Below is a bit about the plot.

"On May 19, 1972, college theater student Richard Collier is celebrating the debut of a play he has written. During the celebration, he is approached by an elderly woman who places a pocket watch in his hand and pleads, "Come back to me." Richard does not recognize the woman, who returns to her own residence and dies soon afterward".

The metaphysical nature of the film aside, a musical score apart from the movie theme was actually what motivated me. The music is first heard as the scene cut away from the party when the elderly lady, Elise Mckenna, now shown in her bedroom, turned on the record player, listening to the music, just moments before she died. The story unfolded from there. I'll talk about that particular composition later.

Immediately, one will encounter a strange peculiarity: The island and the bridge are spelled, Mackinac, while the city from which visitors embark the ferry to take them to the island is spelled Mackinaw. Both names are pronounced with an "aw" at the last syllable.

Motor vehicles are not allowed on the island. Only horse drawn carriages and "taxis" may ferry people and goods. Even Fedex, UPS and Amazon packages are delivered by these - the most ultimate laid-back method of transportation.

One of waterfront "cottage" homes that dotted the island - used to be summer homes of the super rich in the early 1900's. Guess why those flowers - seen all over the island - are so productive. Hint: horses.

The bridge connects the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. Mackinaw City is at the southern end while St. Ignace is located at the northern end. Mackinac Bridge is three times longer than the Golden Gate, and unlike the latter, it does not allow for pedestrian traffic, except on Labor Day when people cross the bridge on foot in celebration of Mackinac Bridge Walk. 25,000 were estimated to have walked across last year, that ordinarily takes two hours, but speed walkers had done it in under forty minutes.

The tour included a two-night stay at the majestic Grand Hotel where we enjoyed 5-course dinners in its dining hall that can accommodate 750 people in one seating. Needless to say, no reservations are needed, except that men are required to wear jacket and tie and women in their finest. For breakfast, one may order an entree and go to buffet as well.

Dining at the hotel is one to behold, an experience to remember forever.

Carriages go up and down the driveway on the left, where passengers will either dis-embark or embark under the awning at the front of the hotel

The length of the porch line with white rocking chairs is about as long as the hotel's facade is wide. It is the world's longest porch.

No two rooms are the same and we were fortunate to have this one.

Obviously, we took more pictures than I can possibly fit in this blog, more stories to tell than can be written, but if I must add a few more tidbits, it will be about:

A) Michigan was at the center of The War of 1812 between the British and the Americans after the Louisiana purchase from the French. Inevitably, we see French influence still and names like Cadillac and Chevrolet as part of that. Detroit was in the early 1900's the Silicon Valley of today. More money was made and lost (1929 market crash) there than anywhere else. The car makers of today emerged from what once was a vast field for survival of the fittest among dozens and dozens of car makers. Henry Ford's wealth at that time, in today's dollars, was valued at equal the combined wealth of the top two billionaires today (as in Gates and Bezos).

B) One piece of music was how it begun for me and why Mackinac island made it to my bucket list. Sergei Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer and pianist who, after the Russian Revolution, immigrated to America in 1918. He completed only six works since then and one of those was Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, 18th Variation. That was the piece of music that Elise Mckenna played on the phonograph in the movie. For some reason that I cannot fully explain that piece of music stayed with me. If you listen to it, you may understand why it was the piece the director picked for the movie. Because Rachmaninoff was a modern-day composer, people actually heard him perform his own compositions. Songs were derived from some of his concertos, such as, "Full Moon and Empty Arms" from Piano Concerto No.2; as was "All By Myself"  derived by Eric Carmen. 

Michigan has a special story to tell, unique places to show, and a contribution that literally mobilized America when car manufacturing begun there and continues to be a huge part of the economy. When one must think about it, roads and highways, oil and gasoline, commercial land transportation and the distribution of goods, mechanized farming, etc. all came about because of the automotive industry. Michigan is still the largest producer of automotive products (vehicles and accessories combined).

Next time, you think of a destination, ask, "Why Not Michigan?"