Michigan on the Road

Monday broke and, at last, no rain. Finally, a day suitable for rambling around this little corner of Michigan. I had been stuck either in the car or indoors for all the time I was here due to the weather. Time to get down to some serious cruising.

After dropping the wife off, I stopped at Zoe's House of Pancakes for a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage, hash browns and what else? Pancakes of course. Drank a couple of cups o' joe, read the sports page and after settling up at the cash register, headed out the door. After filling up at the gas station down the street, I pointed the nose of the car west and just started following the road. No hurry, no precise route in mind, just a general aiming of my trajectory into the greater Ann Arbor area.

I promised myself before I left that I was not going to use the GPS for the entire day. I've found that using a GPS keeps me from connecting to the world I'm traveling through and anesthetizes my innate sense of direction. I find myself trying to remember the names of the streets I turned on instead of remembering where the streets are. It may seem like a small distinction, but for me personally, the ability to recognize where I am is much stronger than my ability to remember a series of random street names. So, after looking at a street map I headed out and, in my mind, let the navigational safety net drop. Do or die, baby.

It's really not as intrepid as it sounds, trust me. While it is kind of rural out there, and a lot of the roads transform from asphalt to dirt and back at what seems like completely random intervals, I knew as long as I stayed on the road I started on and kept going in one direction, it would end where I needed to turn to get me into Ann Arbor. My route of choice today was 6-mile road.

As I cruised west listening to the radio feed me a non-stop stream of classic rock, I took note of the neighborhoods I was passing through. They ran the gamut from large, obviously very expensive homes with well manicured lawns and landscaping complete with the occasional team of gardeners making it all look nice, to middle-middle class neighborhoods with pick-up trucks, station wagons and fishing boats on trailers in the driveways, to expansive rural homes with horse corrals, rusting tractors and rickety barns leaning against the horizon. And as most people passing through someone else's turf are wont to do, I imagined what it must be like to live in this place, with its harsh winters, wide open spaces, huge yards, great stands of giant trees brightly attired in their fall colors, the rivers, lakes and streams everywhere offering opportunities for all kinds of outdoor recreation and the effortless greenery everywhere. Taking all this in, a thought presented itself. Man, I give up a lot to live in the sunshine.

I could probably buy the most expensive house I saw here in Michigan for what my house in San Diego is worth. My house with the postage-stamp lot, with neighbors so close they can tell you what the wife and I argue about, where I can hear the neighbor's shower run, where water has gotten so dear no one can afford to water their lawn. Don't get me wrong, I like my house. And my neighbors, for that matter. And the 300 days a year of 70-degree sunshine are easy to take, as is the ten-minute drive to the Pacific Ocean. All good stuff, to be sure, and the only thing I have to give up to live near those things is economic freedom.

Now, let me qualify all this by saying I've never lived where it snows for three or four months out of the year. I could be totally kidding myself, a victim of "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence" syndrome, I don't know. What I do know is I saw some very nice houses on some very large lots and a lot of wide, open spaces in which to amuse oneself at a fraction of what it costs to sit in bumper to bumper traffic twice a day and pay sky-high taxes here in lovely Southern California, in addition to the high property values. Just sayin'.

Let me show you some of the stuff that got me to thinking…

Maybury Park

Driving down 6-mile, a side road caught my eye. For no special reason I pulled a u-turn and went back to see what was down that road, and I stumbled across Maybury Park, complete with miles and miles of running, mountain biking and equestrian trails. The trees were blazing away in their fall colors.

Pedal in, ride your horse in or jog in. Take your pick.

Maybury Park

After driving down 6-mile for a while, I went right on Angle Road and headed up to Whitmore Lake. It is a smallish lake ringed by houses, each with its own dock out back. Nothing too ostentatious, just a bunch of middle class homes on the lake. Very picturesque.

The houses are tightly spaced around the lake. This was one of the few places I saw where there
was very little space between dwellings. Cool little village complete with its own little tavern. Judging by the number of ski-boats I saw, this place is probably hopping in the summertime.

Whitmore Lake

At the lake, it was a left turn and head south for Ann Arbor. There wasn't a whole lot going on down there, which kind of surprised me for a small town with a large university, but it was pretty dead. I stopped and had lunch at a place called Kerrytown Market. It's a good sized brick building that houses a couple dozen eclectic shops and eateries. Lunch was generous and spicy, just what I needed on a chilly fall day. There was a nice coffee shop in there but I had one stop I wanted to make yet and I knew if I sat down in that warm space filled with the aroma of fresh coffee I'd never get out.

Whitmore Lake

Next up, "The Big House".

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Michigan Stadium is the largest stadium in the United States. It was built in 1927 and back then it "only" seated 82,000 fans. It has since been enlarged, and the official capacity now is just over 109,000, but it has had as many as 115,000 fans in it at one time. I couldn't get inside, but how you gonna go to Ann Arbor and not at least stop by? You can't, so here it is.

Looking across the campus

My first day in Michigan was a rainy, cold mess of a day. I drove through Ann Arbor that day but never stopped anywhere because, quite frankly, I didn't want to get out of the car in the crappy weather. But there is no denying that it's a very pretty town. There are plenty of old buildings and long established businesses to pique a traveler's curiosity. On this day I didn't have time to get out and walk the downtown area because there was something I'd seen on my previous drive through and I wanted to be sure and get there this day with good light and time to wander.

Forest Hills Cemetery

Forest Hill Cemetery was founded in 1857 and didn't receive its first "resident" until 1859, when Dr. Benajah Ticknor became the first person to be buried there. There are a lot of old gravestones and supposedly the joint is haunted. I walked around for close to an hour and only saw one other person, but alas, no ghosts.

Forest Hills Cemetery

Forest Hills Cemetery

The cemetery was my last stop for the day. It was getting late and I had to pick the wife up at the end of the day. I had no idea what the traffic would be like, so being conditioned to SoCal rush hours I left myself about an hour more than I needed to go get her.

After we got back to the hotel from dinner, it was time to pack up and get ready for the next day. Travel days are never fun days, and after the landing I "enjoyed" coming in to Detroit, I have to admit I was a little anxious about the flight home. There was still a heavy layer of thick clouds here as far as the eye could see in all directions, so I knew it was going to be a little dicey on take-off, but I also knew San Diego was going to be sunny with temperatures in the mid-70's. And as soon as that thought crossed my mind, I looked at the grey skies outside our hotel and thought, "Oh yeah, THAT'S why I
live in San Diego".

I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Michigan and Canada and am looking forward to coming back when the weather's a little nicer and I have more time. Tomorrow I'll put a ribbon on this trip with my usual "Odds and Ends" posting.

Until then...