After Ohio, we continued North.  We settled in an AirBnb for a week in what was the boring-est town we could find so we wouldn’t have any distractions and would have a reliable wifi connection to hunker down and get some work done.

We emerged in Dearborn, Michigan, where we visited The Henry Ford.  The Henry Ford complex is huge – it has a (what I assume to be large but cannot verify because we did not go in!) museum, a village of historic houses and structures, a factory tour, and a movie.  We had about 5 hours, so we went for the village and factory tour combo and didn’t regret it.  Sadly there were no cameras allowed in the factory tour, but I’ll say that the Rouge, which produces the Ford F150, was pretty freaking neat.  You watch some flashy videos up front but the real fun was learning about the building (green roof!) and seeing the cars built from a walkway above the factory floor.  The cars are on a slow moving conveyor belt that travels up and down workstations, where factory employees are responsible for one or a few tasks, ranging from securing an interior console, fastening in a few bolts, placing the seatbelts inside the car, or using special equipment to put in the sunroof.  While the number of employees needed in the factory has decreased a lot over time, I was surprised to see so many parts of the production involving human beings.  While I did not see the entire car made, the only fully-automated station I saw on the line was the insertion of the front and back windshields.

In addition to the Ford Rouge Factory Tour, we strolled along the grounds of Greenfield Village.  In the “Edison at Work” section, we viewed Edison’s Menlo Park Complex (parts of which were transported all the way from NJ (the other parts were reproductions) and listened to an employee record his voice on a phonograph.  We viewed one of the Wright Brothers’ Cycle Shops along with the house where the Wright brothers grew up (transported from Dayton, OH).  A guide in Logan County Court House colored the building with stories of cases Lincoln argued in that very room.  We watched some Model Ts drive down the wide roads of the village.  The whole experience felt a bit like Disney World but we were among structures of historical significance.  I suppose it is neat that someone recognized their value before they went into disrepair (or in many cases restored the buildings after disrepair- in fact when Edison left his Menlo Park Complex, he informed the locals that he would not be returning and to take what they needed- windows, doors, wood planks, and all).

In our effort to move westward, we settled on a week at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore consists of a park along the coast of Lake Michigan as well as two small islands, North and South Manitou.  The Indian legend behind the park is one of sorrow- a bear and her two cubs swam across Lake Michigan to escape a forest fire.  Mother bear arrived at the shore first and awaited her cubs that never arrived; they had drowned in the lake.  Legend says that the spirit of Manitou formed two islands in remembrance, one in each of the places where the cubs lost their way.  What started as a sad tale is now a serene and peaceful park that many Michiganians and locals from nearby states go to vacation.

We initially did not know how many days we were going to stay, so we booked 3 nights at the Platte River Campground.  We were very excited to arrive at our first campground with hot showers in the campground itself… luxury; to boot, the showers were free and untimed.  We ended up staying 6 nights in total!  Here are the highlights:

Beautiful beaches along Lake Michigan:  There are many points that you can access Lake Michigan from the park- there was a trail from our campground that led there, there are established public beaches, and the Dune Climb led to it as well.  After a hot day it felt wonderful to take a dip in Lake Michigan.  The water was clear and relatively warm, once you got used to it and dunked your head in!

Dune Climb:  A popular approximately 3.5 mile hike in the park up and down sandy dunes, this was a challenging but worthwhile hike.  The reward is that halfway through, after ascending and descending some steep dunes, you reach the shore of Lake Michigan.  We picnicked at the lake, went for a dip in the water, and then made our way back up and down the same dunes to get back to our car.  Luckily for us, it was an overcast day, as there is no respite from the sun on this hike; I walked most of it in my socks, and thankfully the sand was not too hot!

Blueberry picking:  Admittedly, this activity was not inside the park but rather just outside it.  A man had a few thousand blueberry plants on his property and posted signs for u-pick blueberries.  We ended up with what he called one quart of blueberries (two quarts by my measure after filling our containers) for a whopping 3 bucks.  Eating this many blueberries inspired my peanut butter and blueberry sandwich, which is now my breakfast of choice (protein and fruit in the morning- wahoo!)  For those of you skeptics out there, think of it as a pb&j without the extra sugar.

A Craftsman at Work:  At the northern section of the park in historic Glen Haven, there was a restored blacksmith shop.  We got to hear stories of the beginnings of the small town as a wooding village for powering ships.  We also watched the blacksmith use a number of tools to make a hook; it was pretty neat!

Port Oneida Fair:  We were lucky enough to be in the park on the second weekend in August, in time for the Annual Port Oneida Fair.  At the northern tip of the park, a number of farms had open houses to show us what it was like living on a farm in the early to mid 1900s.  We had a nice time walking through the farmhouses, an old schoolhouse (ps, Lenny and Christine, we saw a stove here that may have been identical to yours!), and the various exhibitions (such as one on old bikes).

Small towns all around:  The park runs along the lakeshore, and as we traveled up and down to see various parts of the park, we also explored the surrounding small towns.  In Benzonia, we found a quaint and welcoming public library with decent wifi and a porch from which we could do work and take some calls.  We ate corned beef sandwiches for lunch one afternoon at L’Chaim, a Jewish-style deli in Beulah!  In Empire, we purchased some local corn from a small grocery store; a few nights we roasted these corn on the fire, which was scrumptious.  In Glen Arbor, there was a cute retail shopping strip that we meandered on a warm day.  We spent a fair amount of time at Cherry Republic, where we sampled cherry wine, cherry soda, cherry bbq sauce, chocolate covered cherries, and more.  We may have purchased a few holiday gifts here, but given that space in Ellie comes at a premium, we mailed them to my mom for storage; thanks, mom!  We also saw a double feature (The Secret Life of Pets and Jason Bourne) at the Cherry Bowl Drive-In Movie theater in Honor, MI.

Trip Statistics:

• Stamps Acquired:  4 (plus one sticker for the fair!)
• Dips in the lake: 2.5 (if you count some walks along the beach where we put our feet in!)
• Books completed: 1 (Americanah – an interesting read with discussions of race and identity)
• Movies viewed: 2
• Hikes: 2