Charlevoix was our first stop on the West Side of the Lower Michigan Peninsula. The Earl Young Mushroom Houses in Charlevoix were a surprise diversion from the weather so we took a tour with Terry.
I won’t do our tour guide justice with the full story of the Mushroom Houses but do remember that this was Earl Young’s mother’s house and part of the inspiration for his subsequent art. You can find more info at Wikipedia.I do remember Terry remarked that this house was a “middle finger to the mayor”. There was a property line dispute, the mayor refused to budge so Earl went ahead and built half of the house he intended anyway…
The Thatch House. Many of the Mushroom Houses are available as vacation rentals. This is the largest and most expensive… $1000/night.
Earl used Frank Lloyd Wright’s trick of hiding the front door on his Mushroom houses.
Earl started this house and then lost it during the Depression. We saw a picture of the house with only the chimney and the standing arched stones around the window when the bank owned it. Earl got it back and completed it in the 1930’s.The Owl HouseIn keeping with Earl’s aesthetics, the owners of this house maintained the “wrapped roofline” when they had to replace the roof. The original cedar shingles were steamed to create the round edges.
I thought this the most spectacular of the properties we saw. It is a rolling lake front lot where the house does not compete with the landscape but seems somehow a natural extension of it.
Earl designed even the fencing and the garden beds with his reverence for, and art with, stone. The undulating fence pattern was meant to evoke the Lake Michigan waves visible from the property.
The apple does not fall far from the tree… this property was built by Earl’s daughter
The house that Earl built for himself…… and his homage to the sailboats that grace the lake.
Charlevoix had other beautiful architecture beyond the Mushroom Houses…
… and many other reasons to agree that its name “Charlevoix the Beautiful” is apt.
As of yesterday, we are now officially on Lake Michigan! Before we crossed under the bridge we made a stop at Mackinac Island. This was a “tourist” stop, for sure, but we both left the island wanting to return in the high season. It was enchanting…
On the other side of the bridge was Garden Island. Where Mackinac was busy, filled with people and retail, in the bay at Garden Island, you could imagine being one of the Indians or traders who frequented its shores in the 17th century. It may be our last secluded anchorage for a while and we would have loved to stay another day but there is a famous Lake Michigan autumn wind storm on the horizon💨💨💨.
Mackinac Island
Another reason we are enamored of the island…Even the Amazon packages are delivered by horse and cart!The Grand Hotel… and it is!Elegance from an earlier time…spectacular gardens…
And the Geranium Bar where we enjoyed a very civilized cocktail and watched the weather go by.
The island has summer “cottages” to rival Newport and Jamestown, RI.
The reason we stayed a second night.We toured the original Fort Mackinac to head out of the rain. It was amazingly well preserved and provided the perfect vantage point to view the goings on downtown.
And, of course, the Mighty Mac.
If T-shirt shops and fudge are not your thing, Mackinac Island has great hiking trails, too. Luckily, we could leave our bikes at the bottom of the trail and hike UP to Arch Rock.😜
Still the only loons Christian has found since Picton Bay.
Garden Island
This may be the last sunrise we send… once we cross to Lake Michigan, we will be on the sunset coast of Michigan.Good-bye Lake Huron, hello Lake Michigan.The western anchorage at Garden Island.There was a whole apple orchard on the island!
We joined 21,000 others for the annual Labor Day Bridge Walk on Monday the 6th. The walk is over the Mackinac Bridge, from either end, between St Ignace and Mackinaw City. As over-achievers, we walked both ways, 5 miles each, and are now known as “double-crossers”.
Leaving the marina at 6:40A to try and catch Governor Whitmer and the start of the walk.In 1954 there was no provision made for pedestrians so in order to walk the bridge, the entire structure needs to be closed.The over over-achievers at the start.A beautiful, brisk, morning constitutional for 21,000.
We were rewarded with breath-taking views of Lake Huron for getting up and out so early.
Looking down……and up!We met the starters from Mackinaw City about half way.Walkers as far as the eye can see!We took a short rest in Michilimackinac Park……then headed back to St Ignace.Back to where we started.In the event you have never seen the iconic image of Mighty Mac, this is for perspective…🙂
We made a bee-line up the “Sunrise Side” of Michigan to make sure we would be in St Ignace on the first of September. The wind and weather cooperated nicely and we were able to drop more than a few anchors around Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP) as we passed a major milestone: we have left the most northern point of our adventure and are now, officially, heading south.
Much of the UP was sparsely populated, home only to wild life and those lucky enough to have summer cabins. Drummond Island offered a Jeep Week Festival and multiple off-road trails but was short on bike paths and restaurants. We learned that summer help was sparse this year so some places never opened and/or were closing the summer season, before Labor Day, because the students were returning to school.
We cruised through the Les Cheneaux Islands on our way from Drummond to St Ignace and were struck by the similarities to The Thousand Islands: rocky shoals (yikes!), boat houses and Clayton, NY’s sister city – Cedarville, MI.
The “One of Everything House” on Dollar Island was strangely attractive…
Another first this week was a weather delay… the forecasted thunderstorms and wind had us staying in Hessel for an extra day. This one was transitory so we still had our dinner at the Les Cheneaux Culinary School 😋.
In short, the UP proved an eclectic mix of cultivated and raw beauty…
Actually, not the same Presque Isle… the first was in PA and pronounced Presque “aisle”, this one is in MI and pronounced Presque “eel”. It was, like the first, a perfect anchorage. We stumbled upon a surprising woodland hike, climbed light houses for a Fresnel lens-eye view of Lake Huron and enjoyed the full moon over the last of the “up North, Sunrise side” of Michigan that we will see.
Presque Isle Harbor and the pond inside North Albany Point
The local community has cordoned off land for non-motorized vehicle recreational use and allows transient boaters to come ashore and enjoy. We walked a 2 mile trail which began at the harbor’s shore and meandered through the woods around the pond on North Albany Point.
Presque Isle actually has two lighthouses less than a mile apart. The first lighthouse, built in 1840, was rendered useless by its location and height. Thirty years later, the lighthouse in operation today, was built 80 feet taller and 2 miles further north for a visible range of 22 nautical miles.
Presque Isle Harbor is separated from North Bay by a tiny sliver of land… The northern pine forests spring from the shores of both bays but the beaches are very different. The wind changed direction on Sunday and North Bay is NOT where you wanted to be anchored!
Also known as “Cape Cod of the Midwest”… Unlike our Cape Cod, we were encouraged to walk on the dunes (Sandy Hook Trail) and wander through the magical changes of landscape.
Of course, we had to see if Marion’s ice cream was better than Four Seas’… while good, it was not. Our Cape Cod’s ice cream supremacy is intact. 😋
Our Spaziergang (translation – land excursion… we try to do one in every port) in Port Sanilac led to the historic village and museum. The village is a collection of antique buildings on the 10 acre grounds of a Victorian doctor’s home.
The Detroit River, Lake St Clair and the St Clair River are the critical bodies of water which connect the “northern” Great Lakes, Superior, Michigan and Huron, with the “southern” Great Lakes, Erie and Ontario. Also, remember, ALL of the waters of the Great Lakes flow to the Atlantic Ocean via the St Lawrence Seaway. I am pointing this out because it proved to be impossible to show you, in pictures, the currents we traveled against between Detroit and Lake Huron.
We left Detroit and the imposing GM headquarters, bound for the St Clair Municipal Marina, anticipating another 7 hour day. The time was not dictated by distance but travel speed; with a 2 knot current against us, we were only making about 5 nautical miles per hour.
The US and Canada are separated by the width of the rivers and we watched both shorelines much of the way. There was a distinct difference between the two… the Canadian shoreline was more “inviting”. For example, US residences were built directly on the water, Canada’s were buffered by public green spaces. Even the infrastructure had this characteristic…
We left the Detroit River and entered busy Lake St Clair. The marina we had hoped to over-night at was full so we wound up further up the lake at Metro Park. It turned out to be an anchorage as calm as Presque Isle, PA… just more mega mansions on shore. 😜
The north channel from Lake St Clair to the St Clair River is part of the river’s delta and helped us avoid an hour or two on the St Clair River. We joined the fisherman for an early morning transit… Once we did enter the St Clair River, we realized we had been overly ambitious in our plan to make it onto Lake Huron the same day. The river is VERY narrow and the current extremely strong… against us, of course. Seven hours of bouncing around against current, a north wind and the gazillion boaters, we decided to bail out in Port Huron.
Port Huron was busy with boaters, too… The next day, Sunday the 15th, was the annual St Clair River Float, an unsanctioned event which closed the river from the bridge down to St Mary’s from noon to 8:00P. All manner of inflatables were going to take over the river. We read, later, that about six thousand people participated.
On Sunday, we “got out of Dodge” before we were locked in… The Blue Water Bridge, just off the Black River, connects Port Huron, MI with Sarnia, ON and is the gateway to lake Huron.
Port Sanilac was our introduction to Lake Huron’s harbors. An engaging little town and water as clear as a Caribbean island’s… We already like Lake Huron.
Some regular readers will have noticed our fascination with infrastructure made from steel, such as locks and bridges. Correspondently, we have often been asked how a good model railway layout should look like. Here are our suggestions.
The layout should be anchored around a small town with residential and small commercial buildings. Construction machinery adds color.
A July 4th Independence Day Parade will please patriots as well as fans of good, old fashioned entertainment.
Weddings have universal appeal and shouldn’t be missed.
If the wedding above was consummated, this is were you bring the children.
The inclusion of a large city with main railway terminal will significantly increase the status of the layout.
Five stopped passenger trains are considered the minimum to indicate a busy city.
School busses are a must. Accidents are optional …
Obviously, to support the city with goods, a multi-modal container terminal with ocean going freighters is required.
Long cargo trains with similar cars add heavy industry flair. Canals with locks and barges showcase what has been displaced by railways.
To keep the trains running, support infrastructure is required. Such as a railway turntable …
… or the more modern linear version of the turntable. A view into the maintenance bay with Diesel engines will support the education of the next generation of railway engineers.
Very important, a rail yard with a sufficient number of tracks to support …
… a never ending display of rolling stock.
A sawmill to support the local residential construction industry should not be missing.
Abandoned water towers are ok as they further healthy nostalgia about the bygone steam engine age.
Ore should be properly unloaded from train cars into lake freighters. But, please keep the load light on the Edmund Fitzgerald!
Finally, a steel mill to produce the steel needed for all those tracks, bridges, and locks!
We found this model train layout in the small town of Medina on the Erie Canal. It has been under construction since 2001 by a group of railway enthusiasts. Very well worth a visit!
A wider view of the layout. 204 ft x 14 ft (62m x 4.2 m), impossible to capture in a single picture.
After 52 days in New York state, we managed to visit three new states in less than 10 days. We attributed this to Cathy, our “good luck charm” first mate. Good luck AND good natured… she endured a couple of long days to help us accomplish this!
Presque Isle, PA
A serene anchorage, great swimming, bike paths galore and a huge nature preserve. Presque Isle was the perfect segue way into cruising for newbies…
Erie, PA
We took the dinghy to Erie for lunch and had front row seats to a naval battle!
Ashtabula, OH
We over-nighted in Ashtabula and were pleasantly surprised with its offerings: dockage at a wonderful yacht club where we could watch the goings-on at the Bum Boat (🤣), great shops, a nice water front and good barbecue.
Cleveland, OH
Cleveland is the poster child for former Great Lake industrial cities who have successfully re-claimed their waterfronts; a real gem. I won’t bore you with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame pictures but will tell you that you should definitely go enjoy Cleveland.
Put-In-Bay, OH
Who even KNEW there are islands in the middle of lake Erie???
Detroit, MI
Put-In-Bay was where we said good-bye to Cathy and, boy, did we miss our good luck charm… The journey from South Bass to the mouth of the Detroit River was long (3 hours) and choppy even as we sailed at 7+ knots. The insult to this injury was a pop-up thunderstorm with driving rain and winds in excess of 40 knots… with a lake tanker headed down-river our way. We made it to Milliken State Marina, in the shadow of General Motors headquarters, then spent the next day housekeeping and meeting with friends. 😜
