Road Tripping: The Michigan Edition

Days after my friends left, another Cornell friend came to visit. Last year we met in Chicago; this year she came to see me; maybe next year I’ll go see her. We had plans to go on a road trip, but first we spent a couple days in Michigan. First, we got more use out of my Ford Museum membership by making the rounds through the museum and Greenfield Village. Besides all the usual spiels, we got printed copies of the Declaration of Independence, caught most of the Wright brothers’ (+sister Katharine) first flight at Kitty Hawk retelling, saw wool being carded, and heard Edison’s recording device. Inside, we walked through most of the planes/trains/cars/assorted farm equipment, but spent more time in the historical With Liberty & Justice for All exhibit, which covers independence, the Civil War, Woman’s Suffrage¹, and the Civil Rights movement.

Clockwise from top L: Wright Brothers' house, Wright Brothers' bicycle shop,

Rose Parks bus, Hot dog car

After dinner, we returned to Greenfield Village, this time for music and fireworks. When we were in Ithaca, we used to be able to watch city fireworks from the slope. It wasn’t the official viewing location, and you had to be okay with having some of the fireworks blocked by West Campus, but it was kind of fun to share in the unofficial experience on campus with other students. As far as I can tell, Ann Arbor doesn’t do fireworks for the Fourth of July. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra, however, partners with Greenfield Village to do an outdoor concert ending with fireworks accompanied by music. It sounded like it could be good, so I got tickets. The weather had possible thunderstorms in the forecast all evening, but the rain held off, and they only cancel for lightning, no refunds, so we went back to the village. As we found a spot on one side of the lawn, it started pouring.

DSO concert at Greenfield Village

Of course it did. They didn’t evacuate the premises, so we put on raincoats, huddled under umbrellas, and waited it out. After the rain delay, we got to listen to an abbreviated concert. Honestly, you go to outdoor concerts for the experience, not for a quality musical experience. Even the combined dulcet tones of a hundred musicians blaring away don’t carry well outside. There were speakers, so we could still hear, but a lawn in the rain is no acoustically architectured concert hall. They started out with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which I first played in seventh grade for a PawSox game in Rhode Island and last played three years ago in Schoellkopf Field for a lacrosse game at Cornell. They played the overture from Candide (Bernstein, played it last fall in band), some jazz, skipped Copland’s “Variations on a Shaker Melody” (“Simple Gifts,” most probably), played the Army/Coast Guard/Marines/Air Force/Navy service songs (played most of these in ninth grade at Memorial Day parades), John Williams, more jazz, and ended with (not shockingly enough) the 1812 Overture. During the fireworks, there was more music – think patriotic tunes along the lines of “God Bless the U.S.A.” Although the rain threw things off a bit, the experience was still worth it. We managed to get out without too much trouble, even after forgetting where we left the car, and were only slightly damp.

The next morning, our destination of choice was the Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. I’d been once with my parents on our way back to Ann Arbor from Chicago after my brother’s graduation. It’s a couple hours from Ann Arbor, but it’s somewhat different from a typical art or natural history museum, so I think it’s worth visiting. They have lots of plants, some conservatories, a new Japanese garden, and dozens of sculptures amidst the paths and trees. The sculptures range from abstract figures and blocks to metal people, horses, birds, other animals, and giant shovels. Everything’s generally arranged in a big loop, so it’s pretty easy to navigate. We made a round, had lunch, and took a quick walk around the Japanese garden before heading out.

Clockwise from top L: Giant horse, crashed UFO, giant neuron, parallelepiped

Since we’d driven the couple hours across the state, we figured we’d drive a little more to the western side of the state to see Lake Michigan. With the help of Google, we found Hoffmaster State Park and the lake. There was a small beach area but it was pretty crowded and we didn’t have any beach things, so we walked along the shore for a bit to enjoy the sand, water, and views. Before driving all the way back across the state, we climbed up to an overlook for a view of the lake. Then it was three hours in the car on some wonderfully paved highways (read: terribly paved) back to Ann Arbor where I packed for the start of our road trip the next day.

Lake Michigan, Hoffmaster State Park

¹The one thing I was absolutely supposed to learn and remember from US History II was that women gained the right to vote from the fifteenth² amendment to the Constitution.

²Just kidding. It’s the nineteenth³ amendment.

³For real this time.

The Roommate Triangle, part 3

On the third day, we arose and got ready to do one of my favorite activities. No, not solving crossword puzzles, baking cookies, or watching British detective shows. Hiking. Again, because I was in charge of the itinerary, I got to do the things I wanted to do. We packed turkey, mayo, and cucumber sandwiches for lunch. I skipped the cucumber and there were also supposed to be tomatoes, but guess who forgot them? Yes, hi, that would be me. Tomato-less sandwiches packed, we headed out for the Pinckney Recreation Area. The recreation area is one of the most, if not the most, popular mountain biking locations in the state, which is relevant because some of the trails are shared by hikers and bikers. From reviews on the internet, this was either a minor inconvenience requiring vigilance from both hikers and bikers, or the worst hiking experience ever, with trails overrun by bikers rocketing around bowling hikers over. As with many things on the internet, it was somewhere in the middle of two extremes.

A walk through the woods

I was hoping to get out early enough to avoid the heat, humidity, and the majority of the trail traffic, but as it turns out, not everyone crawls out of bed, puts on the first not-gross-smelling clothing they find, has a cup of milk followed by dry cereal, packs a sandwich/rain jacket/sunscreen/bug spray/first aid kit/water, and is ready to roll out the door in half an hour. So we got there closer to midmorning versus early morning. The parking lot wasn’t very full when we arrived, and we ended up seeing a decent number of bikers, but not hordes of them. We hiked the Crooked Lake Trail, which featured not many views of any lakes, crooked or otherwise, but it was a decent hike. Not my favorite, partly because you do have to be on the lookout for bikes all the time, partly because it’s not super interesting. No mountain views, lakeshores, streams, rock scrambles, or steps. However, it is in the woods, and it’s relatively quiet and removed from the noise of traffic, so since I have very few other options, I’ll take it.

Lake-ish view

Other than that, my major critique of Pinckney is that in some areas, it’s very unclear which direction bikes/hikers are supposed to be travelling. Most of the time, they travel in opposite directions so they can see each other coming, but there are certain parts of the trail where, depending on where you start, no matter which way you go there are sections where bikes will come at you “the wrong way” from behind. Because of the shared nature of the trails, I also wouldn’t recommend it for kids, at least any you don’t want to be turned into pancakes. Also try to go early, and bring bug spray. We ended up finishing the 5+ mile trail in a little over 2 hours before having lunch by the main lake/beach area. By that time, the beach was plenty crowded, though we managed to find a picnic table away from most of the craziness.

Frog sighting

There was another trail I wanted to try, but apparently not everyone considers a five mile hike a quick jaunt through the forest, so after a little geocaching, we left. It was still too early to head into downtown Ann Arbor for dinner, so we took a quick detour to the Botanical Garden. Unlike earlier in the spring, there were actually flowers blooming. Finally, we drove into Ann Arbor to have dinner at Aventura. Normally this is out of my budget, but hey, live a little once in a while, right? Aventura serves Spanish-style tapas and paella, and it took me way, way too long to realize that aventura means adventure in Spanish. Anyway, the food was expensive but really good (we got an assortment of tapas, chicken paella, and pears with crème anglaise¹ for dessert), and I also got sangria (because #YOLO²).

With that, our adventures in Ann Arbor were almost over. The next day, a Sunday, we went to church, and afterwards to the arboretum. After an early/quick dinner, it was off to the airport and it was just me in Ann Arbor again.

¹I watch too much of The Great British Bake Off, so I now have a tenuous list of extremely finicky, moderately obscure, distinctly British flavoured desserts I kind of want to try making. Including crème anglaise, which makes frequent appearances as being a pain in the neck to get the consistency correct.

²You only live once. Takes me back to freshman year of college.

The Roommate Triangle, part 2

Since I ended up devising the itinerary, I got to decide what/how much stuff we did. I’m not usually the one who plans these kinds of things, but I’ve found, based on my extensive travels¹, that having one main activity per day keeps things structured without making them hectic. That way you avoid the back and forth “I don’t know, what do you want to do,” but you’re not spending your days sprinting through the museum so you finish in time for your lunch reservations followed by a boat tour after which you’re meeting friends for dinner, and anything else you see besides that one thing is a nice bonus.

Train

That said, our activity for day two was the Ford Museum and Greenfield Village. I ended up buying a membership because it paid for itself in a single visit. [As adults going to both the museum and village from open to close, you get your money’s worth pretty quickly. When I returned later with families with young kids who are interested in about three things and are ready to leave after a few hours, I realized that’s less the case. Your mileage may vary.] We started outdoors in Greenfield Village when it was just hot and humid as opposed to very hot and very humid. We made the rounds through the farm and craftworks where we heard about cooking, wheat harvesting, pottery, tin, printing, and glassblowing. By that time, we were ready for lunch, so we headed over to A Taste of History, which serves a variety of historically inspired foods ranging from sandwiches and soups to baked potatoes and pork pie. The cost is about what I’d expect for museum food (~$10), but I appreciate that it tastes like actual food and isn’t over-seasoned. After lunch, we got frozen custard and walked by most of the houses we hadn’t seen yet before heading inside to the museum.

Pottery workshop

Tin shop

The first exhibit we went to see was the temporary Star Trek exhibit. They had a bunch of the costumes, props, tie-in products, sets, scripts, and spaceships from everything from the original series [retronym-ed to The Original Series (TOS)] to Discovery. There were tribbles, phasers, communicators, the bridge (it’s literally a bunch of flashing lights). I’ve only seen about half of the first season of TOS and a couple of the movies, but I’m familiar with most of the characters, so I thought it was pretty cool.

Star Trek exhibit

We then saw some of the rest of the museum, including all the planes, trains, and automobiles, plus tractors, Henry Ford’s violins, and stoves, before people started getting tired. We returned to Ann Arbor for dinner at HopCat, the first restaurant I ever ate at in Ann Arbor. They serve pretty standard bar food, but their fries are above average and their beer list, the reason we were there, is ridiculous. They have somewhere around a hundred beers on tap, including lagers, ales, pilsners, IPAs, porters, stouts, sours, ciders, and miscellaneous. I don’t actually know what most of those are, but the point is that they have a lot of options. I ended up having a beer from the Wolverine State Brewing Co, who are based in Ann Arbor. I didn’t hate it, and it tasted like beer. We ended day 2 with more Star Trek – the TOS episode “Mirror, Mirror” featuring dilithium crystals, parallel universes, and evil Kirk.

¹To such exotic places as New England (as opposed to Old England), Canada, Holland², Ithaca², Plymouth², and Disney World.

²That would be Holland, Michigan; Ithaca, New York; and Plymouth (Plimoth) Plantation, Massachusetts or Plymoth, Michigan, respectively.