Back in Michigan

Yesterday, we packed up and left the Wanderlust Hotel. I am not sorry we stayed there. Most of the other choices in Sturgeon Bay were chain hotels located mostly outside of the central city. But by the time we left the Wanderlust, I realized that I had never seen or talked to another person there. I saw some evidence other guests like a cell phone charger left in a small sitting room at the end of the corridor. Nobody had greeted me when I came or wished me a pleasant trip while I left. I seemed like we were still in the dark days of COVID travel when people believed that any chance encounter could lead to death.

Both of us had been sneezing and coughing since we arrived in the green lands of the Midwest, so we stopped at Walgreens to pick up some Claritin. I recalled that one of the things I liked best about California when I moved to San Francisco in 1983 was that I no longer had hay fever. Back home in the Midwest, I had returned, nothing having changed in my eyes and nose apparently in the last 40 years.

And then we started driving. I knew today was going to be a long day of driving, but I was surprised by how much Wisconsin there is even when you get north of Green Bay. The lovely lake views disappeared shortly after we left Door County and all we saw were scrubby forests of white pine and birch interspersed with occasional small lakes. John drifted off to sleep. I had enough coffee in me to stay awake.

Not long after we entered Michigan, the time on my phone jumped ahead one hour. All of Michigan had originally been placed on Central Time, but a group called the More Daylight Club petitioned Congress to move the state to Eastern time in 1931. The four counties directly adjacent to Wisconsin counter-petitioned to remain on Central time. Both requests were granted.

Our destination for the day was Covington Township in Baraga County. Our friend Jason bought a house there a couple years ago. It’s his escape from the urban insanity of Southern California. He has thirty odd acres of forest land and not a single neighbor in sight. 

Jason and his wife Heather are in the process of renovating the house. It has a sweet view of the surrounding area from the deck.

Inside, there are some nice details. John loves those mid-century built-in knick-knack shelves. 

John has been in Michigan a couple times in the past. We drove through Michigan on a cross country adventure shortly after we met. We also came out to Michigan for my sister’s wedding. She was teaching at Michigan State back then. I spent my high school and college years in this state, and perhaps because of that I have more complex emotional reactions to being here. I am aware of how pretty much of the state is, at least once you are away from the Detroit metropolitan area. But I also spent some of the unhappiest times of my life here. Being back in Michigan brings back a lot of feelings and memories, good and bad. 

Today I wanted to do a lot less driving than we did yesterday, so I decided to take John to Marquette, about an hour away. Marquette is the largest city in the Upper Peninsula, but with a population of roughly 20,000 it is still smaller than Ashland. As the largest city, Marquette is home to the Upper Peninsula’s commercial airport and its only real medical center. It is also the home to Northern Michigan University. While college enrollments are down significantly in Michigan over the last couple decades, for some reason Northern and its archrival Michgan Tech over Houghton have actually posted increases. 

Marquette has a thriving downtown area. The shops along Washington Street, the main thoroughfare, are filled with a nice mixture of different kinds of small businesses. The post office, which at one point was also the federal courthouse for this area, is a great example of Depression arechitecture. 

And there were several wonderful bits of nineteenth century building lett as well, such as the old City Hall.

John was quite intrigued by the abandoned ore dock downtown. 

The Upper Peninsula was once ta major source of iton ore for the factories of the Midwest and Pennyslvannia. Train cars would have been pushed to the top of the dock and through the shutes on the side would have dumped the ore into barges waiting below. There is still one ore dock operating just to the west of downtown Marquette. This one remains as a historical curiosity, rather like a Roman aqueduct in a French village.

We had lunch at Vierling’s, one of downtown oldest and most famous restaurants. It looks rather like a San Frnacisco fern bar from the Seventies inside. John and I went regional with Lake Superior whitefish in both a chowder and as fish and chips. John was underwhelmed.  

We drove over to Presque Isle Park. This is a large city part the juts out into Lake Superior. It has some nice beaches for those couple montsh when it is possible to go to the beach in norhtern Michigan. 

There are some good hiking trails in the park as well, but John was having some low blood pressure issues so we just looked at the park from the car. 

Tomorrow we will explore a bit of Michigan’s copper country.