All to soon it came time to head to the tip of the nail of the Thumb of Michigan and Port Crescent State Park where we have another month-long stint for volunteer camp hosting. (Michigan looks like a mitten complete with the thumb if you hold your right hand out with the palm facing you.) These gigs typically call for a 90 day commitment but both Pilot Mountain, our last stop, and Port Crescent are but 30 day deals. It works out for us, though. This is the Summer that we are aiming to reach Nova Scotia instead of hosting all season. These stops will be money-savers as well ideal sojourns along the way. These are stops we would want to make under any circumstances. They are such wondrous locales that we would want to come here even without volunteering as camp hosts.
Port Crescent is interesting historically. It is located on Lake Huron exactly on the tip of the Thumb of Michigan as I mentioned and as such it was ideal for the location of a port for shipping Michigan goods to the rest of the world. Michigan provides iron and cooper and minerals, yet here the goods were forest products and sand. Yes, sand was shipped by massive tonnage to New York and elsewhere for making glass. They shipped wood as well and damn near denuded the land of the Thumb.
The forest is thick along the coast here having returned from near death. With all the debris from clear-cutting 140 years ago a predictable and massive wild fire swept through the northern Thumb scorching every single thing in its path. I read that people ran from their homes and huddled in creeks and streams where they were “boiled alive” from the heat as the fire raged around them...a thought I cannot hold onto for more than a second or two before becoming sickened at the thought. I think of the current state of affairs in the West where wildfires dominate the Summer months.
Going inland a few miles the country is dominated by luxurious farmland. These folks up here maintain the neatest and most idyllic looking farms I have yet seen. Every single aspect of their farms is arranged in perfect order. It’s as if there is some kind of unspoken contest as to who can maintain the best looking, most productive farm. The houses are painted freshly, sparkling clean. The crops grow in perfect rows as the land is very flat. Modern wind machines are prevalent helping move the land from carbon fueled to non-polluting and green energy. The sheer number of shades of green may even outdo Ireland and its reputation for diversity in green. I’ve never seen anything so perfectly ordered as the farms here in Michigan. I cannot report the same for the highway system up here, however.
The Not So Pretty Aspect of Interstate Travel...Emergency at 70 MPH
Traveling interstates all the way from North Carolina to Flint, Michigan we must have endured 10,000 potholes. I was cussing near the end of the 10 hour ride up here as my nerves were shot from the battle of the potholes. Please send some of Congress’ infrastructure money up here fast! Just outside of Flint we hit a pothole at least a foot deep. I couldn’t avoid it as I was hemmed in by traffic. Boom! In an instant I happened to look over my right shoulder after hitting it as I drove down the road at 70 MPH. Down came our canopy that shades most of the right hand side of the motor home. It was bounced and forced out of its secure holding position by the thunderous hit of the pothole. It tore asunder and was flapping madly in the wind as if it were a sail on a woe-begotten frigate in a hurricane. I could feel its pull as I kept steering Nell the motor home down the highway. Thank the Lord above, no vehicles were on my right side or they would have been entangled in the mess.
Somehow or another I was able to pull Nell off the highway onto the shoulder without crashing or causing more damage. What a scene. The shoulder was narrow and there was not much room between the motor home and the trucks and cars zooming by at 70 plus MPH. I began to cut away the fabric that was flailing in the wind. Each slice of my razor knife reminded me how much this fabric was going to cost to replace. But, it was ruined. No sense could be made in even thinking about saving it. Once I had it all cut away I had to scramble up on top of the roof to get the skeletal structure that held the fabric secured again. The automatic motor failed and was not operating. There was no way to secure the structure normally as I could before the pothole.
I came up with the idea of hoisting it up to the side of the vehicle by hand with ropes while I was standing on top of the roof. As each truck flew by within a foot or two of us the motor home shook and trembled under my feet. Thoughts of Lenny, the camp host in Arizona who fell from the roof of his 5th wheel and had to be helicoptered to a hospital and nearly died from injuries flooded my mind. The challenge became...how do I secure the skeletal structure? All I could do was tie it off to three vent pipes on the roof, hoping they would not break under the weight while I drove on. I prayed that the three of them, having the weight distributed among them, would reduce the risk that any one of them would crack in half. Thus fastened as best I could do it and offering a sincere prayer, we limped off down the highway and arrived at Port Crescent State Park in one piece, albeit with nerves shot and looking the worse for wear.
Please...get some infrastructure money up here on these highways in Michigan!
The roads through Virginia and West Virginia made up for the torturous times spent making our way through Ohio and Michigan, however. Passing near Galax, Virginia at the outset of our drive up here I thought about the old-time fiddle conventions that used to be held there. It seemed a mysterious event to me as the older string musicians of my youth used to tell stories of it. Off in some forlorn holler somewhere in the deep Virginia Appalachians, the most authentic of the old-time fiddlers would gather there for the airing of songs the rest of the world had forgotten, or never ever heard of. I wanted to go there and second for some of the fiddlers, but I never made it.
We drove up and down, around and through steep hills and valleys in West Virgina, vowing to return some day to explore them off the beaten track. Old Nell, the motor home, pulled and down shifted through them tugging Tank the Jeep faithfully if not without some struggles reaching the peaks of some of the hills. That part of the long day’s drive was inspiring. Ohio and Michigan, however, are where the potholes took near control on this very busy Memorial Day. Tragedy can happen in an instant. We all innately understand that. This time, by the grace of God, we avoided it.
The Land of Lighthouses
Here on the eastern shore of Michigan Lake Huron is relatively shallow compared to the rest of the Lake. The Great Lakes can get really deep in some places, as in many hundreds of feet. I read that it takes a drop of water 22 years to make it through its journey in this lake to Lake Erie, the next Great Lake in the chain. How scientists know this is beyond me but the statement is made on one of the interactive reading boards in the State Park so one would suppose it to be taken as scientifically sound. However, on this eastern shore the water can rise up to shallow rocky ledges that scrape and impale ships tossed about in the violent winds that haunt the Lake like screaming Irish Banshees. Generally speaking, the shallower the water the higher the waves can reach.
Shipwrecks have been common here for the past two hundred years. The bottom of the lake is so littered with them here that underwater parks where the unfortunate graves of ships and souls lay have been established whereupon you can dive to inspect them. You are not allowed to touch or take anything from the sites and respect for those who lay asleep in the deep is asked. In attempts to curb the crashing of ships onto the rocky shoals and shores lighthouses have been established all along the coast at semi-regular intervals. They vary in size, style, and demeanor but they all serve the purpose of helping to steer ships away from shore in the murky blackness of Michigan midnights. In the days of yore, a hundred years give or take ago, the lighthouses also had crews of life-savers. These brave fellows would launch out during the tempests searching for survivors on skewered ships and boats. Many died as heroes while performing their jobs.
One of the grander lighthouses in Michigan is located just down the road from us a scant 10 miles or so. Point Aux Barques, translated, Point of Little Boats, is a particularly dangerous point of land that caused numerous calamities over the decades. A lighthouse with a life-saving crew was established there in 1848 and remains as one of the oldest active lighthouses in the state. She’s as beauty, rising up in brilliant white. Once, a fantastical Fresnell light, beautifully carved into pristine prismatic panels, beamed out across the water with intent warning power. The Fresnell lights were state of the art in their time and we’ve seen them on display at other lighthouses across the country. It was replaced with an automated beam in 1958, less artful and elegant, but even more effective at its job.
Diane and I visited the lighthouse, which is now a museum as well as working station. It’s set in a park-like setting with of all things, an RV park adjoining it. To visit the museum and its collection of artifacts from the heyday of its usefulness the cost is only $5.00. It’s a bargain. The museum is set up inside the actual Lightkeeper’s house with some of the rooms left with the original furnishings. The spartan existence of these folks is not lost on the visitor and you can easily grasp the feelings of aloneness these keepers must have experienced. The wooden floors creek under your footsteps and windows facing Huron give a slightly wavy view as the glass has morphed slightly over the years. I felt the humanity of the place, the thought of sitting alone in the darkness, intent on re-balancing the counter weights precisely on time for the light that in effect broadcast the correct time to passing ships by the intervals of flashing beams. Here the Keeper sat peering out the same windows perhaps searching for telltale signs of wrecks, alerting the Lifesaving crew when needed.
Along with the artifacts of the art and science of lighthouse duty and daily life, so well preserved in this little museum, a gentleman accompanied us on our tour of the small house, performing as a knowledgeable curator or docent. This fellow was a volunteer here but man, did he know his stuff. We spent an hour and a half in the museum listening to his nearly inexhaustible knowledge of the lighthouse and the duties of the Keeper. He regaled us with stories that made us pay rapt attention. We felt as though he himself were an ancient Keeper, perhaps a ghost who cannot give up his duties and remains dedicated lo these many decades since his passing. If ghost he were he was a happy and affable one at that.
We came away that day with heightened appreciation for these Michiganders who lived lives so solitary along the banks of the stormy Huron, doing everything in their power to help the captains of the big ore ships safely navigate the local waters, and, when called upon, to row the long wooden lifesaving boats with their team to pull the sailors from the cold and unrelenting waves.
As we have so often on our travels we had the wonderful opportunity to meet up with old friends. Steve and Barb Garwood, once St Louisians from the south side city, were brothers and sisters in arms out west in California when we lived there while working for MCA Records. Steve was one of the brethren of Record Biz Wise Guys whom I met through Bob Schnieders, my old friend from Webster Groves. MO who was a lifer with MCA. Bob is a record business sachem. Bob never sought the title of grandiloquence such as President of the label, but he was the the guy who knew where all the skeletons were buried, the guy who knew everyone and everything in the biz...more consigliere than salesman. Anyone who spent their entire career in the record business must be accorded amazed respect because that is a feat unto itself...to last so long in such a tumultuous business with so many cutthroat characters.
Steve, himself, was a visionary who was always able to see the next big trend in records, video, and gaming while the rest of us were too busy fighting our way through the daily fog of sales and promotion. Point in fact, Steve was the very first Video sales executive hired by MCA while I was running the LA branch of MCA Distributing. The stories Steve can tell from those bygone glory days of the record and video business could make a feature length movie. When he and I get together it’s as if our combined stories are assembling a jig saw puzzle of characters and crimes from those high-flying days of the 70’s and 80’s in the record and video businesses. Al Bergamo, Sam Passamano, John Burns, Neil Hartley, Art Patterson, Bob Zipken, Des Moines Green, Jeff Murphy, Russ Solomon, the founder of Tower Records, these are just some of the guys I worked with at MCA. John Burns, my mentor at the time, taught me the very real lesson that nickels and dimes should never be left on the table.
“A loaded customer is a loyal customer”, John told me, meaning...if they are totally stocked up they can’t leave you.
John (JD) Mandelker, the President of Streetside Records and Sight and Sound Distributing for whom I worked for 15 years, was another record/video biz mentor to me. John is a brilliant man who built business empires in St Louis, Mo. Working for John was the best job I ever had my entire life. The A-list of characters goes on and on, each a story and a movie unto themself. I could go on and on for days with the stories of these characters. We were small time wise-guys with our own Dons who we reported to faithfully, sort of like the movie, Goodfellas, but without the murders.
Barb Garwood, Steve’s lifelong soul mate and companion, has our ultimate respect as a loving and giving human being of the highest order. Barb worked in Hospice Care for decades, giving peace, serenity, and dignity to those who were transitioning from this life to the next. Imagine if you will how challenging it must be to try to prepare chronically ill folks and their loved ones for the inescapable door of passage that we all must face at some point. Imagine doing that faithfully day after day, year after year. I think about the size of the heart beating in the person who can take on that role. I think about the scores of human beings that have been comforted by Barb’s genuine care for them. I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here. It is such a pure joy to both reconnect with old friends whom we might not have seen again had we not been the vagabonds we are. We’re so grateful for that opportunity. We’re so grateful to have such good friends.
The Day to Day Life on a Freshwater Beach
Port Crescent State Park is totally unique and a thing unto itself among state parks amidst our nation’s public lands. For many it has become an annual retreat, a family treasure and a living part of their traditions. Folks gather here in groups, making their reservations a year in advance, often in the same campsites and on the same dates. If it’s June 7th, we’ll be at Port Crescent on campsites 14 and 15. Cousins, uncles, brothers and sisters come together here and camp in great clusters having a whale of a time enjoying the opportunity to revel in the outdoors. Family is on display here in the Summer as much as the beach and the forest land. The sounds of Summer here alternate between the wind in the trees, the waves on the beach and...
“Eric took all the milk, mom.”
“Al, why do you always tell that same story about me every time we’re up here?”
“Jimbo, I’m gonna make a beer run into town. You need anything while I’m there?”
And so it goes, the conversations of family camping never really change. The hugs and kisses at the end of the stay show that despite everything a good time was had by all, and, we all still love each other.
All along the Thumb a simple two-lane road winds and traces the shoreline, diving inland occasionally amidst the lush and verdant forests that have returned. This side of Michigan is sandy with just the occasional flourish of ice age boulders thrown in for scenery sake as it were. Every few miles a village emerges with invariably nostalgic “downtowns”, a block or two in length, perhaps 6 or 8 blocks square. Little shops of curios, fashions of the day, and of course each town had an ice cream shop that boasted the “largest ice cream cone in such and such county”. Ice cream is an art form in this part of Michigan and having amply sampled the offerings I can attest they’ve all achieved the highest level of the ice creamery. Then, there are the miniature golf courses. Every town has at least one, usually two of the coolest putt-putt or miniature golf courses you’ve ever seen. Each one is more unique than the last. Diane and I played on one of these idyllic islands of putter and had a supreme time of it. It was multi-level with a little creek running through it and obstacles enough to make Tiger Woods think twice about taking on any bets. It was as if we were on a date again in 1969, teenagers with a couple of bucks to blow. Vacations here seem to be rituals, a throwback to the days of yesteryear.
Part and parcel to those rituals were our duties as Camp Hosts. Whereas in every other park we’ve volunteered our duties slanted towards campground maintenance and upkeep, here we were expected to be camp counselors more or less. Entertain the guests, make them feel welcome, have coffee and hot chocolate in the mornings for them, and host craft times for the kids. Indeed, there is a tiny house on site chock full of crafty supplies and games just for that purpose. Crayons, markers, construction paper, sidewalk chalk, bean bag toss, paint...you name it, we had the stuff of crafts and put it to use for the kids during our stay. The most requested craft, however, was rock painting. The kiddos loved to do that. Diane and I would scrounge the length of the beach and collect the flat flinty stones so abundant and they would receive the full treatment and dressing of paint by day’s end. Some were, in fact, quite good. Apparently, primitive art has not lost its allure in Michigan. Even some of the parents were into it. We were touched deeply as a few of the kids wrote us thank you cards decorated with their best artful intentions. Few things in life are as meaningful as a sincere thank you from a young ‘un.
On one particular Saturday we had a whiffle ball game for the kids. That so reminded me of my youth when most summer days we would have a pick up game of baseball, or whiffle ball. On this day I acted as pitcher and announcer, umpire, and coach. I would grandly announce each new batter in my best Jack Buck/Harry Caray imitation. I gave them all nicknames like Mike the Masher, or The Bomber Brothers. The kids loved it. This game went on for hours as players would come and go as other family plans would come into play. The next day by 8:00 AM a crowd of kids had already assembled outside of our motor home ready for more.
I’ve come to discover that in Michigan folks expect their state parks to be summer camps more or less. Activities are expected and appreciated as well. The more activities, the better. Our duties here as “camp counselors” were refreshingly different, though nostalgically familiar. Hosting here is vastly different than at any other place we’ve volunteered. We think it’s a grand way to run a state park.
The weather in northern (non-upper peninsula) Michigan is one big reason why we chose to camp host here. As I’ve said before, we chase spring and fall and avoid the frigid crush of Winter and the steaming, stifling heat and humidity of Summer. June in Michigan did not disappoint. The daily temps were usually in the high 70’s and low 80’s, though there were outlier days for sure. Several times the wind coming off lake Huron was so severe that campers along the beach proper couldn’t put their tents up. Nothing, it seemed, could hold them down. Often it rained. Having spent so much time out West these past few years of extreme drought we had grown accustomed to rarely seeing the skies vent. Not the case here. The good thing, though, is that with the soil being so sandy the downpours were inhaled by the land and within a few hours everything was dried up.
Storms coming in off the Lake are a thing to behold. They’re beautiful and terrifying in the same breath. A few times we would stand on the beach and welcome them so to speak as they approached, our hair blowing in the wind as the rolling, green tempests came upon us. We would think back to the stories of the shipwrecks the docent at the lighthouse regaled us with. Those old sailors and shipmen were tough birds...they still are.
One of our duties as camp hosts here was truly unique and one which was really satisfying. In Michigan you are charged an extra dime for the purchase of a recyclable bottle or can when you make your purchase. You are redeemed that dime when you bring it back to a re-cycler. In our role we were asked to take giant bags of cans and plastic bottles into the re-cycler and collect the money, all of which went to the care and maintenance of the Park. Most campers gladly contributed their bottles and cans as they left the park in the bins they set up. They felt they were giving back, and indeed, they were. We would typically load up two of the giant bags for each trip as that is all we could carry in our Jeep. It was a good 18 mile drive each way to the Meiiers Supermarket in Bad Axe ( Gotta love that name for a town! ) where you could recycle the stuff. This supermarket had it down to an industrialized science the way they handled the material. You would slug and drag your stuff into a side room off to the side of the supermarket proper where folks gathered to return the stuff. There, in that room, were 8 can and plastic recycle intake machines and 2 glass bottle recycle machines. Holes were cut into the wall where conveyor belts would carry your can or bottle into a crushing gizmo machine. Pretty much as fast as you could load the machine it would carry off your material, unless, it was a product that was not purchased at that store. Why this made any difference I do not know. However, if your can or bottle was rejected, and I would estimate that about 20% of ours was rejected, the conveyor would reverse itself and vomit the object back out. A messy proposition, and, it would slow you down. A digital ticker kept track of your earnings in real time while you worked at it. Now, there was a limit of $25.00 rebate for each visit, but the folks at the counter inside got to know me and let me skate on that limit. The Park’s take for each trip we made was usually around $35 to $40 dollars.
During the course of June while we were camp hosting we cashed in around $400 or so dollars. Recycling is messy, especially when you’re recycling 350 to 400 object a throw. Dribs and drabs of soda and beer slosh all over the place. Still, it seems nearly everyone was gladly doing it, us included. The store even provided wash stations in the recycling room with disinfectant and hand dryers. I wore a mask and plastic gloves every time I entered that room. No telling what kind of Covid crap was in those giant plastic bags. But, I never got sick and to tell the truth, as messy as it to do, I enjoyed it. Michigan is trying to make a difference. I applaud them for that.
The Pinnebog River flows into Lake Huron not a quarter mile from the campground. In fact, an annex of the State Park includes the mouth of the river. On two occasions Diane and I hauled our kayaks over to a put-in on the river maybe a mile and a half from the mouth and floated around on the river. The Pinnebog is a lazy river with almost no current to speak of. It’s stained a little muddy, though not like the rebel rivers down South. It’s loaded with weeds with small channels that run its course where you’re free of the tanglements. It’s really very pretty and peaceful, serene, and full of life. Kingfishers dart up and down its banks while crows caw caw at each other for pure sport. Turtles sunbathe on the logs. It’s an easy summer day on the river.
Our first kayak trip on Pinnebog had us just paddling and fishing around the put-in area near the State Park annex, the day use area. We fished and enjoyed the warm sun and wafting winds. I tried fishing with lures, including top water lures like a mini Zara Spook, my go-to top water lure, but no luck.
Fishing with good ol’ worms was productive. Diane found a patch of Goggle-Eyes and landed a couple beauties while I caught mainly young Largemouth Bass. We didn’t keep any. Had we discovered a bunch of decent sized Bluegills I may have gotten out the fillet board and knife. Goggle-Eyes are good eatin’ too, but we decided to let the local stock be for today.
On the next trip we decided to float down to the mouth of the river where it enters Huron. We gave ourselves all day to just be lazy on this very lazy river. The sun was bright and blazing yet the temps were in the low 80’s. A mild breeze drifted in off the Lake giving us a refreshing uplift when occasionally needed. The breeze and the very slight current of the river provided just enough downstream draft so that I was able to turn my kayak around and float backwards while worm fishing. That way I could maneuver both my kayak and my line through the maze of weeds. I figured I’d bobber-fish old style. That way I could keep my bait off the bottom and float it at the right depth, maneuvering it through the unchoked channels. Boom! Big time Bite! For a good 5 minutes, no exaggeration, I worked this 4 to 5 pound Largemouth up to the kayak. I had to tire him totally out to land him. Keeping his head out of the weeds was the biggest challenge, but I got him. A real beauty by all standards. A half hour later…Bang! Smallmouth… a good 17 incher and a pugilistic pisces he turned out to be, leaping and diving like an Olympic water polo player. I don’t keep Smallmouth, their species is too special to consider keeping. But, I kept and we ate the Largemouth, pan-frying him in peanut oil, Panco encrusted with delicate seasoning. My, oh my...have mercy!
After perhaps an hour and a half of slowly drifting along we came to the mouth of the river and beached our kayaks on the shore in deep, loose sand. Our feet sank in over our ankles as we pulled ourselves out of the water. The Pinnebog’s water was tolerable warm. Huron’s water was tolerable cold. The mixing of waters was curious and you could migrate between the two easily as you might jump in and out of hot springs of various temps in the springs of Glenwood, Colorado. Laughing Gulls dove and dodged each other while they scanned the beach for something to eat. We sat on the sand and had a killer lunch of ham sandwiches and cherries, a weird combination you might think, but it satisfied in a Michigan kind of way and tasted great.
As we lounged on the Huron sand taking in the majesty of the place and enjoyed our lunch several canoes came down the river with happy young men, two by two. They were singing. Their songs they sang were in unison and though they were 20 to 30 yards apart as they paddled towards us they were united in their music, their melody joyful. They were having a whale of a time and seemed to be enthralled with the trip they were on. It gave us a warm feeling to see these fellas enjoying themselves and it was soon obvious as they got closer that they were not singing in English. Their melody had a middle eastern ring to it, not easy to sing, with what I perceived to be lilting quarter tones in triplets or groups of four notes. I think there were about eight fellas total.
They landed their canoes downstream from us right at the very mouth of the river where the gentle waves from Huron mixed with the slight current of the Pinnebog. Once landed and they were all out of the canoes they came to raising their arms into the air and greeting the scene with admiration and obvious appreciation of where they were. They were a happy lot. After a few moments of relishing the sun and scene one of them turned on a recording. I recognized an Ude in the mix, a stringed instrument you might hear in a lot of middle eastern music. To our ears the songs were exotic and foreign-sounding in western terms, mixing in minor and major keys within the same context. We were enthralled with the scene.
Within a minute from the start of the music all the men starting dancing. First they danced individually, joyfully. Then, they all put their arms around each other and began a line dance of sorts. Then they formed a circle and started dancing clockwise in start-stop motion that included a lot of deft footwork in the sand. I have to say I haven’t seen such joyful dancing since I can ever recall, and outside of perhaps the end of a wedding reception where all the men on the dance floor are properly and immersively liquored-up, I don’t recall seeing men dancing together like that. It was so refreshingly different to witness these men, obviously living the moment to its fullest with absolutely no apprehension whatsoever about showing their emotions, their happiness in living, and being together on this day in such a wondrous place.
After a while they peeled off and ran out into the lake and dove and splashed around as if newly baptized and intoxicated by a rapturous Spirit. Diane and I, caught up in our own kind of slightly less rapture ventured out into the Lake, the water cold and refreshing on this unusually hot June day. Thoughts and memories of the various times when Diane and I may have felt the joy of life as these young men were on this blessed day cascaded through my mind. Indeed, this day had become one of those oh, so memorable days. We came to find out that the troupe was from Yemen, that war-torn nation bordering Saudi Arabia where civil war has devastated the people these past eight years. Thanks to these expressive, joyful young men we were reminded again how truly fortunate we are to be doing what we are doing at this stage of our lives, to be in this place, America, and to have had lives so rich in experiences and relationships.
The Henry Ford and Potholes Strike Again
In some ways our month-long assignment in Michigan at Port Crescent State Park passed by so quickly yet in other ways our days were filled with so much activity and new perspectives it seemed like a season. With two days left in the calendar month we bid adios to the State Park and headed south towards Detroit. The Garwoods had insisted we take some time to see the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI. This museum focused on American ingenuity and technology. One of our goals while traveling is to immerse ourselves into the culture of the places we visit and museums are part and parcel to that. The Henry Ford, as it is nicknamed, is a must-see, as everyone we asked insisted.
I found an affordable private campground we could stay in near Detroit as the state parks in the immediate area were all booked up, it being prime vacation season. Camp Dearborn, as it is called, is not in Dearborn, MI. That would have been too predictable. No, it is a good 45 minutes from Dearborn where the Henry Ford is located. Nonetheless, it is a very nice RV park. First off, it’s huge. There’s tons of room and there are full hookups, 50 amp, water, and sewer. Secondly, it’s a self-contained vacation resort. There’s several lakes you can paddle about or fish in. There are large open fields for any kind of recreation you might want. There’s even a golf course attached to it. True to the nature of Michigan camping, there are any number of programs and activities for kids, including the expected crafts as well as evening talent shows. It’s a huge summer camp for both kids and adults. Lots of folks I talked to spend their entire vacations there, two weeks or more at a time. As an aside, I instantly took note of the browning grass throughout the campground. Drought is hitting not only the West, but here in the upper Midwest as well. It’s scary...but that’s another story.
Close to Camp Dearborn are a couple of really nice little towns that each feature a two or three block downtown complete with old restored building from 1920’s and ‘30’s, some even dating to the 19th century. Boutiques and restaurants crowd each other, one cuter than the next in attempting to lure your vacation dollars from your wallet. Families gather in the outdoor seating areas of the restaurants, the parents gulping craft beers and sipping dark red wines, the youngsters powering through sodas and milkshakes with happy abandon. Small herds of teenage girls move up and down the street trying to look ever so hip and 20-ish while they text anxiously to their newfound vacation boyfriends they met while swimming at the lake or maybe at the Talent Show at Camp Dearborn. A few young men lucky enough to have cars out on their own, cruise the streets with windows down for the evening, Rap or Heavy Metal blaring at volume levels that can be heard clear across the State. I laugh to myself as I note… you never see these would be Casanovas using Bluegrass music at supersonic decibels to gain attention to themselves as they cruise. Apparently loud banjos do not excite young female’s libidos. Diane and I joined the summer circus for an evening, sat outside while enjoying a meal, and enjoyed the cooling breeze and the pleasant ambiance of downtown vacation town, USA as the sun dipped below the trees.
During our two-day stay at Camp Dearborn we took one entire day to visit the Henry Ford. We could have spent two full days there as we probably saw but half there was to see. There’s an entire period-piece replication of early Dearborn, MI there built alla Williamsburg, VA, complete with period-correctly dressed folks wandering around as if they were living during the heyday. We didn’t spend much time at that part of the complex, perhaps we will next visit. We chose to spend most of our time at the actual indoor museum where the many rooms were exquisitely organized by the type of technology or innovation featured. In some cases, technology gave way to humanity in the museum’s features. For instance, there is a deeply moving and informative room focusing on the civil rights movement. The actual bus that Rosa Parks famously would not give up her seat in sat so polished it seemed to me a halo surrounded it.
Down the hallway and around the corner sat the world’s largest locomotive, so immense that when they brought it into the museum through the back door that they had brought in other locomotives they had to cut out a larger opening in the wall just to get it inside. Amongst the other featured engines this baby is the King Kong. It’s driver wheels are taller than I am at 5’11’’.
Across the way the Presidential Limos on display. You’ll see the specially designed actual limos of Franklin D Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight D Eisenhower, and even the carriage of Woodrow Wilson and Calvin Coolidge, so small in comparison to the mid and late 20th century gasoline palaces on wheels that sat next to them. I audibly gasped when I first saw the limo that John F Kennedy was shot in.
“There’s where Jackie tried to escape out the back while the Secret Service agent jumped on to shield her.” I said to Diane. “There’s the jump seat where Senator John Connally took a bullet to his back.” And there...right there...is where John F Kennedy was assassinated.” We both fell silent as we stared and studied that vehicle up close and personal that we memorized in our mind’s eye from the Zapruder movie footage. Everyone who was alive at that time remembers exactly where they were when they heard the news, the day that Camelot came crashing down on our collective heads. In case you are wondering, and I know that you are, the blood stains from that horrific event are nowhere visible any longer. They’ve been removed, as if you could somehow magically remove the stain from the nation’s history and memory, as if you could actually restore the arc of Kennedy’s leadership to that point, as if you could bring back the positive energy the nation was generating before it all came crashing down in hail of gunshots in Dallas. No, Kennedy’s presidency was not perfect, nor was he perfect as we all wanted to believe as kids back in those storybook years. But, the energy from the man as our President, the positive vibes, the call to action that he instilled in us, is simply not present today when we need it even more desperately. I believe there are those in political power who are trying desperately and passionately to lead us where we need to go, but, we are a nation divided today. We need a new John F Kennedy to inspire us.
As I consider those who inspire, perhaps the man who still gives us unbridled inspiration 150 years after his death, Abrahan Lincoln is represented at the Henry Ford. There sits his forlorn chair that he sat in at Ford’s Theater the night he was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth. THE CHAIR. I stood amazed before it. This relic was not reconditioned. This relic stands as it did the morning after President Lincoln was shot, as it stood the moment he passed away into eternity. Blood stains saturate the back of the chair where Lincoln’s head wound poured forth the life force that fought to preserve the nation. I stood imagining what the world would have looked like had he served out his second term of Presidency.
I’ve found in my 70 years of living that my life has completely changed direction one day to the next because I made a left turn instead of a right turn...not so much because I consciously decided to change my direction or my life from one moment to the next, but because of situations and relationships that appeared seemingly out of nowhere. As I stared at Lincoln’s chair, and earlier at Kennedy’s Lincoln Limo, I was reminded that an entire nation’s direction can change in the same way.
We’d love to return to the Henry Ford. It’s collection of artifacts and dedication to inspiration and technology amazes. For the present, however, we are bound to begin heading east, Nova Scotia bound with all manner of stops in between. Niagara Falls beckons and we must go.
I chose to enter Canada at the Blue Water Bridge north of Detroit as our fastest route to the Niagara Falls region. Once again, though, the roads and highways through Michigan are planted with potholes as if they were land mines in some war-torn place. Bumping and banging down the highway I cast a nervous eye towards my right checking to make sure the last thump didn’t cause my newly secured skeletal remains of our awning didn’t break free again. Within 5 miles of leaving Michigan as we neared the Blue Water Bridge crossing into Canada, a minivan pulled frantically up next to me and a woman hung out the front seat passenger window pointing and waving at the rear of our motor home. Instinctively, without understanding or even able to hear her actual words, I pulled over our caravan of motor home and towed Jeep. As I jumped out of the motor home from the safe side of the highway shoulder what I saw shocked me. The front passenger-side tire of our Jeep was decimated, smoking, and in mere pieces. I never felt any change in how the Jeep was being towed, nothing seemed different to me, but given another half mile or so that Jeep would have been running on bare metal wheel. Who knows, it may have even flipped. Thank you un-named lady of the highway who alerted me to the near catastrophe! The irony of the moment was not lost on me as I waited for the smoking tire to cool down so I could put on the spare. On the first day of the month of June and on the last day, as we were both arriving and leaving Michigan, potholes did their unlevel best to take down our 50 Amp Vision Quest.
For now, the ride continues...