Michigan, Day Six

On day six, we left the UP. We hit the road early and drove south, then west, much of it once again through dense fog and some of the most otherworldly views of scraggly, distinctly Northern-looking pines menacing us from the side of the road, bathed in the diffuse light of the rising sun. Around Seney National Wildlife Refuge, we saw two sandhill cranes again. I would like to think they were the same ones we saw on the way up and that they came out to say good-bye. We stopped to take a good look, and they stood there for us, unfazed by the presence of a car a scant few feet away. After about three hours, we were over the Mackinaw Bridge and back on the lower peninsula.

We got off the interstate almost immediately and made our way west to the coast of Lake Michigan. Two years ago, I had an entire day to drive what would normally be about a five-hour drive, so I glanced at the map, saw the dots of an official AAA scenic drive along Route 119 and decided to check it out. The spur of the moment decision proved serendipitous – it was one of the most distinctive roads I’ve ever driven. This year, I was looking forward to sharing it with J. The signs along the road read “Canopy of Trees” and it was literally that – the narrow, unmarked strip of tarmac wound gently through giant, extremely dense trees, so dense and close together that the branches intertwined high above the roadway, blocking out the sunlight and giving the road a very cinematic feel. Eventually, the outrageous houses of Harbor Springs begin to appear on the side of the road. I believe they are summer, or at least weekend, homes, not full-time residences, but the vast majority is exceptionally large, meticulously kept up and visibly expensive. I must admit that most of the designs are infinitely more interesting, in a rustic sort of way, than a typical exurban McMansion. Two years ago in Ann Arbor, I briefly met someone whose family hailed from the Harbor Springs area, but she was unable, or unwilling, to tell me where all that money comes from up there.

Eventually, the trees parted, the road widened somewhat and picked up some traffic, and around 11:00 a.m. we entered downtown Harbor Springs. It was an idyllic few blocks along the water, with upscale boutiques and gourmet sandwich shops, the masts of sailboats, owned, no doubt, by the people in the big houses, swaying in the background. We considered stopping for coffee but decided to press on to Traverse City. The next town of consequence along the coastal drive was Petoskey, and that was where I realized that my memory was playing the worst trick of my life on me. I remembered the town – similar to Harbor Springs but on a slightly larger scale and just a tad less upscale – well, and thought it would make a great lunch spot. However, I also quite simply forgot that it existed, and was convinced that what I was remembering was Traverse City. In reality, I had never been to Traverse City, and two years ago, cut back into the interior and onto a major highway immediately after passing through Petoskey. So now we were in uncharted territory.

We did reach Traverse City a little while later, and were glad we did. It opens up with a strip of lakeside resort hotels – a curious mixture of old-school motor lodges and snazzy new chains. The downtown, however, is lovely – clean and attractive, full of shops and restaurants and, most importantly, in mid-afternoon on a Thursday, foot traffic. We parked the car and had lunch at North Peaks Brewing Company, where I had an excellent fried calamari salad and their seasonal spiced summer ale whose name escapes me but whose flavor was delicious – slightly hoppier than a typical summer seasonal, with a pronounced flavor of citrus and coriander. Afterwards, we checked out a few shops, bought souvenirs for a couple of friends back home, got in touch with our friends in Ann Arbor, whose house was our ultimate destination that night, and got back on the road.

We headed south on US-131 and sometime around 6:00 or 7:00 reached Grand Rapids. The sky was clouding over throughout the afternoon; the day was hot to begin with but became more humid as we traveled south. Now it was oppressive. The contrast between Grand Rapids and the UP was striking – gray, tree-less, stewing in the humidity and muck of an unseasonably hot late August evening, filled with decaying brick factory buildings, mile-long warehouses and rusting rail yards, it was a shock to our systems that have not yet restored their defenses against this hyper-urban onslaught. After some reflection, I realized that Grand Rapids looked like a classic steel belt city, decaying but also probably attempting to reinvent itself, along the lines of Pittsburgh and even Buffalo, and surely urban gems were hiding in its depths – funky neighborhoods, distinctive coffee shops and bars, local lore. From the highway, however, it was little more than a reminder that we were back to civilization of the sort we weren’t necessarily ready to confront.

We continued south to Kalamazoo, where I insisted to stopping to visit Bell’s, the pub of the legendary Kalamazoo-area microbrewery of the same name. It is somewhat of a pilgrimage spot for beer geeks and I had been wanting to go ever since I started making my yearly trips to Ann Arbor five years ago. Kalamazoo was all warehouses and rail yards too, smaller than Grand Rapids, with a few none-too-friendly-looking neighborhoods we drove through on the way downtown. Downtown itself was attractive enough, but small, and completely dead though it was only about 8:00 p.m. We found Bell’s on its edge, and it proved to be a smaller operation than I expected. Not a full-blown restaurant, it was instead a large hall, with a handful of tables but largely empty, and a small window in a corner where you could order food that you would then have to pick up yourself. Their claim to fame, besides the beer of course, is their beer garden, but by the time we got there a band was setting up, and in order to drink out there, the beer had to be in plastic cups. We had a light snack – surprisingly good given the barebones kitchen – and I tried the McGinness Spiced Stout, a half-pint since I had more driving ahead of me. It was excellent, with a pronounced spicy character. I neglected to write down my tasting notes, unfortunately. Afterwards, we bought a few bottles of their limited edition beers at the gift shops and hit the road.

A little over an hour later, we were in Ann Arbor, at the house of our dear friends G. & N. Drinks, stories, jokes – all the stuff I look forward to so much every year. J., tired from the road, turned in shortly after we arrived, but I stayed up a while, catching up with G. and N., who are complete night owls, knowing that there was little danger of an early start the following day.