Episode 47: June & July 2009
Highlights of the months:
· Enjoying summer days in Michigan (finally!);
· Deb’s weekend in Ludington;
· Road trip to the Upper Peninsula.
After a very active, travel-filled summer last year, we realized that we have not had the chance to spend much time in Michigan in the best season the state has to offer. So this year, we decided to spend the majority of our summer exploring what Michigan has to offer.
Summer in Michigan is a great season. Given is northern latitude, the days are long – averaging 14 hours of sunlight – and the temperatures are relatively consistent from day to night. Both of these factors lend themselves to spending a lot of time outdoors. The state is very pretty this time of year, the many lakes are filled with people and their “toys” (boats, jet-skis, etc.), the trails are filled with cyclists and outdoor enthusiasts, the multiple golf courses are booked out all season long, and the parks have a constant stream of picnic-goers. It’s certainly Neal’s favorite time of year for sports, as his golf league and ultimate frisbee team come to life after their winter hibernation.
Friends and entertaining happen outdoors, with barbeques and al-fresco dining almost every evening. We spent a good majority of the last two months enjoying the company of friends after work and on weekends. Our friend, Luis, turned 40 in June and chose to celebrate the day with a 60-mile bike ride followed by a barbeque at his place. In true Shorg fashion, Neal and I skipped the bike ride but joined for the bbq and beer in the evening! We also visited some of our local lakes for afternoon picnics, and we even got back in touch with our creative sides and made some pottery pieces at a local art studio.
One of the harder parts of living in a town centered on Dow is saying goodbye to the many friends who take on assignments in different parts of the world. In June, we said farewell to Patty and Michel, who packed up and made the move across the ocean to Germany, Moosa and Roya who headed to Dubai, and the Simpson family who left to start the next chapter of their lives in Belgium.
I volunteered this month to participate in a project to rebuild a rundown part of our community. The project sponsor was Habitat for Humanity, a group which Dow partners with around the world by donating volunteers and supplies to various community projects. My project was to paint the outside of a double story house along with about 20 other people. It was a hard day’s work, but the end result was beautiful, and the joy in the faces of the home owners was well worth all the effort.
Summer in the U.S. is also baseball season. We headed out to see our local team, the Great Lakes Loons, at our local baseball stadium a few times over the last few months. The Loons are much better this season, which makes watching them a lot more fun. We witnessed some great games, including a few nail biters, all of which ended with the Loons being victorious.
We were privileged this summer to get the chance to see two master artists at work at the Elton John and Billy Joel concert at the Palace of Auburn Hills. Their concert was a fabulous tribute to two amazing careers in music and was as great as we had expected it to be.
Over the summer, typically, the workload lessens a bit. Most people are out of the office on Fridays enjoying time at their cottages up north, and many of our colleagues in the U.S. and around the world are on vacation. The exception to the rule is the crazy workload for Neal and the investor relations crew at the end of our financial second quarter. With all the activity necessary to close the books and report earnings, Neal spent a good portion of July in the office, leaving me to my own devices on weekends and after work for a number of weeks. I have a couple of projects at work that started to build momentum, which kept me busy as well.
My girlfriend, Stephanie, and I spent a weekend away in Ludington, a gorgeous coastal town in the northwest part of the state. Located along Lake Michigan, Ludington is a beautiful city centered around a national park. We started our trip with some hiking through the national park, followed by some great food that evening. The following day we explored the stores and did a little more hiking before taking a coastal drive along Lake Michigan to the small, quaint town of Pentwater which lies on a river that feeds the lake. The drive was absolutely breathtaking and reminded me a lot of Victoria’s Great Ocean Road, with the bluffs and rock formations jutting out from the lakeshore.
Our major summer highlight came in July when we took a five-day road trip through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (U.P.). Since we moved to Michigan, a trip to the U.P. has been high on our list of must-do trips, so we took advantage of the July 4th long weekend and made it happen. The U.P. is massive – it contains almost one-third of the land area of Michigan but only has 3% of its total population. It is made up of several spread out, small towns that thrive on an economy of timber (there are a lot of trees in the U.P.), mining, and tourism. There are two universities in the U.P. which attract a student population, but for the most part, the locals are surrounded by rugged nature. The U.P. has no natural borders with Michigan. Its only land border is with Wisconsin. Michiganders get to the U.P. by crossing the Mackinac Bridge, a massive suspension bridge that crosses the Straits of Mackinac. The U.P. is bordered by three of the Great Lakes (Superior, Huron, and Michigan) and in our opinion is one of mother nature’s best kept secrets.
We were fortunate to have spectacular weather for the entire weekend, which made the drive in the convertible much more fun. Our first stop was five hours from home at the town of Paradise, a town so small that it needs only one set of flashing lights to direct traffic, and home to the majestic Tahquamenon Falls. The waterfalls are in an impressive state park, and the walk through a forest to get to the falls is just as pretty as the falls themselves. After seeing the Lower Falls, we got back in the car and drove a short distance to the Upper Falls, the larger and more impressive of the two sites. After taking in the sights and multiple photo opportunities there, we drove a bit further north to Whitefish Point, which features a lighthouse, a museum dedicated to Great Lakes shipwrecks, and some spectacular, panoramic views of Lake Superior.
After a good night’s sleep in Paradise, we drove to our next stop, the town of Munising, which is home to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Muldoon’s, a store that claims to be home of the best pasty in Michigan. First, let’s talk about the pasty. It turns out that the U.P. is renowned for its pasties, thanks to the miners who claim to have discovered the culinary delicacy (although the Cornish would claim that they were the first discoverers). And yes, for those of you back in Australia, it is the same as what you are thinking it is. The pasty (pronounced pah-stee) is a succulent pastry pocket filled with mince meat and vegetables that is best enjoyed when drowned in tomato sauce (ketchup). Being Australian, I am a huge fan of the pasty, and Muldoon’s did not disappoint. It was as good as, if not better, than anything I remember from back home.
The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore contains natural rock formations that make up the coastline of Lake Superior. They can only be seen by water, so we took an informative 2.5-hour boat tour along 15 miles of the beautiful shoreline. It was well worth doing. That evening, rather than have a conventional dinner, we headed to a local grocery store and bought supplies for a picnic dinner, which we had on a beautiful sandy beach in Munising called Sand Point. We stayed there until the sun went down and then headed to our hotel to get some rest before heading further on our adventure.
The next day, we hit the road again, first making a brief stop in the town of Marquette, home to one of the universities in the U.P. As such, Marquette is the largest town in the U.P. at a population of ~20,000. From there, we continued driving all the way up the Keweenaw Peninsula to the northernmost tip of the U.P., marked by the town of Copper Harbor. Along the way, we made a couple of stops at the town of L’Anse and another at a beautiful, off-the-beaten path beach near the town of Bete Grise. Copper Harbor was a cute, little town, bordered by water as far as the eye could see. We explored a little around the town before heading back to the car to enjoy the drive back to Houghton while the sun was still up. The drive along the peninsula was beautiful – Lake Superior to one side and trees as far as the eye could see on the other. The scenery was amazing and we stopped a few more times to explore some waterfalls and take photos of the beautiful landscape.
That night, we stayed in the town of Houghton, which is located at the base of the Keweenaw Peninsula, and is home to the second of the U.P. universities. After dinner, we watched the July 4th fireworks in the small town of Hancock – the show was not spectacular, but it was nice to lay under the stars for a bit. The next day, we started the long drive back home. On the way, we drove again through the town of Marquette and decided to have an adventure. After having lunch in town, we rented a two-person kayak and paddled in the lake. We paddled along the coastline to a secluded beach in the distance where we rested and tried to get in the water – but it was freezing. That is one thing we learned about Lake Superior – it is the biggest, deepest, and coldest of the Great Lakes. After resting on the beach, we geared up for the trip back and noticed that the wind had kicked up quite a bit. Unfortunately for us, the light wind had turned into a pretty constant gust in our faces. What was a leisurely 45-minute paddle to the beach became a 1.5-hour grind on the way back as we tried to overcome the wind and waves! Nevertheless, we made it…and the exercise was good for us.
Following that adventure, we continued driving until nightfall. By that time, we had arrived at the Mackinac Bridge and so decided to stay just across the bridge in the town of Mackinac City. The next day we completed the trip by driving the remaining two hours to Midland. All told, we drove 1,130 miles (1,800 kilometers) over the five days! To be honest, it did not feel like a lot of driving, thanks to the way in which we split up our days. It was great fun, and we were really glad we made the journey. Since being back, we have been surprised by how many people have not been to the U.P. We’ve gotten a lot of impressed looks when we tell people about our trip.
And before we knew it, the end of July was here. We hope you are all doing well. Until next time, take care!
