Midwest Guest

Photo Friday: Lake Manganese

We took our canoe up to Copper Harbor, Michigan one year and discovered this beautiful little inland lake when we asked some local folks for some quiet water canoeing suggestions.

I remember driving right out on the beach the first time we visited, which was mighty handy when it came to taking the canoe off of the top of our car and being able to walk just steps in order to plop it into the water.

We paddled around Lake Manganese, catching glimpses of the usually reclusive loons and hearing the roaring water of the relatively hidden Manganese Falls. The water was still and the red sand beach was a nice place to wade and have a post-paddling picnic before we packed up the canoe and headed back into town.

Lake Manganese is just 52.5 acres and reaches a maximum of 25 feet deep. It has a nice long beach and a gradual drop, plus it's far warmer than nearby Lake Superior. The lake's size and location near the tip of the sparsely populated Keweenaw Peninsula makes it a nice stop for those who want to enjoy a quiet afternoon of paddling, fishing, swimming and maybe taking a few photographs.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Keweenaw Mountain Lodge: Legacy of hope in hard times

We love the rugged beauty of Keweenaw County in the remote reaches of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Here, the problems of hectic city life seem to fade away as we enjoy a stunning sunset after a relaxing day of visiting lighthouses and waterfalls.

One of the Keweenaw area’s most interesting and impressive places may be a man-made site that owes its existence to the hard times of this country’s Great Depression in the 1930s.

Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, a rustic-style golf resort one mile south of Copper Harbor, represents the hopeful legacy of the 1930s Civil Works Administration (CWA) and Works Progress Administration (WPA) government programs that helped employ people as they struggled to rebuild their lives and provide for their families during some of the coldest and darkest days of the Depression.

The Keweenaw’s remote location only added to its troubles as the entire country spiraled into unimaginably high unemployment. Keweenaw County’s economy was heavily dependent on copper mines. When the mines all shut down in the early 1930s, and former residents who returned home after losing jobs they’d moved to southern Michigan to take, unemployment in the county reportedly reached a shocking 70 to 80 percent.

Ocha Potter, Keweenaw Road Commission head and superintendent of the Ahmeek Mine, proved to be a visionary when it came to proposing and developing projects to win Federal funding and employ Keweenaw workers. Potter planned many county projects like roadside parks, bridges and the ambitious project initially known as “Potter’s Folly”—Keweenaw Mountain Lodge.

The Keweenaw County Board of Park Trustees acquired 167 acres of land from the Keweenaw Copper Company on a plateau overlooking Lake Superior.

 The golf course and lodge started as a CWA project in 1933, and workers began clearing a heavily wooded area of pine, spruce, oak and maple trees to make way for the golf course fairway. Workers saved many large pine and spruce logs for the planned log clubhouse and cottages.

The winter of 1933-34 was particularly harsh, with many days of sub-zero temperatures in January and February, but workers used scrap wood for fires to keep warm.

“Potter’s Folly” proved to be anything but foolish as the project employed many grateful former mine workers and fine craftspeople, supporting them and their families through the rough winter.

By the end of 1934, a nine-hole golf course and hand-hewn log clubhouse were pretty much completed. Workers then built 20 simple cottages as a WPA project.

Keweenaw Mountain Lodge opened to the public on June 23, 1935, and still hosts golfers, dinners and overnight guests.

There have been a few additional cottages built and some revisions and additions made to the main lodge over the years, but the buildings still maintain their 1930s rustic charm with dark-painted logs, and hand-crafted stone and wood trim. The lodge earned a place on Michigan's historic register in 1976 and the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

The lodge’s dining room is a great place for a nice dinner. We always make it a point to go for a meal and to admire the impressive log lodge with its huge stone fireplaces when we visit Copper Harbor. Wandering around the grounds and the lodge’s golf course, you find plenty more evidence of proud craftsmanship in details like log lawn furniture and stone planters.

And now more than ever, I think we can appreciate the lodge’s legacy of hope for the future in the face of challenging times.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Copper Harbor

Keweenaw’s Grant Township preserves Hunter’s Point for future generations

The hand-painted sign at the Hunter’s Point trailhead seemed to promise a relatively undeveloped, but well loved, trail through the woods at the far reaches of Michigan’s remote Keweenaw Peninsula.

Our trek along Hunter’s Point near Copper Harbor didn’t disappoint!

So many trails near city centers are heavily developed, heavily traveled and offer no escape from the omnipresent traffic noise.

The remote location of Hunter’s Point gives the trail a quiet serenity, and the continuing efforts of local residents and officials to protect the area from development ensure that generations to come will enjoy the same quiet solitude as they hike this great little trail.

Grant Township, which includes the villages of Copper Harbor and Lac LaBelle, purchased this beautiful piece of Lake Superior lakefront property with the help of a $560,000 grant that the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund approved in 2004.

The point itself is a narrow spit of land protecting Copper Harbor from the legendary Lake Superior storms. Residents and visitors enjoyed hiking Hunter’s Point for years, so when possible subdivision development threatened to choke off public access to the trail, township residents and friends worked to save the area from unrestricted development.

The first hurdle involved raising the needed match funds to qualify for the state grant. Work continued through 2005 as the purchase process began for the 9.4 acres of land and 4,800 feet of shoreline, and volunteers worked to build and improve rustic wood walkways and bridges along the trail.

We certainly appreciated the motivation and work behind saving this pristine piece of the northern landscape for generations of hikers as we enjoyed hiking through the woods and along Superior’s serpentine shoreline.

Our last trip to the area came one early autumn. We ended up going out on the trail a couple of times that week—once to enjoy a walk as the morning mist started to lift and later check out the lake and agate beach on a sunny afternoon.

I can only imagine how beautiful the trail would be during full fall color season or as a snowshoeing trail in the winter.

Local efforts continue with the construction of a boardwalk from a new parking lot to a viewing deck, completed after our visit to Hunter’s Point, and beginning the process of purchasing 46 more acres of land adjacent to the park to keep public access from the nearby marina to the trail, plus another 76 acres of land south of the area.

Photos at the Hunter’s Point Park Web site show me that the parking lot has a brand-new kiosk with Hunter’s Point information, but I sincerely hope they’ve kept the old wooden sign at the trailhead heading out to the point.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Copper Harbor

New at The Urbane Life

Check out some of my latest articles at The Urbane Life:

Good Eats: In a pickle at Packo’s-Visit Tony Packo’s Hungarian hot dog joint in Toledo, Ohio. Yes, this is the Packo’s immortalized on the M*A*S*H television show by Corp. Max Klinger, the character played by real-life Toledo native (and Packo’s fan) Jamie Farr.

Road Trip: Catch a baseball game-Minor league baseball can be a fun and economical alternative to big league baseball, so why not consider taking in an out-of-town game during vacation or a quick road trip? Check out these Michigan and Ohio teams!

Let Exposure.Detroit show you around the city-Great Detroit-themed photo show at the Bean & Leaf in downtown Royal Oak featuring the work of talented local photographers (including The Wandering Photographer, a.k.a. @photowanderer).

Culture Clubs spur interest in Detroit’s fine arts-Some great discount ticket programs for fine arts fans in Detroit. Check out symphony, opera, dance, film and other fine arts programming at some really affordable prices.

Good Eats: Zingerman’s Roadhouse, regional comfort food goes upscale in Ann Arbor-Zingerman’s emphasis on regional ingredients, imaginative twists on classic comfort food and superior customer service make for a great dining experience. Who wouldn’t love a place with a half-dozen different takes on mac ‘n’ cheese on its menu?

The Urbane Life is a community blog for Urbane Apartments, a growing group of apartment buildings, luxury lofts and condos in metropolitan Detroit.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Picture not-so-perfect

When I said I took endless photographs during the Chicago Architecture Foundation Boat Cruise, I wasn’t kidding.

I was fortunate to take so many shots because, somewhere during the cruise, a huge fleck of dust somehow worked its way on to my camera sensor and into about a quarter of my photos. I discovered this sorry fact when we stopped at a coffee shop after the trip, and we were looking at our photos in our digital cameras’ preview windows.

I could crop out the dust fleck in some cases, which I think sometimes resulted in an improved final version over my original vision.

A few other cases meant marred shots beyond redemption with my meager Lightroom skills.

I was not happy.

Tim thought he’d seen a camera store in the neighborhood during his previous solo wanderings while I was at the TBEX convention, and we found someone who could give us directions to the camera store Tim remembered seeing.

Camera shopping these days seems more a matter of shopping at a large computer store, a large warehouse store or resorting to buying online because your local camera store closed long ago as film cameras became nearly non-existent.

The local camera store we shopped at when we bought our first SLRs (a Canon A-1 in my case, if you were curious), with its knowledgeable sales staff and long narrow store featuring floor-to-ceiling shelves crammed with all sorts of cameras, gadgets and film, is long-gone.

But stepping into Central Camera Company in the shadow of the “El” on S. Wabash in downtown Chicago was a little like stepping into a time warp because it felt like one of those classic old, local camera shops.

We’d come to the right place.

A store clerk quickly checked my camera, located the offending piece of dust, pulled a bulb blower that looked a little like a rocket ship off of the shelf, puffed my problem piece of dust away, took a couple of test shots and handed my camera back to me.

He’d actually pulled an air blower from its package to do the job, without expecting us to pay for it. We ended up buying the $16 Giotto’s “rocket-air” blower because it worked much better than the lame rubber ear syringe we’d bought a couple of years ago from a drugstore for the same purpose, and Tim said he’d failed to find the Giotto’s blower around home when he’d looked for it before.

Besides, I figure a 110-year-old family business that treats customers right deserves a little support.

So, thanks and happy birthday to Chicago’s oldest camera store, Central Camera Company!

Thanks for Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Tour Chicago history by boat with the Chicago Architecture Foundation

I vividly remember the process of building the house my family would live in from the time I was nine years old until I moved into a house of my own.

My father worked with the architect to draw up a plan, and we drove over to the site nearly every evening to see the progress builders made on our home earlier in the day.

I drew up house plans of my own, and one of my childhood ambitions was to become an architect. I didn’t end up being an architect, but regular readers of Midwest Guest know that cool architecture, buildings, bridges and structures of all kinds continue to fascinate me.

I know Chicago has a particularly rich and fascinating architectural history, and I found out that architectural themed boat cruises regularly toured the river.

I told Tim that the architectural boat cruise was the one thing we needed to make sure we did when we visited the city earlier this summer. Tim’s fascination with photographing buildings and urban landscapes also made the architectural boat cruise a must-do for him.

We opted to book a cruise through the Chicago Architecture Foundation. The CAF is group dedicated to fostering interest and public education in architecture and design, and each of their 90-minute tours feature narration by a CAF-certified docent. Other companies offer architectural themed cruises, but the CAF tour offers an authoritative look at Chicago’s architectural treasures.

"Corn Cobs"

We bought our tickets the day before our cruise at the office on the dock at the southeast corner of Michigan Avenue Bridge at Wacker Drive.

The ticket clerk advised us to arrive about 20 minutes before our scheduled departure. Most people on the tour arrived at that time, but we made sure we arrived a bit earlier than that so we could be sure to get a seat on the top deck of the boat for a better photo vantage point.

It was a great, sunny day—perfect for taking pictures—so we eagerly boarded the beautiful Chicago’s First Lady boat and embarked on a cruise through Chicago’s great architectural tradition.

River Cottages

Our guide shared a wealth of architectural information and lore with us as we cruised past more than 50 architecturally important sites along the Chicago River, and he affably answered questions from the crowd as we snapped, snapped, snapped endless photographs!

Tour highlights ranged from the ornate early twentieth-century bridges and grand old buildings like the Tribune Tower to quirky finds like the vintage 1960s Marina City “corn cobs” and the late 1980s triangle-dominant “river cottages” designed by  Harry Weese (who also designed the Swissotel, where we stayed several days during our trip).

 We slipped under the city’s low-slung bridges as traffic rumbled overhead, and we saw the fascinating interplay of old, new, sky and river on the shiny canvas provided by sleek glass spires and the impressive curved tower at 333 Wacker Drive.

333 Wacker Drive

Our 90-minute tour ended all too soon. I’d definitely take this tour again the next time I visit Chicago during the spring, summer or fall. Be sure to check out the CAF site because the group offers a variety of architectural tours year round, including walking tours and bus tours of Chicago neighborhoods, Frank Lloyd Wright gems and historic cemeteries.  

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Meal with a view at Riva restaurant on Chicago’s Navy Pier

We loved visiting Chicago’s Navy Pier, but walking the length of the pier several times on a hot and humid day, along with getting drenched during our Seadog Extreme Speedboat ride, left us longing for a cool and quiet place to go for a late lunch.

A week of convention food and mostly fast or casual food fare also left me wanting to have at least one real sit-down dinner this last day before we left Chicago to go home to Detroit.

We spotted a couple of ground-level casual cafés along Navy Pier, but when the hostess at the Riva asked us if we wanted to eat in the outdoor café or in the inside dining room above the café, we opted to go upstairs to enjoy the air conditioning and a better view of the Chicago skyline.

We climbed the stairs to find an elegant white-tablecloth restaurant and initially worried about schlepping in with our jeans, T-shirts and wind-blown hair barely dried from its drenching. This wasn’t a casual burger and beer place by any stretch of the imagination.

But we really were in the mood for a nice meal, and the restaurant was nearly empty because we arrived right in the middle of the afternoon.

Our greeter led us to a prime window table with a beautiful view, and our server quickly appeared to take our drink orders.

A Blue Moon beer before me, I checked out the menu. This isn’t budget-priced dining, even at lunchtime, but with a menu of seafood and Italian specialties it was just what Tim and I wanted for our “fancy” meal in Chicago.

The Riva is one of about a dozen Phil Stefani restaurants, banquet halls and other food-related businesses in and around Chicago.

The company Web site says the restaurants range from casual dining to fine dining spots. Established shortly after Navy Pier’s 1995 renovation, the Riva seems to embody both with its ground-level café and upper floor dining room. The casual Beer Garden component of the Riva is open from May through October, while the upper floor offers more formal dining and banquet options.

Reading through online reviews of the restaurant offers a somewhat mixed picture of the place with people either having a great experience, while other express disappointment with the price and/or service.

I can honestly say we had a great experience the afternoon we visited. Our server was attentive and friendly and we enjoyed our (admittedly pricey) lunch.

Tim opted for one of the house pasta specialties, Fettuccine Stagione, with heirloom tomatoes and seared sea scallops. I ordered a special-of-the-day prix fixe meal of grilled lobster with a salad and soup.

My lobster meal was a truly beautiful plate dressed with a cheesecloth-wrapped lemon and melted butter in a small cup for dipping. My lobster tail was grilled, taken out of the shell, cut into bite-sized pieces and replaced into the shell—making for easy and mess-free dining.

Tim enjoyed his pasta, making quick work of it, while we both watched the Seadog boats return to their dock and enjoyed the beautiful view.

Bottom line? A bit on the pricey side, but going mid-afternoon eating from the lunch menu was a good way to have a nice meal without entirely breaking the bank. Plus, you can’t beat the view!

My only regret? I’m a big “Top Chef” fan, and we missed seeing Season 5 contestant Fabio’s appearance at the Riva by only a couple of days!

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Chicago’s Navy Pier

I’ve got a few more photos to share from our day at Navy Pier.

You can take in great views of Chicago’s beautiful skyline from Navy Pier. This view is from near the end of the pier and looking back towards the city.

I caught this Navy Pier regular enjoying the city view from midway along the pier as I walked down the other side of the pier from where I took the first photo.

This is another shot down the concourse taken from near an entrance at the foot to the pier.

Then there was our Seadog Extreme Speedboat ride!

Here’s a skyline shot taken from my seat by the rail on the boat as we sat by another Seadog boat waiting to take off on our Extreme adventure.

Tim, meanwhile, is smiling just before the speedboat excursion and wondering just what I’ve managed to talk him into doing now! Don’t worry…he was still smiling at the end of the trip.

Thanks to Debbie Dubrow of Delicious Baby for creating and coordinating Photo Friday to link travel photos and blog posts across the Web.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Wet and wild Seadog adventure on Chicago’s lakefront

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to take a boat ride.

I remember visiting my parents one winter in Florida many years ago. When they asked me what I wanted to do while I was there, I said that I wanted to take a boat ride.

I’m not fond of hot, humid weather, but one week and four boat rides later—a sunset cruise, going out to a remote beach via a rented motor boat to go shelling, an airboat trip among the alligators in the Everglades and a river cruise where I “wrestled an alligator” (as in volunteered to hold the baby alligator when the captain asked for volunteers)—I decided Florida wasn’t so bad after all.

So when Tim and I found ourselves out on Chicago’s Navy Pier one hot and humid July day, the first thing I started considering doing was taking a boat ride.

The pirate schooner ride looked like fun, if a little bit kitschy with its costumed pirate and cannon that they shot off as they approached the dock at the end of the cruise.

And we felt definitely underdressed in our jeans and T-shirts for a fancy dinner on one of the big yachts anchored at the pier.

We saw some cool yellow speedboats and decided to check out the Seadog Cruises booth to find out about times and prices for a quick tour of the lakefront.

Then I saw it.

I spotted a flash of red just past the line of cheery yellow boats and the listing for a Seadog Extreme speedboat tour.

Tim reminded me that we had our pricey DSLR cameras with us.

I just as quickly reminded him that he had two 2-gallon zipper-lock bags in the camera pouch where he carried our extra batteries and memory cards (we always carry a few of these 2-gallon bags with us when we travel and found them useful several times when we’ve been caught in a downpour with our cameras).

And so we soon found ourselves clutching our plastic-wrapped cameras and waiting to board the big red speedboat.

It became apparent that this wasn’t going to be your grandma’s boat ride. In fact, I think we skewed the demo of their crowd a bit higher that day. But who cared?

I was going on a boat ride. A fast boat ride!

The extreme trip, billed as being 30 percent faster than the still speedy yellow boats, promised a trip with 180- and 360-degree spins with full-out slalom runs at 45 mph on the open water of Lake Michigan courtesy of the 135-passenger boat’s two 1400 horsepower engines and an experienced hotdogger of a captain.

Our young tour guide greeted the crowd with a semi-serious admonition that we didn’t belong on the trip if we had a bad back or other aches and pains. We puttered through the no-wake zone as he explained the thrills to come once we hit the open lake water.

Then, they cranked up the high-powered rock and rap music and let the engines rip!

Yup, this was definitely my idea of a great boat ride. I picked a seat by the rail, so we got plenty wet (while our cameras stayed safely dry in their oversized plastic bags).

We caught a fairly close-up glimpse of the lighthouse near Navy Pier (yes, expect to see a separate blog post about that lighthouse here in coming months) and stopped briefly near the Adler Planetarium before zipping away for yet another round of speed and spins.

It was over all too quickly, but there’s still time this year to take a ride with Seadog as, weather permitting, they offer rides into October.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Summer fun on Chicago’s Navy Pier

Visiting Chicago in late November and walking around town can be a pretty bone-chilling experience, so we’ve never been tempted to walk out to Navy Pier during past visits to the city.

Visiting Chicago in late July is an entirely different story. The city can get pretty hot and muggy, so cruising out to Navy Pier in a water taxi to take in the happy amusement park midway vibe and enjoy the occasional cool breeze sounded like a great plan during our most recent visit to the city.

Navy Pier’s current incarnation as a lakefront amusement center embodies at least part of the city’s early twentieth century vision for the 1.5 mile long pier as one of five piers meant as recreational centers and docking facilities near the mouth of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan.

Architect Charles Sumner Frost designed the Navy Pier Auditorium and supervised much of the construction. It took two years to complete the $4.5 million project, and the city only completed one pier. Municipal Pier, completed in 1914, opened in 1916.

Navy Pier saw service during World War I in 1917-18 as home to soldiers and the Red Cross and earned the name of Navy Pier in 1927 as a tribute to those who served in the Navy during that war.

The pier again saw wartime service during World War II in the 1940s when Navy personnel and pilots, including a young George H.W. Bush, trained there.

The pier’s life as a center for recreation and cultural events stretches back to the 1920s and includes hosting large trade shows and conventions until it became little-used during the early 1970s.

The nation’s 1976 Bicentennial saw a resurgence of interest in Navy Pier. A newly renovated Navy Pier became an official Chicago Landmark in 1977 and began a new life as a festival and entertainment center in the city.

By 1995, yet another extensive renovation saw Navy Pier become a year-round entertainment center with attractions that include rides like a giant Ferris wheel, special museums, docking areas for a variety of boat rides, a theater and convention facilities.

Today the pier rates as one of Chicago’s top tourist attractions.

We certainly found plenty to do along the pier, and stopped for cold lemonade at one of the concession stands as we considered our options.

A pirate fully decked out in pirate finery and brandishing a family-friendly foam swimming noodle (instead of a sword) tried to wave customers into a schooner ride on the Tall Ship Windy. Over-size yachts stood ready to for customers wishing to take a buffet lunch or dinner cruise. The Transporter FX seemed popular with younger visitors who wanted a rocking and rolling virtual trip to the Moon, Africa or a high-speed car race.

Many visitors just enjoyed strolling in the sun to the end of the pier to view the lighthouse or to sit and watch the constant stream of large- and small-boat traffic.  

What to do first? It didn’t take us too long to make our decisions!

Watch Midwest Guest for future stories about our visit to Navy Pier’s unique Smith Museum of Stained Glass Windows, an exciting “extreme” speedboat ride with Seadog Cruises and an elegant late lunch at The Riva.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved