Midwest Guest

Rock Harbor Lodge is a great base for day trips on Isle Royale

If you're not into backwoods camping, but still want to enjoy some of Isle Royale's wilderness, staying in at the island's Rock Harbor Lodge is a great way to experience some wilderness while still enjoying the comforts of home.

The lodge has 60 motel rooms, but we opted to book space in one of their 20 duplex cottages and use that as our base for various day hikes, photo-taking excursions, and a little canoeing.

We docked at Rock Harbor and loaded our luggage onto a wheeled cart for the short walk back into the wooded area to our cabin.

The cabin was tucked into the woods enough so that you were barely aware of any of your neighbors, and it was only a short walk back down to the dock, dining room, grill, camp store, and a marina where visitors could book boat tours, boat rentals, and guided fishing trips.

Furnishings weren't fancy, and the space included a bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette, and studio seating area. The lodge also provided linens, towels, and kitchen utensils for cabin guests.

The feature that really wowed us, though, was the large picture window overlooking a wooded area and serene Tobin Harbor. We spent one memorable night parked in front of these windows in our darkened cabin as we watched a spectacular thunderstorm that rolled in over Lake Superior and continued throughout much of the evening.

You could pack in food or check out the limited selection of groceries at the dockside store. You purchase supplies here if you're happy with something like cereal, or maybe eggs and fried bologna. We cooked breakfast a few days, but we opted to eat most of our meals at the lodge's main dining room or Greenstone Grill.

The menu at the dining room isn't large, but it invariably features fresh lake trout. Meanwhile, the Greenstone Grill has a nice little dockside patio, the perfect place to enjoy a beer and a burger dockside.

The lodge's is only open from late May until early September, and we'd booked our stay to end on the last day of the season.

You do have to be flexible when you visit Isle Royale, as we found when we ended up spending an extra day on the island. The weather on scheduled departure date looked great at Rock Harbor, but rough water farther out on Lake Superior caused by the thunderstorm we watched from our cabin on last scheduled night on the island caused postponement of our ferry trip back.

While the Isle Royale Queen IV ferry we'd taken to the island "almost never cancels" summer trips due to weather, they do warn travelers of possible delays with the ferry schedule in late summer or September. Delays usually 4 to 8 hours, according to the ferry company, but we experienced a full day delay.

This wasn't too bad for us as the lodge simply rebooked guests from the previous night back into their cabins. Some people bemoaned the fact that the grill and dining room ran out of beer early in the evening, and the wine supply was running dangerously low. I felt sorrier for the campers who spent the night out in the storm and hiked at least several miles to the marina, only to have to turn around and hike back out to their remote campsites.

We stopped by the camp store to see if we could find some reading material for our last night on the island. They had a handful of books Nevada Barr mysteries left, so I found something I hadn't read before. Meanwhile, Tim had read all of the books at the store, so he ended up reading the Susan Wittig Albert mystery I'd brought over and finished the night before.

Once we checked back into the lodge and resettled back into our cabin, we used our ferry-delay day to squeeze in a little extra hiking and picture-taking before returning to the mainland on the next day’s ferry.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Hotel Review
Copper Harbor

Hotel Review
Houghton

Midwest travel links for May 2010

Check out these interesting blog posts about the Midwest I've found online in the past month.

• Honey Bee Market La Colmena, Est. 1956-Who says there are no great grocery stores in Detroit? I loved this great feature about a third-generation, family-owned market in the city of Detroit by self-avowed "Gentleman of Elegant Leisure" Jim at Sweet Jupiter.

• Street Artist Banksy Tags Detroit-Detroit Moxie's Becks managed to catch the work of internationally known street artist, Banksy, at a couple of Detroit sites (in one case just hours before it disappeared from a brick wall). The removal of Banksy's work ignited a great deal of discussion in the city, and the comments on this blog offer a bit of that discussion.

• Heidelberg Project: Art Calling-Kath checks out this Detroit landmark at the Great Lakes Gazette. Is it art? Innovative reuse of discards? A political statement of some sort? Take a look and decide for yourself!

• A Fascinating Neighborhood-Charlie takes us to Detroit's Creekside Neighborhood at his blog, Bikes, Books & a Little Music. This serene oasis in the big city with its lighthouse, beautiful riverside homes, and parks draws plenty of fishers, bicyclists, families, and others wanting to enjoy the view of Detroit's downtown skyline in the distance.

• River Water & Wine in Grafton, Illinois-Perceptive Travel's Tim turns a planned bicycle ride derailed by heavy rain into a wine tasting tour and a chance to check out the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers.

• Oliver Winery Fits in Bloomington with a bit of Everything-Join Marcia at Wine and Spirits Travel as she visits Indiana's largest winery and its Creekbend Vineyard.





• A Weekend in Chicago with Kids-Carrie finds plenty of family-friendly fun in Chicago. Check out some of her family's favorite things to do and see in Chicago at Travel Savvy Mom.

• The Historic Westin Columbus-The Smiths, a Kentucky family of five, write about their visit to the oldest Westin Hotel in North America in Columbus, Ohio. Check out the great architectural details like marble floors, ornate woodwork, and original stained glass in this vintage 1897 building.

• Southwest Michigan Offers Great Parks-Tina lists some of her favorite parks in this corner of the state for the Pure Michigan blog. Dunes, beaches, camping, bicycle trails, wildlife sanctuaries-they're all here!

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Enjoy a quick respite at Bavarian Inn Lodge

The Bavarian Inn Lodge in Frankenmuth, Michigan, looks like a great resort for families, and while we're more bed & breakfast or country inn types, we found the resort also worked nicely for a quick and quiet mid-week getaway during the off season.

We've visited Frankenmuth often for day trips over the years. The quaint German themed town is a little over an hour from home for us, and attractions like Bronner's massive year round Christmas store make it a fun trip for those seeking a little cool relief on hot summer days.

But as many times as I'd visited Bronner's and downtown Frankenmuth over the years, I'd never stayed there overnight.

We remedied that situation earlier this month when we found we could get out of town for a quick, quick trip and needed to go somewhere within an hour or two from home.

We arrived at the Bavarian Inn Lodge on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, approaching the massive motel along a lane leading through a covered bridge spanning the Cass River. The quiet approach almost made you forget you were going to a 7-acre resort that included a 360-room lodge, 5 indoor pools, a couple of restaurants and lounges, shops, and recreation options like an indoor mini golf course, outdoor tennis courts, tons of video games and other amusements.  

Arriving when we did meant we were able to snag a room overlooking the river, and the serene view made it possible to forget you were in a big resort campus with a fantasy Bavarian architectural theme.

Frankenmuth has an interesting history as a town settled by a small group of German families in the mid-1840s. I enjoyed the fact that the lodge honored the town's ties to those original settlers and their descendants by naming each room for early settlers, other families with deep roots in the community, or those who significantly contributed to the area's growth and development.

Our room was the Veitengruber room, named for Johann Michael and Anna Marie Veitengruber, and their six grown children, who originally arrived in Frankenmuth in 1846. The room's decor included plaques tracing the history of the family through eight generations, plus a gallery of Veitengruber family photos and records like a church confirmation document (in German) and an attendance award for another family member from the Frankenmuth village school district during the early 1900s.

Other lodge features we especially appreciated included a free and strong Wi-Fi signal we were both able to access at the same time in our room with no hassle, an in-room refrigerator, and the adult-only pool.

The adult-only pool alone makes the lodge worth considering for a future visit. I've been at resorts in the past where a single indoor pool served all of the guests and the staff there didn't enforce the late-night adult-only posted swim times, making it a special misery if you happened to book a poolside room. The Bavarian Inn's multiple pools spread throughout the complex make it pleasant for everyone.

We were a bit disappointed that the Lorelei Lounge wasn't open the night we were there, but we were still able to get a late snack and a beer in the cafeteria-style Ratskeller (although its location in the Family Fun Center with its sea of video games probably wouldn't make the Ratskeller our first choice on a busy summer night). Tim, a root beer fan, tried the Bavarian Inn's lodge's own branded root beer and liked it.

We also appreciated being able to take a short walk through the lodge to Oma's Restaurant for breakfast the next morning. If you go, make sure you try a side of the potato cheese dumplings with your meal.

 

No trip to Frankenmuth, of course, is complete without an all-you-can-eat chicken dinner or visit to Bronner's Christmas store. Read more about our Frankenmuth experiences in my earlier stories, Frankenmuth's Bavarian Inn serves up chicken, German beer and nostalgia in Michigan and Bronner's keeps the lights on for Santa in Frankenmuth, Michigan.

 

Want to learn more about Frankenmuth's history? Check out Frankenmuth (Image of America) by the Frankenmuth Historical Association.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Hotel Review
Frankenmuth

Midwest travel links for October 2009

Check out some of these Midwest-related blog posts from other writers I've enjoyed reading this past month:

• Ode Lo Toledo-Author Brian Fies writes about visiting the Toledo Museum of Art for the opening of the LitGraphic: The World of the Graphic Novel exhibition, which features pages of original art from his book, Mom's Cancer.

• 40 Things to do in Detroit before you're dead-Becks celebrates her 40th birthday with this list of must-sees in the "D"  





• Where's Tyler?-Forget about finding Waldo and check out Tyler's travels in western Michigan.

• Adventures in apple picking-Follow Farsighted Fly Girl into a northern Indiana apple orchard for the quintessential autumn experience of picking apples in the Midwest.

• 3-Way-That's chili, people! I'm not a fan of chili with beans, and I usually can't get it without beans in restaurants in the Detroit area. I acquired a taste for Skyline Chili when visiting southern Ohio and always try to keep a few cans of it in my cupboards at home, so I can appreciate this story about this Cinci specialty.

• Ohio's best inns and B&Bs-I love small bed & breakfasts and country inns. I've stayed at a couple of places on this list (Inn at Cedar Falls and Inn at Brandywine Falls), but it looks like there are plenty of other great places I'd love to stay at on future trips to Ohio.

• Museums of northwest Indiana-We've visited the fab Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum several times, but this list has several other great-sounding small museums in the same region. Northern Indiana has museums dedicated to art, autos, outlaws and more!





• Milton House Museum in Milton, Wisconsin-Learn about this stop on the Underground Railroad as Linda and her family travel through an underground tunnel leading to a cabin used as a secret hiding place for slaves on their way north to freedom.

• Must-see museums: The Louvre in Minneapolis-Angela at The Gypsy's Guide previews what looks to be a great exhibit, The Louvre and the Masterpiece, playing at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts this fall and winter.

• Books with North Dakota and Norwegian roots-Minot, North Dakota, hosts the annual Norsk Hostfest, North America's largest Scandinavian festival. Annika checks out the Scandinavian Heritage Bookstore at this year's festival, makes some recommendations for readers, and shows off her traditional Norwegian costume.  

• Somewhere in Time, a cult classic filmed in Michigan-Well before the recent flurry of filming movies in Michigan, fueled by state incentives, Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour starred in this romantic late 1970s movie filmed in large part on Michigan's Mackinac Island. Check out Part 2 of this story here.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

What is the perfect bed & breakfast experience?

Bluebell cottage at the Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls

The perfect Bed and Breakfast experience happens when I feel perfectly at home the moment I approach an inn. Homey touches like fresh cookies in the common room, or a comfortable chair next to a reading lamp are nice, but to me, it's even more important being greeted like an cherished friend when entering the front door and having innkeepers sincerely interested in helping you make the most of your time at their inn--whether you feel like a constant round of activity or simply feel like relaxing and letting the stress and annoyances of your everyday life fade away. The perfect Bed and Breakfast experience means I'll feel even more at home than I do when I'm in my own home, because I'll have all the warmth, comfort, and conveniences of home without having to worry about doing the dishes or laundry!

Check out some of my B&B experiences:

Déjà vu at Cedar Falls

Daniel Rust House is a gem

Welcome to Historic Jacob Hill Inn

Mischievous spirit at Pilgrim House Inn

Warm Western hospitality at French Creek Ranch Bed & Breakfast

Cozy B&B and spectacular waterfalls draw visitors to Ohio’s Brandywine Falls

This post is an entry for a bed & breakfast getaway sponsored by The Inn & Spa at Cedar Falls

© 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

Maumee Bay Resort in harmony with natural setting on Lake Erie

I grew up in Michigan thinking of State Parks as day trip destinations or places for a weekend camping trip, so I’ve always marveled when I’ve visited other state park systems that include cabins, resorts and conference centers.

Seven of Ohio’s State Parks offer resort accommodations, including a sprawling conference complex at Maumee Bay State Park a few miles east of Toledo, Ohio.

My first stay at Maumee came during a weekend conference with Ohio writers. This particular group booked the state park resort at Punderson in previous years.

Many of us loved the wooded and cozy atmosphere at Punderson with its vintage main lodge, but our growing group needed a more spacious meeting facility and room to accommodate more overnight attendees.

Maumee Bay Resort has multiple conference rooms, common areas and smaller sitting areas that accommodate larger groups, as well as smaller breakout sessions or more informal groups.

Maumee Bay’s proximity to larger cities like Toledo and Detroit make scoring a room in the lodge or in a cabin at the park a tough thing to do at the height of summer vacation season—but the resort’s convenient location does make it a desirable place for conferences that normally book well in advance and throughout the year.

The park’s location also makes it a great place to stay as a base for families who can plan day trips out to attractions like the Toledo Zoo, Cedar Point Amusement Park near Sandusky and the massive Cabela’s outdoor store in Dundee, Michigan.

Our conference is in early April, so it was a little cold to enjoy many of Maumee Bay’s most family-friendly and outdoor activities like swimming in Lake Erie, enjoying the resort’s outdoor pool, golfing, biking or seeing a show at the park’s lakeside amphitheater.

I liked having a lakeside room overlooking the outdoor pool, especially since I had a lake view along with the quiet of the early spring season because swimmers were all at the indoor pool in April.

There are plenty of year round activities to enjoy at the resort, and the sunny spring weekend I was there proved perfect for a walk along the two-mile boardwalk at the nearby Maumee Bay State Park Nature Center.

Maumee Bay State Park is Ohio’s newest state park, joining the system in 1975. The modern lodge building, designed to blend in with the park’s natural environment near wetlands and Lake Erie, opened in 1991.

Xanterra Parks & Resorts manages Ohio’s state park resorts. It is the same company that manages resorts, gift stores and other facilities at many park locations in the western U.S. like Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.

You can read about Xanterra, the company’s commitment to sustainability and answers to the environmental concerns raised by the impact of tourism generated by its resorts in a comprehensive online report. The company’s long-term environmental goals and the efforts the resorts make as they strive towards those goals make interesting reading.

I have to admit I still miss Punderson Manor, with its storied history that includes its very own ghost. But I did like Maumee Bay Resort as an off-season conference destination, and I particularly enjoyed my afternoon spent hiking the park’s beautiful boardwalk nature trail.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved

Cozy B&B and spectacular waterfalls draw visitors to Ohio’s Brandywine Falls

I love waterfalls, and I love small Bed & Breakfast inns, so staying at the Inn at Brandywine Falls turned out to be the perfect way for us to spend a long Easter weekend.

The spectacular 60-plus-foot bridal-veil Brandywine Falls is just few steps from the inn, a historic 1848-vintage home with six guest rooms that innkeepers George and Katie Hoy lovingly decorated with period furnishings and antiques from the area.

We picked a relatively quiet weekend in early spring to stay at the inn, but quickly found ourselves part of a large extended family as George and Katie’s adult children and their families gathered at the inn for the holiday weekend. The spacious James Wallace Parlour room where we stayed during the weekend offered us a quiet and private retreat, but Easter morning brunch was an especially festive occasion as the extended Hoy family gathered for a meal. The gregarious group readily included us as family-for-the-weekend and made sure the Easter rabbit delivered a couple of extra chocolate bunnies for their guests from Michigan.

The Inn at Brandywine Falls feels particularly homey because the innkeepers live on-site and the home offers plenty of common areas to visit with the Hoys and their other guests, get a little work done (the inn offers free Wi-Fi), relax or borrow a book from the inn’s library to read during your stay.

Settlers who came to the area in the early 1800s saw Brandywine Falls as a ready source of power. The Village of Brandywine became one of the earliest settlements in the Cuyahoga Valley with numerous saw, grist and woolen mills relying on the falls for power and driving the development of the area starting around 1814. Brandywine Village eventually faded into history, with the exception of the James Wallace house built by the son of one of the area’s first settlers and now serving as home to the Inn at Brandywine Falls.

The inn is part of the 33,000-acre Cuyahoga Valley National Park and is on the National Register of Historic Places, although a special arrangement allows George and Katie to continue operating and living at the inn for their lifetime.

We loved being able to step out of the house and walk over to Brandywine Falls via the 1.5-mile Brandywine Gorge Trail. The trail’s boardwalk follows along the gorge’s edge and a series of fairly steep steps takes hikers to the lower Brandywine Creek level for a closer look at the waterfalls.

Brandywine Falls seems to top most lists of favorite park attractions, and we spent much of our weekend taking photos of the falls. There are also several smaller waterfalls in the park and surrounding area worth seeking out if you have a couple of days to visit the area.

Read more about our visit to the rest of the park in History and nature trace a path through Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

We have some great National Parks in the Midwest. Read about seven of these wonderful parks in my story, Seven sensational Great Lakes National Parks.

Also check out nearby Chagrin Falls, another one of our favorite small-town destinations in the Cleveland area in my story, Chagrin Falls conundrum.

© Dominique King 2009

Warm Western hospitality at French Creek Ranch Bed & Breakfast

Two days in South Dakota barely left us enough time to hit a few high points around Custer and its wonderful State Park. And two days at the fabulous French Creek Ranch, with its beyond-bountiful breakfasts, left us hungry for another visit to Custer and more of innkeeper Diane’s warm hospitality.

Tucked away from the hustle and bustle of the tourist town of Custer and the roar of highway traffic, French Creek Ranch offered a quiet retreat for us after busy days of touring nearby Custer State Park, the Black Hills, Mount Rushmore and the Crazy Horse Memorial.

We love the unique experiences offered by staying in bed-and-breakfast accommodations. French Creek Ranch offers the particularly unique experience (for city dwellers like us) of spending time at a working horse ranch that also welcomes equine visitors with stabling accommodations.

French Creek Ranch B&B is small in the sense that it only has three guest rooms in the main house, but house is expansive and offers an amazing array of amenities that include an in-house saloon, sauna, game and billiards room, wet bar and large sitting area. Guests enjoy a private patio for grilling and picnicking just steps away from outdoor activities on the ranch like horseback riding and fishing.

French Creek also welcomes guests traveling by RV with level sites featuring complete hook-up facilities.

One couple staying in their RV at French Creek Ranch during our visit served as assistant ranch hosts through a work-and-travel program, helping the innkeeper with ranch chores and helping visitors make the most of their time in the area. Their advice steered us to driving the Needles Highway, where we took some of our best photos of our trip.

French Creek Ranch proudly eschews the fussy Victorian décor found at some B&Bs for a sophisticated take on ranch living featuring Western and Native American furnishings and artwork. We settled into our Cowboy Room, which fully lived up to the promise of “refined but rustic” furnishings with its comfortable lodge-pole bed, Western theme decor and scenic countryside view.

Diane also offers a small selection of regional artwork and craft items from local artisans for sale, like the lucky iron horse shoe and cross combo that now hangs over the doorway of our family room.

As fabulous as the house and ranch are, the hospitality at French Creek rates as its best feature.

Days start with a breakfast beyond belief for someone like me, who usually makes do with an ice tea, a carton of yogurt or a couple of cheese sticks for breakfast at home. When the Web site advises guests to come hungry for a “full breakfast”, believe it!

Diane’s breakfasts feature entrees with Southwestern flavors like breakfast enchiladas or migas (a scramble with eggs and tortilla strips or chips), in addition to fruit or pastries and bottomless cups of coffee or tea. The breakfast table also featured an easy conviviality where Diane chatted with guests as she bustled around her kitchen and her RV camper hosts helped us plan our day.

We’d originally stopped in South Dakota for a couple of days at the end of a trip out to Wyoming and Montana with the intention of checking out the area as a possible destination for a longer stay in the future.

After visiting French Creek Ranch, we can’t wait to return to the ranch’s warm Western embrace and again experience Diane’s generous spirit and beyond bountiful breakfasts!

Related Stories

Begging for attention – wildlife at South Dakota’s Custer State Park

Threading the Needles Highway

Mount Rushmore memorializes larger-than-life presidents

© Dominique King 2009

Photo Friday

Here are a few photos that didn’t quite fit with my Ghosts of Punderson post.

The two lions flank the front door of Ohio’s Punderson Manor.  I’ve visited Punderson quite a few times over the past half-dozen years, mostly during mid-April for a yearly writers’ conference, so these shots come from two different years. That’s why the sky is brilliant blue in one photo and much greyer in the other photo.

I spotted the petunias growing out of a crack at the foot of a wall along Punderson’s front porch one year. It always fascinates me to see flowers break through to thrive in such inhospitable terrain, but I was also surprised to see these cheery flowers there on a cold April day.

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 2008