Midwest Guest

Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail Highlights

Driving along the shoreline is always a special treat for me, and I'm particularly fond of the designated routes encircling the Great Lakes.

We live close to the Ohio border, and we've traveled the Lake Erie Ohio Coastal Trail many times. The 293-mile route is primarily Ohio's portion of the 660-mile Lake Erie Circle Tour and wends its way through a variety of nature preserves, historic sites, big urban centers, and small towns.

You can drive the entire route in a day, or you can easily spend several days exploring the trail. We're close enough to the western end of the route that we occasionally do a portion of the route just east of Toledo as a day trip.

The Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail earned its designation as an Ohio State Scenic Byway in December of 2004, and became a National Scenic Byway in September of 2005. The Lake Erie Circle Tour earned its designation in the early 1990s.

The Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail runs from the Michigan border near Toledo, Ohio, and on through Conneaut, Ohio, to the Pennsylvania state line.

Here are some highlights of our travels along the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail:

• Toledo-Stop by the legendary Tony Packo's for a Hungarian hot dog and some fried pickles and peppers, tour the city's Old West End neighborhood with its stately Victorian-era homes, and visit Toledo Museum of Art with its outdoor sculpture garden and renowned glass collection. Take in a Mud Hens' baseball game, or do a little shopping at the city's Farmers Market and the Libbey Glass Outlet.





• Maumee/Oak Harbor-Spend a night at the Maumee Bay State Park Resort or an afternoon on the resort's nature trail, where you can spot the Toledo Harbor Lighthouse in the distance. Nature lovers, hikers, photographers and birders will enjoy visiting the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area and Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge just east of Toledo. Don't miss the Ohio Bicentennial barn along the route near the wildlife sanctuaries.





• Sandusky/Marblehead-Most people know the Sandusky area best for the Cedar Point Amusement Park or island destinations like Put-In Bay. It's been quite some time since I've been to either place (which gives me more excuse to travel out this route yet again), but other favorite places in this section of the route include the city of Sandusky itself with its Carnegie Library and a trip out to the tip of the Marblehead Peninsula to see the Marblehead Lighthouse.

• Cleveland-Cleveland clearly rocks with us, as we've been there multiple times. I bought a charter membership to the city's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame + Museum, so we make it there quite often. You might not think of a cemetery as a trip destination, but Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery is an especially interesting stop for those who love history and taking photos. While you're at Lake View, don't miss the President Garfield Memorial or the Wade Chapel (the chapel's Tiffany-designed interior and windows earned it a place on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973). President Garfield's home in Mentor, Ohio, is just east of Cleveland and another must-see for history buffs.





• Ashtabula-There is plenty to see in this city near the eastern end of the route. Catch a glimpse of the Ashtabula Lighthouse or check out Point Park with its great view of the city's bascule bridge. The Hubbard House was an important Underground Railroad terminus and sits on a quiet side street within sight of Lake Erie.

I expect we'll travel this trail many more times as there are plenty of other places along the route we've yet to see, so don't be surprised to see a sequel to this post sometime in the future!

We have a GPS, but I still find a good map invaluable when we travel. Delorme publishes a series of map books covering each individual state, with each book including listings of features like parks, historic sites, museums, campgrounds, and other great information. These books are a must for road trips, and I've worn out several of the Michigan and Ohio Gazetteers from use over the years. Check out the Ohio Atlas & Gazetteer before heading out on the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Ohio's Magee Marsh is for the birds

The Biggest Week in American Birding kicks off this weekend with International Migratory Bird Day on Saturday, May 8 and a full schedule of events at northwestern Ohio's premiere warbler watching sites along Lake Erie that include the popular boardwalk trail in Magee Marsh.

Check out my previous stories, Lake Erie is for the birds: Ohio's Magee Marsh and Lake Erie is for the birds: Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge to see what draws scores of birders and nature photographers to this marshland area along the lake, particularly during peak times for spring and autumn bird migrations.

Today, I'm posting a few more photos of Magee Marsh that I didn't post with my original story about that nature area.

Tim enjoyed visiting Magee Marsh and shooting a few photos along the boardwalk trail.

I climbed up onto one of the observation towers along the trail

We also spotted the nearby Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Plant tower in the distance as we drove along the Magee Marsh causeway

You don't even have to be a birder or a photographer to fully enjoy Magee Marsh

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 2010 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge

Early May brings the Biggest Week in American Birding to northern Ohio, a birding festival celebrating the peak of spring warbler migration in the marshland area along Ohio's Lake Erie shore.

The festival promises to draw crowds of birders and nature photographers to the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge and Magee Marsh Wildlife area. We visited both refuges earlier this month, so I can give you a quick sneak peek at this beautiful natural area and some of the early avian arrivals.

Be sure to check out my stories about the Ottawa and Magee Marsh areas I posted earlier this week:

Lake Erie is for the birds: Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge

Lake Erie is for the birds: Ohio's Magee Marsh

Today, I'm posting a few more photos of the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge that I didn't post with my original story.

Nesting goose


Visitors' Center

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 2010 All rights reserved

Lake Erie is for the birds: Ohio's Magee Marsh

Birders and photographers flock to northwest Ohio, visiting Magee Marsh and the neighboring Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in especially large numbers during the spring and summer bird migrations.

We visited Magee Marsh one recent weekday, just ahead of the peak warbler season that is a special draw for the wildlife refuge and a perfect time to enjoy a quiet walk along the hugely popular Boardwalk Trail.

The 0.6-mile boardwalk trail meanders through 7 acres of marshland known as one of the best places to see warblers and other migratory birds in the region, though we saw and heard plenty of birds and other animals during our visit. The presence of railings on both sides of the entire length of the boardwalk and roomy benches spaced every 100-yards or so along the trail makes it especially accessible on day without crowds for visitors dealing with mobility challenges.

Magee Marsh is just east of the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge, about 15 miles east of Toledo on Ohio's Route 2 along Lake Erie. A short walking trail connects the two wildlife refuges.

Magee Marsh is 2,000 acres of prime wetland habitat where birders report seeing more than 300 different species of birds throughout the year. Marsh mammals include muskrats, raccoons, skunks, mink and foxes, along with the occasional rabbit, coyote, or deer.

While Magee and Ottawa share similar terrain and wildlife, Magee Marsh differs from its larger neighbor in a few ways.

An historical marker near the Magee Marsh Bird Center explains how the marsh is part of the last remnants of the Great Black Swamp. That dense swamp forest was about the size of the state of Connecticut and covered much of northern Ohio and Indiana. The swamp acted to deter early settlers and travelers, only attracting residents after they cleared and drained most of the area between 1860 and 1885.

The remaining marshes became popular with affluent hunters, and numerous private hunt clubs dotted the Lake Erie shore here by 1890.

In 1903, John N. Magee of Elmore, Ohio, became owner of 2,700 acres of marshland belonging to two private hunting clubs. Magee's original plan involved draining the marshes for farming, but high lake water levels made that too difficult.

A small group of wealthy duck hunters leased the land from Magee, who died in 1925, and his family from the 1920s until 1940, when Magee's daughters sold the land to another private hunting club. That land still proved too costly to maintain as a hunting club, and by 1951, the Ohio Department of Resources purchased 1,851 acres of the land.

Ohio's Division of Wildlife created a hunting area out of nearly 1,200 acres of the land, while the state's Division of Parks and Recreation maintained approximately 650 acres as Crane Creek State Park, with a beach for swimming along Lake Erie.

By 2008, the state closed Crane Creek State Park and transferred the remaining parkland to the Division of Wildlife, now maintaining the area as a wildlife refuge and controlled hunting area.

Magee Marsh has several short trails. The popular Magee Marsh Bird Trail/Boardwalk is near the former swimming beach. Another trail at the beach is about a half-mile long and open for wildlife viewing. Two short loops, each about a half-mile long, begin and end at a 42-foot observation tower behind the Bird Center building.

You can also spot waterfowl and other birds along a causeway with several pull-offs where you can stop and take photographs.

We loved the Bird Center building, constructed in 1970 and featuring an inviting lounge area with a large fireplace and a small display area with wildlife dioramas. Visitors can also check a current list of bird sightings, purchase a bird field guide, pick up free maps and brochures, or visit the restroom at the center.

The bird center is open Monday through Friday year round and weekends during many of the spring, summer, and fall months.

The trails are open daily from dawn until dusk most of the year, but in keeping with Magee Marsh's history as a hunting area, access to some of the trails is restricted from mid-October through December for controlled hunting of waterfowl and some other animals like deer.

Admission to Magee Marsh is free. Check the Friends of Magee Marsh site or Ohio's Department of Natural Resources site for information about seasonal hours and events.

 

Want to pick up an Ohio bird guide to study before your trip to Magee Marsh? Try checking out the Birds of Ohio Field Guide by Stan Tekiela.

 

Be sure to check out my story from early this week about the neighboring Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Toledo

Lake Erie is for the birds: Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge

Dedicated birders know that Ohio's Lake Erie shoreline is the place to be during spring and autumn bird migrations, evidenced by the reported 260,000 visitors making their way to several parks and wildlife refuges in northwest Ohio each year.

The Ottawa Wildlife Refuge, about 15 miles east of Toledo along Ohio's Route 2, was relatively quiet when we visited one recent sunny weekday, but that was several weeks ahead of the annual Biggest Week in American Birding.

The Biggest Week festivities in mid-May feature a full schedule of birding events and tours in the Ottawa Wildlife Refuge and adjoining Magee Marsh over a ten-day period with plenty to see and do for experienced and beginning birders, as well as families and casual nature lovers.

We found plenty to see even during our visit, when the weather was nice enough for a short walk, a picnic lunch, and a visit to the refuge's visitors' center.

Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge is part of a larger complex of refuges in between Toledo and Port Clinton in Ohio that include the Cedar Point National Wildlife Refuge and the West Sister Island National Wildlife Refuge, as well as the Schoonover Waterfowl Production area in nearby Lenawee County, Michigan. The combined area is over 9,000 acres. Some of the areas are accessible by permit only, but the Ottawa Refuge is the largest unit and open to the public daily.

Established in 1961, the refuge provides shelter for migratory birds and helps preserve the remaining few Lake Erie marshes in Ohio's shrinking Great Black Swamp area.

Lake Erie presents a bit of an obstacle for some migratory birds initially reluctant to cross the water on their way north each spring. As the birds stop to rest and ponder how to best proceed, the avian population in the marshes spikes, providing plenty of opportunity for birders and photographers to observe and record their bird sightings.

April and October are peak months for waterfowl migration in the area. May, June, and August are peak months for shore birds. Autumn and winter are the best time to see bald eagles in the area, as the refuge is draws the largest number of bald eagles anywhere in Ohio. May is the best time for those seeking songbirds and warblers to visit.

Area birding guru Kenn Kaufman claims photographers capture more warbler images in northwest Ohio during May than they capture anywhere else in the United States. It may not be a proven claim, but I found his claim you could even fairly readily catch a photo of birds near the boardwalks with a handheld camera true (as this photo of a bird atop a birdhouse just off of the boardwalk in back of the visitors' center I captured with my tiny point-and-shoot camera proves).

We checked a short bit of the refuge's 7.5 miles of trails leading off of a small boardwalk loop in back of the visitors' center. Several level, small-gravel trails lead out from the boardwalk loop. A short east-west trail connects the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge with Magee Marsh. The refuge also periodically offers auto tours that take visitors to the marsh and some areas not open to hiking.

We dropped by the visitors' center to pick up some information about wildlife and trails in the refuge. The visitor center, built within the last few years to meet LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) silver award energy efficiency standards, has exhibit areas, classrooms, meeting rooms, restrooms, and a small bookstore operated by the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Association.

The refuge is free to enter and open year round from dawn to dusk. The visitor center is open daily from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m.

Check out the Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center page on Facebook for the latest news, which is where I found out that the smoke plumes we saw during our visit came from prescribed burns conducted by the refuge staff.

   

Want to learn more about birding in Ohio? Try checking out the Birds of Ohio Field Guide by Stan Tekiela.

 

And I hope you'll visit Midwest Guest later this week for my story about our visit to Magee Marsh.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Toledo

Ohio's Toledo Farmers' Market has a long history

Some farmers' markets, like the venerable market in downtown Toledo, Ohio, are open year round, but I especially enjoy the advent of spring with the increasing access to fresh produce and other regional treats.

I knew of the long history of Detroit's Eastern Market and farmers' markets in Detroit, which boast a history dating back to the mid-1800s, but I recently discovered that Toledo, Ohio, boasts a farmers' market tradition dating all the way back to 1832!

Farmers first started selling at an outdoor market in Toledo to provide a central and convenient shopping place for area residents. The original market became even easier to access for people when a street car line located nearby.

The outdoor wholesale market closed in 1913, but the market continued to operate indoors. In 1917, the outdoor market reopened in a different location with new stalls and roof.

In 1928, the market moved to an Erie Street building, which also served as an exhibition hall. Land deeded to Toledo for a Farmers' Market in back of the indoor market served as a new home for an outdoor market. The market enjoyed a renewed popularity among wholesale customers and individuals.

The market changed as customers no longer purchased large quantities of fruits and vegetables to can or freeze for the winter, and the market facilities aged. The indoor wholesale market closed and the outdoor stalls began to sink into the ground.

A government grant and establishment of a Farmers' Market Association of Toledo to run the market brought a number of improvements to the old market, where many farm families sold their goods more over 80 years.

The improved market debuted in spring of 1996. Concrete replaced gravel walkways, making the market more accessible to those with mobility challenges. Improved lighting and uniform tables helped better showcase products.

Today, the market includes outdoor and indoor components, as well as a Poultry House, handicapped accessible restrooms, and seasonal satellite markets elsewhere in town. There is also a riverwalk along nearby Swan Creek if you want to take a little break from shopping.

I've purchased fruits and vegetables, as well as herb plants, baked goods, flowers, spices, and other local products at the market over the years.

We enjoy visiting the outdoor Farmers' Market of Toledo during the warmer months at its downtown location, just across the street from the Libbey Glass Outlet. The market is a short walk from other downtown attractions like the Toledo Mud Hens' Triple A baseball team ballpark, which can make it very convenient. Proximity to the ballpark may also make visiting the market early in the morning on Saturdays that the Mud Hens play at home a better idea than visiting later in the day, but morning visits to farmers' markets usually make more sense anyway if you're looking for the best selection.

The market is open Saturdays, and the Poultry house is open Tuesday through Sunday. Check the website for directions and seasonal hours. You can also check out the Toledo Farmers' Market on Facebook , which also features a nice album of photos of the market throughout the years.

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Toledo

Moses Fleetwood Walker, Ohio baseball pioneer

Long before Jackie Robinson and his fabled life as an athlete, barrier breaker, business man, and civil rights activist, there was Moses Fleetwood Walker.

Walker, traditionally considered the first African American to play baseball at the Major League level, first appeared in a major league baseball game as a catcher for the Toledo (Ohio) Blue Stockings in 1884.

Today, the Triple-A minor league Toledo Mud Hens, claim Walker as one of their own. The Hens honored him on May 14 of last year with a special tribute 125 years after his major league debut and the city's first major league baseball game.

Walker was born in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, and played college baseball with Oberlin College and University of Michigan (where he attended law school) before signing with the minor league Blue Stockings in 1883.

His team made the jump to the Major League in 1884 by joining the American Association, a competitor to the National League, and played Walker on May 1. Walker had no hits and four errors in his major league debut, but his appearance still put him into the baseball record books.

Walker played baseball with his brother, Welday, at Oberlin, and Welday Walker joined his brother in Toledo, playing for six games with the Blue Stockings during 1884.

The Walkers brothers are arguably the first and second African Americans to ever play in the major leagues before Jackie Robinson's 1947 major league debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

There is a claim that another player, William Edward White, predates Fleet Walker as the first African American to play in the major leagues. The ironically named White played one game for the Providence (Rhode Island) Grays in 1879. White's parents were a white slaveholder and a mixed-race slave, but census data from 1880 and later lists White's race as "white", so there is conjecture that he was passing as a white man in Rhode Island.

Walker's major league career only lasted one season.

There is some evidence that some players did not like playing with an African American catcher, and one of the team's star pitchers later admitted that he deliberately ignored Walker's signals. That meant Walker often had to catch without knowing the speed, location, or spin of the pitcher's throws, and it's possible that resulting injuries contributed to the early end of his baseball career.

Meanwhile, the Toledo team folded and the American Association joined the National League in unofficially banning black players.

Walker drifted through several years with various minor league teams, and suffered several more setbacks due to discrimination. His team in Syracuse, New York, released him in 1889, and he could no longer find a job in baseball.

In 1891, a group of white men attacked Walker in Syracuse. Walker killed stabbed and killed one of his attackers. He stood trial on charges of second-degree murder and entered a plea of self-defense, with the jury acquitting him of all charges.

The college-educated Walker, who an article in The Sporting News from 1945 described as "an avid reader of high-grade literature and a brilliant conversationalist",  tried his hand at writing and publishing later in life. He was a strong proponent of Black Nationalism, and his 1908 book, "Our Home Colony", encouraged black emigration back to Africa as the best solution to avoiding racial prejudice. He published a newspaper called The Equator, opened a hotel with his brother, and managed several movie theaters and an opera house in his later years. He also patented several inventions involving the movie industry and motion picture cameras.

Walker died in 1924, and baseball fans can find his grave in Union Cemetery at Steubenville, Ohio.

A State of Ohio Historical Marker honoring Walker also stands outside of the Mud Hens' ball park in downtown Toledo.

 

Read more about the Mud Hens here at Midwest Guest:

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

 

Want to learn more about Walker and the early history of baseball in Toledo? Try checking out these books:

Fleet Walker's Divided Heart: The Life of Baseball's First Black Major Leaguer by David W. Zang

Baseball in Toledo by John R. Husman

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Visit the Libbey Glass Outlet in Toledo, Ohio

April may be Michigan Glass Month, but glass is a big deal year round in Toledo, Ohio.

Toledo's reputation as "The Glass City" stems largely from the Libbey Glass Company, which moved from Boston to the northern Ohio city in the late 1800s.

I can readily find Libbey's glassware in Detroit-area stores, and the company sells its product at department stores, grocery stores, and other businesses throughout the United States and Canada, but I still find the trip an hour or so south of home to shop the Libbey Glass Outlet in downtown Toledo a trip worth making every year or so.

My favorite Halloween glasses, decorated with grinning orange jack-o-lanterns, and my tall flamingo-adorned glasses came from the Libbey outlet, back when it was a much smaller store located closer to the factory.

Today, the 16,000-square-foot warehouse-style store stocks glassware, dinnerware, flatware, gift, and decor pieces, with much of the stock deeply discounted off of retail prices.

You may want to remember that the deep discounts may be on discontinued items, so you should make sure you get the pieces you want while you're there as they may be difficult to replace with the same items later.

The outlet even has a small section of Toledo books and souvenirs, so if you need an Ohio shot glass or book about the history of Ohio baseball, you can get it there.

Meanwhile, Libbey (the company and the family) played an integral role in the history and development of business, art, and culture in Toledo.  

Edward Drummond Libbey moved his family's company, New England Glass Works, to Toledo in 1888. Toledo's plentiful supply of natural gas, sand, cheap building sites, strong railroad system, and available workers made it an ideal place to move the family firm. The glass industry out East was highly competitive, and the lack of competitors in Toledo also helped Libbey's firm grow and thrive in Ohio.

By 1892, New England Glass Works became the Libbey Glass Company and continued to build its specialty in affordable glass tableware.

Edward and Florence Libbey lived in a large Colonial revival-style home in Toledo's Old West End. The Old West End still exists today as a twenty-five block historic neighborhood with one of the largest collections of intact late-Victorian homes in the United States where we also periodically visit to admire the homes and take photographs. The Libbey Home still anchors the neighborhood and overlooks the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Libbey House Foundation plans to eventually open the restored home to the public for tours and events.

The Libbeys both had a strong interest in the arts, and Edward, in particular, worked to amass a collection to illustrate the development of glass from antiquity to modern times. In 1901, the couple helped found the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA). Edward left his private glass collection to the museum, along with an endowment, when he died in 1925.

Today, the TMA is well known for its historic collection of glass, as well as early and enduring involvement in the Studio Glass Movement. The movement started as an effort to explore how artists could create work from molten glass in art studios, rather than factories. The TMA became the first museum to build a facility and studio dedicated to teaching glass working techniques in 1969. In 2006, the TMA opened its Glass Pavilion, which the museum Web site describes as a "state-of-the-art facility to house, care for, study, and display" its famed glass collection.

The Old West End, Libbey Home, and the TMA are all a short drive from the Libbey Glass Outlet, making a visit to all of them an easy day trip from the Detroit area for us.

My favorite time to visit the glass outlet is in the summer or fall because the store is right across the street from the Toledo Farmers Market, so you can finish the day by picking up some veggies and other regional eats before heading home.

Want to learn more? Check out these books about Toledo's history, architecture, glass industry, and art museum:

 

Glass in Northwest Ohio by Quentin R. Skrabec Jr.

 

Toledo: A History in Architecture 1890-1914 by William D. Speck

 

Toledo: The 19th Century by Barbara L. Floyd

 

Toledo: The 20th Century by Barbara L. Floyd

 

Toledo Museum of Art (Maps & Guides) by Paula Reich

© Dominique King 2010 All rights reserved

Things To Do
Toledo

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

Talk like an Egyptian: Dr. Bob Brier at Ohio's Toledo Museum of Art

Egypt, mummies and the pyramids fascinate Dr. Bob Brier (a.k.a. "Mr. Mummy"), and plenty of other people also find those subjects fascinating--judging by the standing-room-only crowd at Brier's appearance at the Toledo Museum of Art this past weekend.

It's one thing to be a world-renowned Egyptologist like Brier. It's quite another thing to have a knack for making ancient history come alive, and to hold the rapt attention of 500 people (including a fair number of young kids) for over an hour of listening to the latest theory about pyramid building as Brier did that Friday evening at the TMA.

I spotted a TMA posting on Facebook saying that Brier was appearing in the museum's Little Theater the next evening. An article in the Toledo Blade newspaper explained that Brier would talk about the building of the Great Pyramid, and how new research Brier did with French architect Jean-Pierre Houdin advances the theory that ancient Egyptians built the pyramid using internal ramps.

We were already familiar with Brier because we watched a series of his lectures about the "History of Ancient Egypt" on DVDs from The Teaching Company. Tim took a class about ancient Egyptian history when he first started graduate school, and while he was on hiatus from school, we found Brier's taped lectures and watched them together.

Dr. Brier, a Senior Research Fellow at the C.W. Post Campus of New York's Long Island University, is one of the world's most well regarded experts on mummies. He was the first person in 2,000 years to mummify a human cadaver using the Egyptian's ancient methods. He also wrote several scholarly books about Egyptian history and mysteries.

Brier's conversational manner and obvious passion for the subject held our attention through a series of 48 half-hour lectures on tape, so we found ourselves driving the hour-plus down to Toledo on a rainy night to hear the professor in person.

The museum folks had, by this time, figured that Brier would be a big draw and moved his lecture to the Grand Gallery, with seating set up for about 300 people. We managed to get there early enough to snag decent seats, but all of those seats filled well before the lecture's scheduled start. By the time Brier was ready to speak, we estimated at least 500 people were in the room--some sitting in extra seats museum staffers kept bringing out, kids sitting on the floor in front of the first rows of seats, and a few other people standing along the perimeter of the room.

We immediately recognized the professor as he wandered into the room, wearing his signature blue work shirt and khaki slacks. Brier's casual style carried through the lecture, even with so many people crowded into the gallery.

Check out Brier's article in the July/August 2009 issue of Archaeology magazine for an idea of what we heard and saw during his TMA presentation. Again, Brier's accessible style gives casual readers a good understanding of the research and an intimate glimpse into Brier's explorations at the Great Pyramid in searing 111-degree heat.

You may see Brier pop up in a cable television special or IMAX movie--this is an Egyptologist with his own page at the Internet Movie Database!--but kudos to the Toledo Museum of Art and the Archaeological Institute of America, Toledo Society, for bringing Brier to northern Ohio, and bringing such a good crowd together to see him in person.

© Dominique King 2009 All rights reserved