Midwest Guest

Great eats in Munising, Michigan

Fresh white fish, pasties, gourmet hot dogs and more are among the choices for great and affordable eats at Munising in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

Here's a sampling of places we ate when we visited this scenic little town on Lake Superior's south shore earlier this summer:

Sydney's Shark Bay Bar-Our server at Sydney's Shark Bay Bar assured me that "The whitefish were swimming in the bay this morning" when I ordered the quintessential northern Michigan entree for dinner. He also helped me select a local brew to enjoy with my fish as we settled in for our first meal on our two-week trip to the U.P.

I found the restaurant's vaguely Australian theme a bit confusing, but the server's enthusiasm for the food and drink made me feel as if he truly wanted us to enjoy our meal and sample some real local cuisine.

We returned to Sydney's a couple of days later so we could enjoy Munising's famous Muldoon's pasties. Sydney's is one of a couple of places around town where you can enjoy Muldoon's version of this Upper Peninsula favorite with a beer (Muldoon's also has a pasty shop where you can pick up one of these meat-and-vegetable filled pastry shells as a take-out order or to eat at the store's roadside picnic table.

The Brownstone Inn-This classic roadside inn is about a dozen miles west of Munising in Au Train, Michigan.

White fish is always one of my top menu choices when I travel Up North, and the Brownstone's Jamaican-spiced version of this northern Michigan classic had a bit of a kick, but the spice complemented, rather than overwhelmed, the mild fish.

Classic choices like the 8-ounce rib eye steak Tim had and an exceptionally fresh-tasting Caesar salad with a large selection of Michigan micro brew beers are other menu highlights.

The Brownstone traces its origins to 1946 when a retired Detroit police officer opened the restaurant in a building largely constructed of locally harvested and salvaged materials.

The restaurant closed in the late 1980s and the current owners revitalized the inn, purchasing it and reopening it in 1989 after a two-year closure.

Johnny Dogs-We often rely Yelp to find a place to eat when we're on the road, and I have to credit Yelp with this fun find.

This little hot dog stand may seat a half dozen people inside and another 8 or 10 on its tiny deck in the summer, but it seems like a really popular stop for locals and tourists alike.

Meaty all-beef hot dogs serve as a platform for an imaginative menu of decorated dogs ranging from a classic dog with maybe a little mustard and pickle relish to spicy treats like a Piggy Dog (topped with pulled pork, barbecue sauce, Ranch dressing and cheese), a South Carolina Dog (with brown mustard, Cole slaw, dill pickle and celery salt) and a Bob Marley dog (with Jamaican jerk chicken, sirachi mayo and pineapple salsa).

You can always order chili fries or Piggy fries but it's probably best to split these massive piles of fries with a friend if you want to save room for a hot dog as well.

Want a beer with your hot dog? Johnny Dogs has an agreement with the neighboring Barge Inn, where order your dogs with Johnny and walk over to the Barge inn where you can sit down and order your beer while waiting for someone from Johnny Dogs to deliver your hot dogs to you there.

Dogpatch-OK, so I'm old enough to remember the Li'l Abner cartoons, which ran in funny papers (remember those?) across the country for more than 40 years.

The cartoon was supposedly the first comic strip based in the American South and, even in my memory as a young child, it was an extremely stereotypical portrayal of the residents of the impoverished Southern town of Dogpatch.

Dogpatch Restaurant in Munising opened before the comic folded in the 1970s, and it remains here today as a curious time capsule of the supposed Southern lifestyle in downtown Munising along Lake Superior shores, where its Web site assures customers that there is ample parking to accommodate snowmobile trailers.

We've eaten breakfast at Dogpatch a few times over the years, and I think the restaurant may work best for folks looking for a huge breakfast before hitting the road for a full day of activity like hiking or snowmobiling.

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Timber Ridge Motel Suites and Lodge in Munising, Michigan

Local owners are often more enthused and informative about their lodging location and, in a case like Munising in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, you can save a lot of money staying in a locally owned motel versus a chain hotel.

We originally stayed at the Timber Ridge Motel and Lodge more than a decade ago at the suggestion of friends who stayed there in the past.

The nine-room motel sits in the Hiawatha National Forest about 10 miles from downtown Munising, which is also nice because you're staying off of a busy highway like M-28 and the price is literally 40 to 50 percent less than the prices I saw quoted for chain motels in town ($69 for a two-room suite at Timber Ridge versus as much as $140 for a room at a chain in town during June of 2013).

Not much had changed at the Timber Ridge since we last stayed there during the late 1990s. The small motel retains its 1950s-style cottage feeling, meaning that it isn't fancy, but it's very clean and comfortable.

The small motel and lodge hosts several photography workshops, and its location along a major snowmobile trail makes it ideal for winter sports enthusiasts. The motel is also located only a few miles away from Wagner Falls, which is one of my favorite waterfalls.

One of the best features of the Timber Ridge in our minds was the beautiful view of Hovey Lake we could enjoy from the balcony of our room.  One of my friends said it looked like a painting when she saw a photo I took from our balcony, and I think that it's an apt description.

Besides the great view, amenities we especially appreciated included a strong free Wi-Fi signal and the kitchenette with a fridge, microwave, coffee maker and dining table.

We had breakfast at the room several mornings of our most recent stay, but the Buckhorn Restaurant is only a quarter mile away from the Timber Ridge, and there are lots of choices for meals available by making the short drive into Munising.

The owners (the Nolan family) were readily available by phone (they live a few minutes off-site) and quickly solved problems like replacing a burned-out light bulb.

The two-room suite could easily accommodate four people with a queen-sized bed and a queen-sized sofa bed.

There is also a small game room with a pool table and a sauna available to Timber Ridge guests.

Visiting during the summer? Bug repellent is a must as mosquitoes always seem plentiful when we visit Munising at this time of the year. This time around, the bugs didn't seem too interested in us after we applied a little bug spray, so we were able to spend a little time during "happy hours" to enjoy the view from our balcony.

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Revisiting Wagner Falls in Munising, Michigan

Wagner Falls near Munising in Michigan's Upper Peninsula has long been one of my favorite waterfall sites.

Wagner Falls is a pretty cascade easily accessible via a half-mile long boardwalk through the woods from a small parking lot near the intersection of M-94 and M-28 just outside of the town of Munising.

There are a few stairs along the trail, which can make getting out to the closest vantage point an issue for wheelchair users, but the trail is otherwise fairly flat and level.

This is one of the trails we find that we can pretty easily pack in our camera tripods so we can experiment with taking photos at different shutter speeds, thus getting some slow-speed shots of the falls featuring a velvety looking water texture.

I was also able to shoot a bit of video with my point-and-shoot camera so that I could share the roar of the waterfalls with readers here.

Not much has changed at the site since our last visit to Wagner Falls, as you can see from the story I posted here compared with the story and photos I posted of the falls four years ago.

Seeing the same serene site, taking a walk through the cool woods on a warm summer day, and spending a few minutes just watching and listening to the waterfalls is a pleasure that never grows old with me, though.

This is the first in a long series of articles I'll be posting about our recent trip to the eastern U.P. We visited some long-time favorite spots like Wagner Falls and made a lot of new discoveries during this trip as well.

Waterfall hunting in the Upper Peninsula? Check out A Guide to 199 Michigan Waterfalls by Laurie Penrose.

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Broad Museum of Art makes mark in East Lansing, Michigan

We often drive Grand River Avenue through southern Michigan while returning to the Detroit area after visiting friends and family in Grand Rapids on the western side of the state, so we kept track of the construction of a striking new art museum going up on the edge of Michigan State University's brick-and-ivy campus through 2011 and 2012.

Construction photos, August 2012

The silver sliver of a building looked strangely out of place in its traditional campus setting at first glance, but a recent visit to the completed building revealed how a lot of the design decisions worked to integrate the Broad Museum of Art into its community while the institution pursues a willingness to embrace diversity and think outside of the traditional square box.

Completed building, April 2013

The Broad inherited an art collection from MSU's Kresge Art Museum that included 7,500 items from early Greek and Roman periods, pre-Columbian cultures, Medieval and Renaissance periods, and modern and post-1945 contemporary art. This collection makes the Broad unique among contemporary art museums by giving it an in-house resource that allows study of art through multiple eras all in one place.

The university originally wanted to extend the Kresge Art Center, but MSU alumni Eli Broad and his wife Edythe had a much bigger idea that they were willing to back with a major donation.

The couple envisioned a new art museum that would raise the mid-Michigan university's profile in art and culture with a prominently placed museum that offered a very visible way to encourage community engagement.

The Broads contributed more than $25 million over several years to construct a new art museum to house the current collection as well as expand the collection and museum programming.

Michigan State officials got behind the plan by making a place for the museum near the one of its main entrances along busy Grand River Avenue and raising the remainder of the $40 million required for the project.

I thought of architect Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain as I watched the construction of the Broad Museum. It's a comparison many people seem to make because the striking metallic architecture of both buildings with a lack of corners and parallel lines seems to evoke a similar sense of adventure and no-boundary thinking.

We visited the Guggenheim in Spain about a half-dozen years ago, so the comparison isn't lost on me. For me, with both museums, the architecture was the major attraction, while the art inside became secondary in my mind.

I don't believe this was necessarily the intention with either building, but I'm so into architecture and design that my attention naturally goes there.

Another building the Broad brought to mind was architect Daniel Libeskind's The Ascent at Roebling's Bridge in Covington, Kentucky. The pairing of the contemporary Broad with the conventional MSU campus reminded me of Libeskind's sharp-angled modern apartment building juxtaposed with a Civil-War era suspension bridge on the Ohio River near Cincinnati.

Like the Broad, the Ascent stirs a feeling of dissonance with me because of the conflicting styles and sensibilities between the different buildings.  

August 2012

Architect Zaha Hadid won a competition to design the Broad in 2008. Construction commenced in March of 2010, and the building opened to the public on November 10, 2012

Hadid likes to push the boundaries of architecture, imbuing her buildings with a sense of movement and marrying her designs with their urban surroundings. She also became the first woman to design a museum in the United States with her commission to do the Rosenthal Centre for Contemporary Arts in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Broad is only the second permanent architectural project for the London-based Hadid.

Hadid herself admits that the vaguely parallelogram shaped Broad is "a strange object sitting on the edge of campus", but she put a lot of thought into subtle ways to integrate the building into its urban-campus setting.

Main entries to the building lay on both the Grand River side and campus side of the museum, with the main gallery facing East Lansing's Grand River Avenue. A straight-line route between the two entrances follows a former favorite campus footpath as a symbolic means of knitting the city and campus communities together.

The linear simplicity of the entrance hall is also a "palate cleanser" for the more complicated angles and geometric shapes visitors encounter as they move through the rest of the building.

The unusual appearance of the building hints at making new discoveries as visitors explore the art within and consider questions and ideas raised by the exhibitions.

There are some areas in the building where you feel slightly off-kilter, or your perspective feels distorted, as sharp angles, tilting lines and inclined walls are a distinct departure from conventional square-box galleries.

The sharp angles and light moving off of the metallic exterior also give the building a sense of movement that adds to its dynamic appearance.

More than 70 percent of the 46,000-square-foot building contains exhibition space where tinted glass and louvered windows let a lot of natural light into the galleries

The building also houses an education wing, a works on paper study center, space to host lectures and special activities for families or school groups, a small gift shop and cafe. An outdoor sculpture garden and pedestrian plaza (where we saw an art history class meeting during our visit) help further draw in and engage the community.

The uniquely shaped galleries and lack of permanent exhibits present a continuing challenge to curators as they mount an ever-changing schedule of exhibits insuring that every visit to the Broad presents something new to even regular visitors.

Visitors who want to view some of the museum's vintage collection can check out what is on display at the storage area in the basement, which is open to public view via a large glass window.

Another fun feature is the huge elevator that serves as both a freight elevator and a way for visitors to move from floor to floor.

The Broad Museum of Art drew plenty of attention at its opening from the national and European press, and nearly 73,000 visitors came through the doors during its first six months.

Limits on photographing contemporary art in the museum (like many museums), makes illustrating how the artwork looks in the building tough, but it was all about the building for me anyway.

The Broad Museum of Art is open every day except for Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free, except for some special events.

Thanks to the Greater Lansing Michigan Convention and Visitors Bureau for sponsoring my visit to Lansing, providing lodging, meals and a tour of Lansing area attractions for my review during my recent visit there, with no further compensation. I was free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are mine.

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Where I live: 2013 Concert of Colors recap-Sunday at The Max

Our 2013 Concert of Colors experience drew to a close on Sunday evening (July 7) with one of my favorite events of the year, the Don Was Detroit All-Star Revue, but first, the day dawned with still more music from around the world.

We again made our first stop at the festival's outdoor venue, the Wolverine/Spartan Stage in the small park next to The Max (a.k.a. the Max M. Fisher Music Center) where Tailor ("spelled like the haberdasher" the announcer assured us) Hawkins set up his equipment to do an old-school house and techno music show with vinyl records.

The festival's youngest guests enjoyed a real treat as the Candy Band uncorked their happy and punk-tinged show of nursery rhymed and kid-friendly fare. Even though we don't have young children, we've seen this mom-band-with-a-twist group a few times around town and loved seeing the elementary school set singing along with the show and busting a move on the dance floor. We unfortunately missed seeing our favorite Candy Band song about monkeys at the zoo this time around, though.

The Concert of Colors established their home at the home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at the Max a few years ago when they lost their previous venue at Chene Park on the Detroit River, and part of the deal was to let the DSO be part of the festival's world music menu. This year, the DSO backed Ozomatli, lending a classical flavor to the band's Latin-hip-hop-rock show.

It was difficult to see the orchestra behind the band from our original main-floor vantage point near the stage, but it was especially fun and interesting to view the interplay of the venerable orchestra and Ozomatli from the venue's mezzanine section (the location of the dress circle seats during regular symphony shows.).

We managed to catch part of the zydeco set by Jeffery Broussard and The Creole Cowboys at the diversity stage next where the white-hat wearing good guys ripped through an energetic set of tunes featuring classic zydeco instruments like accordions and washboards.

Next, it was back to the Main Stage to check out a bit of the Universal Xpression show featuring a joyful performance by reggae legend Calypso Rose.

The Main Stage was set for the Detroit All-Star Revue featuring an aural tour of some of the best new and classic voices in the Motor City music scene.

I'd heard a lot about Detroit's Mosaic Youth Theater Singers, but I'd never seen these talented performers before, so it was a real treat to see them kick off the revue with a big song-and-dance number.

Drew Schultz and Detroit Legends was another act that spoke to encouraging young musical talent by spotlighting a new release called "Back to Class", a project that young percussionist Schultz conceived to honor classic Detroit talent and nurture up-and-coming Detroit talent. Schultz learned a lot about music and life by performing with some of the great Detroit soul talent as a very young man. He realized many of Detroit's music legends came through the Detroit Public Schools, and his debut record features many of them performing songs written, arranged and produced by Schultz as a benefit for the music programs in the Detroit Public Schools.  Several of Shultz' special guests appeared with him on stage.

Spyder Turner with Drew Schultz

Other local favorites filling the Revue bill included the Howling Diablos, the classically bluesy Rev. Robert and Sister Bernice Jones, The Hounds Below, the HandGrenades, rap duo Passalacqua, Horse Cave Trio, Jeecy and the Jungle, guitar virtuosos Emanuel Young and Howard Glazer, Katie Grace, the soulful stylings of Pat Lewis and the powerful voice of Ty Stone.

Passalacqua

Pat Lewis

Ty Stone

Wayne Kramer of Detroit's legendary MC5 performed a rip-your-head-off version of his classic (and unexpurgated) "Kick Out the Jams" to close the show, leaving everyone defiantly optimistic about the Detroit music scene and appreciative of its wonderful rich history.

Concert of Colors founder Ismael Ahmed took the stage one last time to remind the audience about the festival's main message: We're all brothers and sisters unified by the music and that we should all take care of each other, which was the perfect note on which to conclude the concert experience for us.

Want to check out some of the music we heard for yourself? Here are some Amazon links for music from the Candy Band, Ozomatli, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Jeffery Broussard and The Creole Cowboys, Calypso Rose, Drew Schultz, Spyder Turner, The Hounds Below, Horse Cave Trio, the Howling Diablos, Jeecy and the Jungle, Emanuel Young, Howard Glazer, Katie Grace, Pat Lewis, Ty Stone and Wayne Kramer. I found that you can even get your own Fender Wayne Kramer Signature electric guitar with the Stars-and-Stripes design on it at Amazon!

Be sure to check out Tim's post from yesterday about Ozomatli's performance with the DSO at the Concert of Colors

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Where I live: 2013 Concert of Colors recap-Saturday at The Max

We kicked off our 2013 Concert of Colors experience with some great performances at the Detroit Institute of Arts on Friday and followed the festival action as it moved to the home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (Orchestra Hall, or more simply, The Max) on Saturday.

We make it a point to see as many shows as we can each day and here are some highlights of Saturday's Concert of Colors bill.

Our first stop on Saturday was at the outdoor stage as the Detroit School of Arts Vision Male Ensemble finished their set and Kate Monaghan took to the stage with a set of blues-influenced music. The great thing about this stage was the eclectic bill of music fare served up during the weekend, but the weather wasn't as cooperative as both Saturday and Sunday wore on, raining out some of the later acts each day.

Next we checked out the festival's Main Stage where Malian artist Fatoumata Diawara performed a set of wassoulou, a West African musical style that blends traditional and modern influences into a genre believed by many music scholars to be one of the origins of American blues. Wassoulou usually features a strong female performance and an expressive style like Diawara's, who gave life to the music its history.

 The other inside performance space, the Diversity Stage, hosted a performance by Celtic artist Cathie Ryan Saturday afternoon. Ryan, who grew up in the Detroit area, reminisced about her first exposure to Celtic music at the city's Gaelic League as her family and friends joined the crowd to hear her set. Celtic fans may best remember Ryan as a member of Cherish the Ladies, an all-female Irish-American musical group. Ryan emerged as a solo artist in the mid-1990s and now tours with a band that includes musicians like Patsy O'Brien and Matt Mancuso who accompanied her at the Concert of Colors.

We went back to the Main Stage to check out Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, a group who reportedly wowed audiences earlier this year during a Global Fridays performance at the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The seven-member band and a dancer honor and re-invent the traditions of Southern Italy's Pizzica folk music and dance with their performances, and I especially loved seeing the wide variety of traditional instruments they played during this show.

Funk fans showed up in force for the night's headliner on the Main Stage, The Family Stone.  The band's current line-up includes three original members of the original Sly and the Family Stone band and performed a blistering set that featured many of the original band's best-loved and most well known songs from their 1960s and 1970s heyday as the crowd roared and sang along with every word.

We capped the evening by returning to the Diversity Stage by checking out the funk-flavored calypso of Kobo Town, a band headed by Trinidad-born and Toronto-based musician Drew Gonsalves. Kobo Town takes its name from an historic neighborhood in Port-of-Spain known as the birthplace of calypso music.

It was a great day of music for us, and best of all, we still had another day to anticipate and enjoy! Check back for my next Concert of Colors recap, which will cover the festival's final day of performances.

Want to check out some of the music we heard for yourself? Here are some Amazon links for music from Kate Monaghan, Fatoumata Diawara, Cathie Ryan, Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino, The Family Stone and Kobo Town.

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Where I live: 2013 Concert of Colors recap-Friday at the Detroit Institute of Arts

I'm still sorting through my photos and impressions of this year's Concert of Colors in Detroit's Midtown area, but as always, the organizers of this great diversity and world music festival seem to outdo themselves each and every year.

We managed to attend many of the performances over three days of the multi-day event this year, one day at the Detroit Institute of the Arts and two days at home of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Hall (or more simply called The Max).

Just as there was too much great music to compress into a one-day event, there is far too much to write about and too many photos to share, in just one post!

So, I'll give you a little taste of each of the three days we attended in three different posts.

Food trucks also served up a taste of Detroit at the DIA during the Concert of Colors

Today, I'll focus on Friday's events (July 5) at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

We loved the opportunity to check out the DIA's new "Cultural Living Room" in the museum's Kresge Court and the newly re-imagined concert and event space on the museum's South Lawn.

I've always loved the DIA's Kresge Court as a place to stop for an ice tea, coffee or light snack during a museum visit, but the newly redesigned space is even more inviting and functional for relaxing, small informal meetings or working.

Comfortable living room-type furniture and select museum publications scattered around the coffeehouse-style space encourage visitors to linger in the space, and a menu of tapas, sandwiches, desserts and shareable snacks makes it a nice choice for a quick meal,

There are also a couple of tall library tables installed with iPads and furniture outlets to allow visitors to use their own electronic devices as they access the museum's Wi-Fi network.

The Concert of Colors also marked the debut of the DIA's South Lawn space as a seasonal event and activity space.

Concert of Colors performances by the October Babies and Feufollet proved to be a great way to launch the space as an occasional concert venue with lawn seating for visitors.

We've attended musical performances at the DIA in the past and think the South Lawn space is a definite improvement over hosting concerts in the museum's Rivera Court, which can be cramped with a large crowd and where the acoustics can make it difficult to hear clearly (I still remember attending a Friday night concert at the DIA by the White Stripes just as they hit it big where the acoustics rendered the performance a aurally muddy mess). It's also nice to be outside for a concert, and the museum's movie theater is still an option if it's rainy.

October Babies offered an energetic set of multi-cultural influenced rock and jazz. The band started as a collaboration between Toko Shiiki-Santos and Erik Santos after they met in Japan in 2002 where Erik worked as a composer. Toko moved to the United States in 2005 to study photography in Ann Arbor, and the couple now has a band that includes drummer Ben Lorenz and guitarist/vocalist Dale King.

The high-energy music continued with a set from the Cajun band Feufollet. The six-member band's name is French for will-o'-the-wisp, a term describing a illusive or ghostly light that often lures night-time travelers from safe paths.

The group's music ranged from traditional Acadian tunes, to original compositions informed by traditional Cajun music and indie rock sensibilities, to fun numbers like an unexpected cover of the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains".

We were disappointed that we, yet again, missed a showing of "Louder than Love", a documentary about Detroit's Grande Ballroom at the Detroit Film Theater because it was, yet again, sold out. Here's hoping we'll eventually see it on the big screen (and with big speakers) before we're reduced to having to wait until it gets released as a DVD to see it.

Interested in music from these bands? Check out Keep Vibrating by October Babies and En Couleurs by Feufollet.

Here's Tim's take, with photos, on the Concert of Colors sessions at the DIA.

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

Photo Friday: Two views of Sauder Village, Ohio

Tim and I often take photos of the same locations as we usually travel together, but we both have different approaches to making images.

I usually approach photography as a means to tell or illustrate a particular story. I'm often composing a story in my head as I take photos, and my collection of photos always includes images of signs that I take as a means of note-taking or organizing my photos.

Tim doesn't really share my affection for taking pictures of signs, and I think he is more likely to take photos simply because a scene catches his eye or he wants to experiment a bit with his equipment or try a new technique.

We both have a nice collection of photos from our recent visit to Sauder Village, a living history site in northwest Ohio, and I thought it might be fun to see how similar, or dissimilar, some of our views of the visit turned out.

My take on the scene is the first one of each pair, Tim's take on it is the second photo of each pair.

You can check out more of Tim's photos at his Web Page and Smug Mug site.

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

Thanks to Sauder Village for providing village admission, lodging and meals during our recent visit for review, with no further compensation. I was free to express my own opinions about the stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are mine.

© Dominique King and © Tim Marks 2013 All rights reserved

Midwest travel links for June 2013

Check out some great Midwest-related stories I found online this past month:

Check out the Crisp Point Lighthouse-Jesse visits one of Michigan's most remote lighthouses in the state's Upper Peninsula. This one is still on my bucket list of Great Lakes lights I need to see, but I'm glad to get a glimpse of it at Jesse's Things to do the in U.P. blog.

A Walk Around the Mission Point Lighthouse-We've visited this lighthouse at the tip of the Old Mission Peninsula, and at the 45th parallel, many times. It's a special favorite of mine because of the balanced rock sculptures that always seem to dot the Lake Michigan shore there, so it was fun to take another virtual visit there with Mike at the Loving Traverse City blog.   

Bicycling in western Michigan-Michigan has more than 2,600 miles of rail trails, more than any other state. That makes it easy to tour the western side of the state via bicycle along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Check out the routes running from Traverse City to South Haven at the Midwest Weekends blog.

Family vacation fun with city bike tours-Jamie and her family check out Chicago via bicycle at the Travel Savvy Mom blog. Sounds like a great way to cover a lot of ground in one afternoon to see some of the city's most iconic sites.

25 Great Ohio Hiking Spots-If you want to explore Ohio by foot, Mike has 25 suggestions for walking and hiking routes in the Buckeye state at his OHventures blog. We've walked a bit of the trails in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and in Hocking Hills State Park, but there are plenty more great trails on this annotated list that details attractions, accessibility and other information about each trail.

Cuyahoga Valley National Park

Wayne County Adventures in Geocachng-Geocaching is another great way to get outside and explore.  We like picking geocaches to search out with the idea of learning a bit of history about a destination or enjoying a walk through nature. Join Angel at the Indiana Insider blog as she explores history in the Richmond, Indiana area, starting with a cache at the Welcome Center for America's first interstate highway.

Visiting the Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio-I wondered about a suggestion that I should visit this cemetery when I visited Cleveland several years ago, but I found the history, architecture, art and landscaping there pretty fascinating. When Tonya asked me to suggest a "historic home" to visit in Cleveland, I passed the idea on to her, and it looks like she and her family found it every bit as fascinating as we did! Check out her take on it at the Traveling Mom blog.

Finding President Garfield and Rockefeller graves at Cleveland's Lake View Cemetery-It looks like Tonya and I are not the only ones who found Lake View fascinating. Check out the story of Scott's visit there at the Quirky Travel Guy blog.

Take a 60-minute walk around the State at the Ohio Governor's Residence and Heritage Garden-Betsy helps readers cover a lot of ground with a 60-minute walk at the Governor's residence in Columbus, Ohio. Check the beesfirstappearance blog and let her show you plants from around the state at the mansion's Heritage Garden.

Happy flag day: Here's the history, briefly, of Detroit's flag-I've featured stories about Chicago's city flag and the city flag for Cincinnati in these monthly Midwest link collections, so I was especially pleased to see Amy's story about Detroit's city flag at The Night Train. Although Amy characterizes Detroit's seal, which centers the flag as the "saddest city seal ever", it still tells a fascinating story.

The "Fort" of Fort Wayne-Like many Detroit-area residents, I'm familiar with Fort Wayne...in Detroit. I enjoyed Michelle's story about the replica fort in Fort Wayne, Indiana at the Fort Wayne Insider blog. I wasn't familiar with this particular Fort Wayne, so now I have something else to add to my itinerary the next time I visit that northern Indiana city.

That's it for this month's Midwest travel links list. Do you have any favorite Midwest stories or blogs to share?

Want more Midwest news and links? Subscribe to my bi-monthly Midwest Guest newsletter!

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved