Midwest travel links for October 2014

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

Wisconsin Cranberry Harvest-Cranberry sauce is one of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving holiday, so I loved Julie's first-person account of harvesting these tasty little gems in Wisconsin's Cranberry County. Call me weird, but I'm definitely jealous of seeing Julie wearing waders and standing hip-deep in a cranberry bed! Check it out at the Wisconsin Parent blog.

West Side Market-This is one of my favorite year-round farmers markets, and we've wanted to get back to Cleveland to visit this market again, Seeing Mike's post about the market really got me in the mood for some holiday shopping, although I'm with him on knowing that if I spent too much time there, I'd spend a TON of money on some really great local food! Check out his story on the OHventures blog.

West Side Market

Uncovering Secrets at the Clinton County Courthouse-I am definitely a sucker for late-nineteenth-century county courthouses. The architecture and decorative details in Ohio's Clinton County Courthouse are stunning, and like many courthouses of this vintage, there is plenty of great history to go with the building. Read Tonya's story about it at The Traveling Praters blog.

Visiting Marblehead Lighthouse State Park-As much as I love great courthouse buildings, I'm probably even more fascinated with lighthouses. I've written about plenty of Great Lakes lighthouses here at Midwest Guest, and Ohio's Marblehead lighthouse has to be among my favorites. We've been out to Marblehead to take photos in the summer and winter, but we've yet to make it at the height of the autumn color season. Check out Tonya's story about the lighthouse and nearby the keepers house (which is also on my bucket list of places to go), also on the Traveling Praters blog.

Marblehead Lighthouse

A Yen for Yurts-I've never been much of a camper, but I could totally get behind the idea of staying in a yurt. This has long been on my bucket list since seeing one in northern Minnesota a number of years ago. This article at the Midwest Weekends blog reminded me of why the idea of a yurt stay originally fascinated me, and it includes a list of places to find yurts in places like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and (be still my beating heart!) Michigan.

Can the Hotel Itself Be the Destination?-I'm always on the lookout for unusual and unique places to stay, and I remember hearing about the Hotel Pattee in Perry, Iowa a couple of years ago when several blogging friends stayed there during a conference. Sheila apparently saw the same messages about this hotel during the conference and recently found an opportunity to stay there herself. Check out her story at the Perceptive Travel blog.

Michigan-Henry Ford Museum-We love close enough to this museum and have memberships to The Henry Ford, so we visit fairly frequently throughout the year and sometimes just sneak over for an hour or so for a walk or to take some photos. Terri and her family sagely stuck with just doing the museum during their one-day visit, but hopefully they'll be able to return and spend the day at the Greenfield Village as well. Check out the story of her visit to the museum at the Travel 50 State with Kids blog.

Inside Lamy's Diner at The Henry Ford

Northern Indiana's Tombstone Trail tells tales of the departed-We've long included cemeteries in our travel plans because we like the historic tales we can often learn about a location by visiting the local graveyard. Additionally, these locations are among the best geocaching locations and provide some of the best opportunities for taking great photos we've found in our travels as well. Check out Maggie's story about a self-guided "Tombstone Trail" in northern Indiana's DeKalb and Noble counties at Indiana Landmark's Hidden Gems blog.

Tour a Former Asylum at the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, Traverse City-I remember seeing this complex back in its deserted and derelict days and the excitement I felt when hearing about its proposed transformation into a mixed use development of residential, commercial and recreational spaces. I really wanted to take this tour when we last visited Traverse in northwestern Michigan earlier this fall, but the tour didn't run the days we were there. The place has an interesting history as an asylum, but I love seeing various parts of the complex reborn into more cheerful uses. Read about Connie's tour of some of the buildings still awaiting redevelopment at her Midwest Wanderer blog. Meanwhile, if you do get up to the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, be sure to check out the gravesite of a champion milk cow on the grounds that I wrote about here-Honoring Traverse Colantha Walker.  

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

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Comments

[Julie Henning]

Thanks for including me (Wisconsin Parent) in another Travel Links post. I had fun clicking through all the stories!

[Dominique King]

Thanks for stopping by, Julie. I always have a lot of fun doing these link love posts...and I AM jealous of you and your waders in a sea of cranberries!

[wandering educators]

Oh, I love your monthly roundups - always some great reads! thank you!