Mike Breiding's Epic Road Trips June ~2015~

Michigan Meander

 

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10-11 June 2015
Michigan Meander: Exploring Michigans Thumb in the Lower Peninsula

If you find yourself in Flint Michigan looking for a hotel DON'T check into the Motel 6 at 2324 Austins Pkwy. This place is a dump. Our "non smoking" room reeked of cigarette smoke and the 19" glass tube TV had a nicotine glaze over it. And, as an added bonus, the AC unit sounded like a freight train.
We thought it curious you not only needed a parking permit but a wrist band pool pass as well. And then there was the woman who was going around recording licence plate numbers at certain rooms.
Could this place be one of the drug stops one hears about on the news? We were glad to leave that place!

When we left Flint we started out on interstate 69 and headed east towards the base of the Thumb. At exit 155 we picked up ST 53 to the town of Lapeer. When we turned around from construction and decided to check the map I decided to get out and take some snaps while Betsy figured out our next move.

Click on the photos below for a larger image.

Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

Being a good Catholic boy, I like taking pictures of old beauties like this one. It looked like it had recently been touched up.

Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

Lapeer’s first church was the Congregational Church organized in 1833; the same year Lapeer was platted. The Methodist Episcopal Church opened its doors a year later in 1834 followed by the Baptist Church in 1858, the Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in 1866, the Universalist Church in 1873, the Methodist Protestant Church in 1877, and the Grace Episcopal Church in 1882.

An interesting tidbit: The 7,000 pound Carrera marble altar at Immaculate Conception Church, appeared in the 1986 movie “Wise Guys.” The parish purchased the Carrera marble altar from St. Lucy Church in Jersey City, N.J. St. Lucy was built in 1895 but closed in 1989.

Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

The Marguerite deAngeli Branch library sits across from the church.

"Founded in 1859, the Lapeer Ladies Library Association gathered the community's first collection of books for lending. The popularity of the collection led the Carnegie Foundation to offer $10,000 to build a public Library in 1916. In part through the efforts of Congressman Louis Cramton, a larger Carnegie grant was secured in 1921. The citizens of Lapeer provided the remainder of the funds needed to construct this Georgian Revival building. Designed by the prominent Detroit firm of Smith, Hinchman, and Grylls, the library opened in 1923."

Source: Lapeer Library District

We now continued on SR 21 east to Capoc, north on Capoc Road to Yale Road and then east to the beautiful shores of Lake Huron.

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Our first stop was Lakeport State Park. We stopped at the HQ and purchased a parks pass. This would allow us to come and go at any state park we wanted to visit.

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This is what any beach lover hopes for - sunshine and blue skies. But it was a bit cool and breezy still so Betsy opted to wait until later in the day for a dip.

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Roots! Here you can clearly see the effect of beach erosion. Woody plants and beach grasses do much to help halt erosion and rebuild beaches.

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After a short stroll we started our drive up the coast on SR 25 which follows the west shore and goes all the way to the tippy top of the thumb and then south and west to Bay City on Saginaw Bay.

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Just a few miles south of Port Sanilac we pulled over at one of Michigan's many nice road side rests. As you can see here it is not just Lake Superior which sent ships to the bottom. "The wind in the wires..."

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"The Great Lakes - no salt, no sharks."

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Warm and sunny now, Betsy samples the clear and cool waters of Lake Huron.

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Lake Huron has the longest shoreline of the Great Lakes. It is the second largest by surface area and the third largest by volume of water. The lake's surface area is 23,000 square miles (59,600 square kilometers) and its volume is 850 cubic miles (3,540 cubic km). The shoreline is 3,827 miles (6,157 km), taking into account its many islands.

Of the lake’s 30,000 islands, Manitoulin Island, which sits in the Georgian Bay, is the most prominent island is the world's largest freshwater island.

Source: ScienceLive.com

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"Nothing like a pre-noon beer".

For about an hour or so we relaxed and enjoyed the view with our beers and snacks and then headed north towards Harbor Beach and the Train Station Motel which Betsy had booked previously.

It was about this time we started seeing many dead Ash trees - victims of the emerald ash borer. This pest is not native and the trees have no defense against it.
I don't how many thousands of dead ash trees we saw. Many were youngsters, but we saw many old residential shade trees which were dead as well. Some houses had lost every yard tree.

When we got to the hotel we both looked at each other questionly. It was pretty run down and looked abandoned. The office was locked and no one anwered our knocks on the door. We walked around back to checkout the beach and instead found a marshy area. Very pretty, but there would be no swimming here.
Numerous giant dead ash in the mowed area behind the hotel added to the look of neglect. Depressing.
There was still no sign of anyone so Betsy called the owner who said she would send her daughter down.

By this time we were having doubts about staying here. It was still the middle of the afternoon and with no beach, WiFi or TV we both thought we might get "antsy" staying here. We did look at a room but eventually decided against staying there.
The owner's daughter was gracious enough to give us some ideas of other places to stay to the north in Port Austin. So we headed on up the road.

About an hour later we were at the tip of the Thumb in Port Austin and looking for the lake front place we had been told about. We saw nothing on the beach as we drove in but eventually saw a place right on the water. But when we saw the sign below we had out doubts about whether it would be open or not.

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Fortunately the The Beachcomber Motel & Apartments was still open for business. But not for long. We talked to the owner and she was vacating the next day when the new owners showed up. She showed us a room and when we did not immediately say yes she offered us an apartment with two bedrooms and full kitchen for the same rate - 50 bucks. We said yes.

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Our 50 dollar beach front resort.

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The beach view from the motel. Not too shabby.

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There was direct beach access from The Beachcomber and it was adjacent to a public beach as well.
We whiled away the afternoon in the sun. I did not get in but Betsy took occasional dips. It was quite windy and the water was stirred up a bit and on the rough side.

The only other people we saw in the whole place were two guys in their 20s. Later a girl friend showed up and she and one of the guys walked down to the beach and had a romantic moment. They then retreated to their room.
At one point we saw lover boy on the beach and we started chatting. He asked how long we had been together and when we told him I am sure it seemed like an eternity to him.
He then asked: "Do you mind if I ask your wife a question?" He did. Turns out his girl friend had sent him on a mission to find out what it was that had kept us together all these years. Being a guy, I told him my version. Betsy more or less said it was because we enjoyed the same things like being outdoors and enjoying nature.
He said bye-bye and went back to his room to report his findings to his girl friend.
Betsy and I thought it was hilarious that a 20 something stranger was asking the old married couple for advice.

Later on we took a nice stroll through the side streets and explored the main business area. Everything was very quiet as the season does not really get started until July. Most places were closed or on reduced hours. This is one of the reasons we like coming up here pre-season, it is quiet and does not feel busy.

That night's dinner was a nice salad and then tortellini with a spicy pomodoro sauce. We had our dinner al fresco, enjoying the sunny view and white caps as we ate.
After dinner we took a walk along the breakwater. You can see it below.

Port Austing and the Beachcomber Motel

Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

Around 9:00 the setting sun and clouds were making some colors. I snapped an few and then we both went nighty-night.

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The next morning we enjoyed our coffee along with a calm and quiet sunrise. The only sounds we had heard the night before were the lapping of the waves on the beach. A nice lullaby to be sure.

Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

There were several families of geese who joined us on the beach while we sipped our coffee.

It was not long before we said farewell to the beach and continued on our drive around the Thumb. We had reached the tip and now would be heading southwest toward Bay City.

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About a half hour west of Port Austin is Albert E Sleeper State Park. The north side day use area is on the beach and the camping and walking trails are on the south side of SR 25. We parked on the north side and took the pedestrian bridge across the roadway. Although very quiet now, I imagine on the 4th of July there must be a lot of people walking back and forth on this bridge from their campsite to the beach and then back again. What foresight to build this walking bridge. Michigan State Parks are really first class.

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We knew the skeeters would be out so we suited up for them and got ready for our hike.

Although the skeeters are everywhere up here, this are was particularly amenable to them and here is why.

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This is area has the greatest concentration of fresh water sand dunes in the world. The series of ridges and low spots are like a giant washboard. And all the low spots are vernal ponds - perfect for frogs, salamanders, fairy shrimp and of course skeeters.

Winds, blowing shoreward at speeds of 8 to 25 miles per hour, begin to move the sand grains. The size of grains which are moving is directly related to wind velocity larger grains require higher wind speeds. These bouncing sand grains resemble tiny, skipping ping pong balls as they are moved by the wind through a process called saltation. Colliding with each other, barely a foot or two off the ground, they may meet a slight obstruction, such as a clump of grass, which deflects the wind and allows sand grains to drop. Thus a slight mound or hummock is created.

The wind continues to push sand grains up the windward side of the dune crest, causing the dune to grow in the downwind direction. Many sand grains continue moving and eventually roll down the steep backslope. A dune is slowly being formed, and its continued growth depends upon perennial vegetation, wind, and sand. Because dune plants act as barriers to sand movement and hold migrating sand, they play a critical role in the formation and stabilization of dunes.

Source: Copyright 2015 State of Michigan

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Here is a look at one of the vernal ponds. The entire woods was like this. A very unique thing for us to see and enjoy.

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Betsy and I have seen Cotton wood "cotton" many time and in many places. But neither of us had ever seen it still attached to the seed producing structure. Usually it is just cotton covering the ground or drifting in the wind one will see. I suspect the high winds of the previous day had knocked these down and they covered the trail.

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Two very common and abundant ferns: On the left we have Bracken fern and to the right, Sensitive fern.

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We love the paper bark birch and are always glad to be back here in its home territory. As we walked, we were serenaded by many birds including the veery. What a treat! Neither of us could remember when we had last heard that musical bird.

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We saw many large stands of the Royal Fern. Some of the clumps down in the pools were 4' in height. The brown tips are the spore bearing structures.

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Photo by Mike Breiding - Click for larger image

This is the newly emerging stem of the water horsetail. It is rare in our home state of West Virginia but wide spread in most parts of Michigan.

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We saw several "red" trees here: red oak, red maple and the one pictured above, red pine. I first became acquainted with red pine 1978. That story is here.

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This Wood fern has found a nice place to grow and prosper. Not much competition if you can get off the ground.

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On the last leg of our hike we spotted this turtle on the side of the trail. Note the wounds. It looked like it have been run over. Can you tell me what kind of turtle this is?
UPDATE ==> KS Bill and FL Bruce concur: it is a Blanding's turtle.

That wrapped up our nice walk in the dune woodland. Now it is on to Bay City and Alpena.

Betsy's Bird List

  1. Cowbird
  2. Great blue heron
  3. Red eyed vireo
  4. Chipping sparrow
  5. Redstart
  6. Robin
  7. Goldfinch
  8. Blue jay
  9. Oriole
  10. Blackcapped chickadee
  11. Pee wee
  12. Black throated green warbler
  13. Great crested flycatcher
  14. Acadian flycatcher
  15. Catbird
  16. Veery
  17. Commonm yellowthroat
  18. Cardinal
  19. Ringbilled gull
  20. Woodthrush
  21. Grackle
  22. Redwinged blackbird
  23. Cormorant
  24. Canada goose
  25. Chimney swift

 

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