Alsguth Travel Blog

 So, after Frankenmuth we headed to Detroit.  It rained, Texas-style, on the way in...  tough driving!  We made it to The Henry Ford.  This is a museum with items collected by Henry Ford.  We had heard that it was great - WOW! It was awesome! A small sampling: An advert for car-pooling I thought was funny! This is the bus that Rosa Parks was on when she refused to give up her seat in Montgomery, AL on December 1, 1955. A small sample of vintage cars on display.  There were cars from the 1900s all the way to current and future ... Our home planet - LOL The highlight of the day was a tour of the Ford Rouge Factory!  We could not take pictures inside, if we had you would have seen a giddy  Carsten watching the assembly of the trucks!  This factory was originally completed in 1928 and was the largest integrated factory in the world.  Not only were the cars assembled there, they also manufactured the components from raw materials (Iron O...

Hi! We are still in Michigan!  We spent three days in Traverse City and surrounding area!  It is a lovely city!  We had a great time!  The weather was perfect too! The first day we were there we did a short trip up Old Mission Peninsula to a vineyard/winery: Chateau Grand Traverse.  We had a nice wine tasting and ended up buying a few bottles.  It was a lovely location! On Tuesday we went to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.  This was unlike anything we had ever seen before.   I hope you can see in this picture how tall this dune is, those little things on bottom right are the cars at in the parking lot at the bottom of the "Dune Hike".  To the left is Lake Michigan and to the right is Glen Lake. We managed to miss the storm in the distance, the clouds were incredible! Melting continental ice left this ridge of sand and gravel.  Steady winds off Lake Michigan have plucked at the grains of sand, propelling them inland, depositi...

 Hello from Traverse City, MI! We just realized that outside of Europe, by the time we are done here, we will have spent more consecutive days in Michigan than any other state!  Wow! That is crazy... who would have ever thought?! We spent a nice weekend on Mackinac Island.  This island is a resort destination and feels a bit like a shore excursion from a cruise ship ... if you spend time on Main Street.  We tried not too. On Friday we arrived via the Star Line Ferry.  It is about a 20 minute ride from Mackinaw City.  We packed light, with only a backpack each and made our way to our hotel to drop off our bags.  We stayed at the Island House Hotel, built in 1852 (pre-dating the Grand Hotel). Island House Hotel: We had a cute room on the fourth floor (take the stairs from the third floor - no elevator to 4).   It was nice with a decent view! This is main street - I have no idea how we got a picture when it was not crowded with people - it was n...

Ok - here we go again - there is so much to see in the U.P.!!! On Wednesday we visited the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum at Whitefish Point and hiked the falls at Tahquamenon Falls State Park.  It was a busy day! This is the grounds of the shipwreck museum.  There were over 500 shipwrecks in the Great Lakes, over 60% of them occurred at or near Whitefish Point.  There were many heroic men from the local Coast Guard Station who battled extreme weather to rescue crew members from disabled or sinking ships.   These were large ships - this is a rudder from a "great lakes" ship... (Carsten for scale): Tahquamenon Falls State Park was quite lovely - there were two sets of falls, upper and lower.  We saw both.  The park is very user friendly with boardwalks to the main sights.  Very nice! Glad for our 4-wheel drive car, we then took a tour off the beaten path to see Clark Lake.  This "road" was not as accessible but we had fun getting there!  Th...