Katja and Vicki, happy to be together
in Birch Creek
Dear
George,
We
are just back from our family reunion trip to Menominee. It was a great success. Here are some photos that tell the
story.
Zimmerman's Deli, Ann Arbor
We
left Cincinnati on Tuesday, July 31, and drove to the U.P. by way of the
Mackinac Bridge. We stopped in our
old home town of Ann Arbor on the way, picking up a takeout lunch at
Zimmerman's Deli (which a Vogue food editor has recently called the best food
store in the U.S.). Ann Arbor was
bustling, though most of our favorite places from the 1960's were long gone,
e.g., the Pretzel Bell, Artisans, John Leidy's, Follette’s Bookstore, Faber's
Fabrics.
Katja at Sea Shell City
We
are impressively slow travelers because we like to stop everywhere along the
way. My favorite destination this
time was Sea Shell City which has to be the kitschiest tourist destination in
the Midwest, if not the world.
Crossing the Mackinac Bridge
It's
exciting to cross the Mackinac Bridge.
It didn't even exist when I was a kid, but now offers a physical
connection between Michigan’s Upper and Lower peninsulas (though they remain
separate worlds).
Murdick's Fudge, St. Ignace
Katja
wanted to travel via the bridge so she could get some fudge, and she did so at
Murdick's. Then we enjoyed a
whitefish lunch at St. Ignace’s Gallery Restaurant, a virtually perfect welcome
to the U.P.
Lake Michigan along US 2, west of St.
Ignace
Menominee
is at the southern tip of the U.P,, about 200 miles southwest of St.
Ignace. The trip along the Lake
Michigan coastline, with sandy beaches on one side and evergreen forests on the
other, is gorgeous.
Delta Ave., downtown Gladstone, Mich.
The U.P. is mostly
rural. There are no cities with a
population as large as 20,000, and only 38% of the people live in towns of
2,000 or more. We stopped in
Manistique, Gladstone, Escanaba, and Cedar River on our trip. This is downtown Gladstone where we
patronized the Dairy-Flo.
Our very excellent motel
When we arrived in Menominee
on Wednesday evening we checked into a motel on the shore of Green Bay where we
were to spend the week. We were as
excited as little children, probably because we’ve spent an entire week in a
motel only once or twice in our lives.
Family photo at
our Farm in Birch Creek
This was our first family
gathering in Menominee in four years.
My sister Vicki, Katja, and I were the grandparents in the group. Vicki’s, Steve’s, and our adult kids
were there, as were their children.
The back row from the left includes: Rhys, Greg, Valerie, Vicki, Katja,
Dave, our daughter-in-law K, Jennifer, Wynn, Michael, Abra, and (in the back)
my cousin Annie. The front row:
our granddaughter V, Tim, Gillian, J, Vincent, Bridget, Oscar, and our grandson
L. My cousin John B. took the
picture. It was a congenial and
fun group.
Menominee River
dam and paper mill
I’d get up early each morning
and go out and take photos of Menominee and Marinette before breakfast. Having spent my first eighteen years
there, it was an exercise filled with nostalgia. The Menominee River and Green Bay offered the most
photogenic opportunities.
Lions at the De
Young Family Zoo, Wallace, Mich.
On Thursday morning we went
to the De Young Family Zoo, about five miles north of Birch Creek in
Wallace. It’s an astonishing
place. Hidden away in Menominee
County and established by a zoologist who left a major zoo in Chicago to build
his own haven for wild animals, it has a larger collection of big cats than
most world-class zoos. We watched
the owner feed slabs of raw beef to the tigers and lions and wound up inspired
by the possibilities of human determination.
Culver’s frozen
custard world
We scrapped our diets for the
week and enjoyed the fattiest and most caloric cuisine that we could find. Our best new discovery was Culver’s, a
Wisconsin chain that specializes in butterburgers and frozen custard. The butterburgers were excellent, but
the frozen custard was other-worldly – soft, rich, creamy, and delectable. Some days Katja only had a frozen custard sundae for
lunch, while I combined them with a butterburger.
Henes Park
Beach
Our family property is just a
few miles from Henes Park which offers the best swimming beach in the twin
cities. You can walk out in the
warm Green Bay water for a couple hundred yards before getting up to your
waist, and it was a daily hit for the kiddies (and the oldies too).
Vicki with the
cousins
This was the first time for
the cousins to visit Farm. Here’s
Vicki with most of the bunch (from the left: Bridget, V, Gillian, Oscar, and
L). Our own kids had all grown up visiting Farm
together from since infancy in the 60’s and 70’s. Oscar asked his mom, ‘When I grow up, will I bring my
children here, and you’ll be the grandparent?” Rhys nodded yes, and it brought a tear to the eye.
The Spies
Public Library
We did all the spots in town
– the marina, downtown shops in Menominee and Marinette, restaurants, the
thrift shops, Pine Tree Mall, and the multiplex cinema. One of my favorites was the Spies
Public Library where we took a look at my dad’s oil painting of downtown Menominee
which was a memorial to his work on the library board.
Horse Team in
the Waterfront Festival parade on Highway 41
Menominee’s Waterfront
Festival was going on during our stay, and Katja and I watched the parade from
the curb outside our motel. Along with fire trucks and police cars, there were
five Shriner groups zipping about on motorcycles, miniature cars, or pedaling a
twenty-person bicycle; students from the local dance academies; budding
gymnasts; local politicians; high school cheerleaders; six marching bands;
beauty queens in convertibles; Masons and Moose; and vehicles or floats
representing just about every local commercial or service enterprise.
Katja at Bob
and Lois A’s new house on Green Bay
Our friends Bob and Lois A.,
who own and operate a manufacturing firm in Menominee, have been building their dream house by
hand on the Green Bay shore for over a decade, and they moved in last
year. It’s a truly remarkable
structure, and we were thrilled for them.
We all enjoyed going out to dinner at Berg’s Landing on Sunday night.
Doris and Vic
at River House (circa 1960)
Here are our parents, Doris
and Vic, at their home on the Menominee River. They made our strong family tradition possible, and we owe
them a great debt. Now Katja and I
are back home again, and we miss our chums. It seems sort of boring around here so far. I guess that’s the inevitable
consequence of a rewarding vacation.
Love,
Dave
G-mail Comments
-Vicki L (8-18):
Hi David, Thank you many times
over for recording highlights of our family reunion - it's a treasure. It was
our first Farm Reunion run by the grandkids - bittersweet, of course - but so
welcome to enjoy the clan without having to be part of the engine. …. it was
great to see you both. Love, Vicki
-Kiera O (8-14): Dear Vicki and David, So enjoyed the photos on David's blog!
Vicki the next time we're together you have to identify everyone in the group
shot at Farm. You all look WONDERFUL!!
love, Kiera
No comments:
Post a Comment