Tuesday, September 26, 2017

A Superior Vacation: Part Two

Hello! Our Superior vacation continued with a drive up US-41 to Copper Harbor, near the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. It's a very scenic drive - in fact, this stretch of US-41 was recently included in an online list I saw (compiled by Architectural Digest magazine, I think) of top fall drives around the US. It was a bit too early for peak color during our visit, but nevertheless, still a nice drive. 

I'd told my husband I wanted to stop in downtown Calumet, which we hadn't done in years since it means veering off US-41. I was curious as to what changes, if any, had come to that town since our last stop there a good decade ago. 

The copper mining boom of the region  brought wealth to Calumet, which resulted in niceties you wouldn't typically expect in such a isolated area: a few mansions, a large department store, an opera house that booked first-class entertainment, and more. However, the mining boom is long gone, and the Keweenaw Peninsula saw a decline in population and money. 

Calumet was no exception, but things seem to be looking up now, at least a little more. When we first visited the area in 1984, locals had already begun to band together to preserve the copper mining history. Ultimately, their efforts would eventually lead to the creation of the Keweenaw National Historic Park in the early 1990's.
This has resulted in a large number of "heritage sites" throughout the region, which include a broad range of museums, mining tours and other points of interest. 

I'm guessing this initiative has brought more money and visitors to the area. Downtown Calumet had more shops and places of interest to visit while we were there than I recalled from our last time through. 

Above, the Michigan House Cafe & Red Jacket Brewing Co, which is where we ate lunch. I had the Drunken Pig sandwich and my husband had the Michigan House burger. This was easily my favorite meal of our vacation - everything in my sandwich was top-notch, and my husband said his burger was excellent too. Highly recommended!

The building's ambience helped too - it had its beginnings as a hotel in 1905, built by a local brewing company to market its beers in the hotel saloon. Old-time charm still abounds inside:

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Vintage chandelier, and more vintage behind it in the form of snowshoes hung on the ceiling. 

Tile flooring.

I would have taken even more photos, but the lighting wasn't the best, and we had other stops to make. 

The photo of the Michigan House building was taken from the 3rd floor of the building across the street, the Vertin Gallery. In its heyday, it was the Vertin department store, but is now home to art works and antiques. I figured with such a huge space, there'd be a lot of stuff to look over, but alas, large sections of the 2nd and 3rd floors were roped off, with jumbles of furniture and other things instead of booth displays. So there really wasn't as much to see as I'd hoped. But at least I did get that nice photo of the Michigan House building. 

From another side of the 3rd floor, another block was in view:



There's some empty storefronts on this block, but the space on the left houses Supernova Yoga, Gallery & Gifts. I didn't go in this business, but it looked nice. 

However, we did go here:

Once a church, now the Calumet Arts Center. The center sells works by local artists, as well as offering classes and hosting cultural events. I like to support local art centers when we travel, so I bought a couple of small pottery items. 

We also ducked inside a few art galleries and gift shops. We missed a few more shops and didn't go into local historic sites. Just didn't have enough time to see much. Nevertheless, I went to Calumet's visitor center, which is located on US-41 before you turn off to drive into town. Picked up a bagful of brochures for future visits to the region!

From Calumet, we continued up the peninsula, veering off onto M-26 to drive through the picturesque shore towns of Eagle River and Eagle Harbor. And as we've also done in years past, we drove up Brockway Mountain Drive to take advantage of the scenic overlooks:

That's Copper Harbor down below. On clear days, one can see Isle Royale from the top of Brockway Mountain, but it was too hazy to do so this day. Still enjoyed the trek up and back, even if the driving is a bit hair-raising at times.

Copper Harbor is small but has a number of gift shops and restaurants. We used to always eat lunch at the Harbor Haus - delightful food and a lovely setting overlooking Lake Superior. Unfortunately, it no longer appears to be open for lunch, which is why we'd decided to go to Michigan House in Calumet. But for old time's sake we walked to the shoreline bordering Harbor Haus:

The only shop we checked out while in Copper Harbor was our old favorite, the Laughing Loon. When our daughter was little, it was a tradition to let her pick out a stuffed animal from the shop, and occasionally we'd buy a souvenir t-shirt for ourselves. But we bought nothing today.

Once last stop before we returned to our hotel in Houghton:

A sign marking the beginning of US-41. If you were to travel its entire distance of almost 2,000 miles, you'd end up in Miami. I wonder how many people have done just that? Would be an interesting trip sometime. Besides the UP, we've taken US-41 through parts of the Chicago area and Indiana. But I think that's it!

Reluctantly, we had to leave the Keweenaw area the next day. But before we did so, we had one last meal:

Just outside of Hancock, the Four Suns eatery, run by the adjacent Peterson's Fish Market. The restaurant has walk-up windows for ordering and pick-up, with places to sit at the covered "porch" and a few outside tables. My husband and I both got the whitefish sandwich. It was good, but we agreed that we liked our fish lunches at Muninsing's Fish Shack better. 

Four Suns was still worth the visit, though, especially since we had a great view of this across the road:

The Quincy Mine & Hoist property, now a museum site run by the Keweenaw National Park. Have never toured the site, but would like to someday! 

It was time to head south toward home, this time through Wisconsin. Again, for old time's sake, we stopped in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. We lived there for three years, in the late 1980's/early 1990's, and it was where we had our first house:

This was the oldest house we'd ever lived in (although we looked at 18th C homes while house hunting in the Philadelphia area); it had been built in 1871. It still looks much the same as when we lived there, other than the siding that now surrounds the chimney. Not something you should do to an old house! 

We ate a so-so dinner at an Asian restaurant in downtown Stevens Point, which we made up for by going over to Belt's ice cream stand for dessert. We used to live only a seven-minute walk from Belt's, which meant that there were times I'd go there to cool off in the afternoon with a grape slush after a session of antique furniture refinishing - followed by an after-dinner dessert of a flurry (their name for soft-serve blended with mix-ins) while with my husband. Ah, those were the days! 

So for the sake of nostalgia I got one of my old favorites, a hot fudge brownie flurry. At this stage of my life, it was too rich and filling to finish, but it was still great. Belt's is a seasonal walk-up place, and it's a tradition to make a point of going there for the first and last days it's open for the year. As these days are in March and October, it isn't unusual for snow flurries to be falling as people stand in line, outside, waiting to order ice cream! Wisconsinites are hardy folks. 

After eating all that ice cream, it was time to walk off some of those calories:


A walk along the Wisconsin River at Pfiffner Pioneer Park. Like Belt's, this park was also a short jaunt from our house, so we walked this path often. During this visit, I recalled the time I called in a mail order (no online option back then!) and gave the woman at the other end of the line my Stevens Point mailing address. She thought that the name "Point" meant the town was on an ocean! Guess she didn't have any idea where Wisconsin was (this was no foreign-accented call center worker either). I had to explain that the town was at a "point" on the Wisconsin River. 

We spent the night in Stevens Point, but had lunch there before leaving. I'd taken some pics of the restaurant where we ate, the Wooden Chair, but they didn't come out well. But it's a cute spot - one of those places much of the furniture is vintage and much of it doesn't match. Food was good, and it's a fun atmosphere. 

From Stevens Point, we continued on to Milwaukee. We got there too late to do much but eat dinner at Jalapeno Loco, near Mitchell Airport. We first ate here in the early 2000's, when one of my brothers lived nearby. It's solid Mexican food; has some of the usual menu items but also some less-common entrees. We've always enjoyed our meals here. 

Since we spent the night in Milwaukee and were only going as far as suburban Chicago the next day, that meant I had time to visit American Science and Surplus before heading to the Windy City. AS&S is another old favorite of mine. I'd already visited a couple of the smaller Chicago-area stores run by the business (one has since closed), but was happy to check out the larger Milwaukee store while my brother lived in town. I was in luck this time: the store was having its annual tent sale. This meant even more savings on even more wacky stuff. But I tried sticking to more practical stuff, like more bottles for my DIY kombucha and toiletries, and craft supplies. It's a fun place.

The Chicagoland visit involved dinner out at Rockwood Taproom, plus shopping at a plaza that has a See's candy store (great chocolates and other sweets), a Trader Joe's and a Goodwill. What more do you need? :)

By this time, though, we were getting a bit tired of traveling - covering 1,600 miles in one week will do that to a person, I guess. So after spending the night at our suburban hotel, we left for home, stopping only for gas and lunch. We were back home by mid-afternoon. It had been a nice time though - definitely a "superior" vacation!
 










 







Thursday, September 21, 2017

A Superior Vacation: Part One

Hello! The Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan seems pretty remote when you live many hours from it. We may have never gotten there, but then my sister moved to Houghton in 1984 to teach at Michigan Technological University (aka Michigan Tech). We visited her shortly after she was settled in and liked what we saw. She didn't last long - in 1988 she moved back to my hometown near Flint. But we continued to vacation up there.

In fact, for awhile we had a streak of going to the Keweenaw area at least once a year through 2008. (this was no small feat during the seven years that we lived on the East Coast). I told my husband it was time to start visiting other parts of the country, and we had a great time traveling west, south and northeast for our vacations.

But now the tide has turned - it was time to go back and revisit the Keweenaw area. So what follows is a bit of what we saw and did during a trip last week. There's no way this blog could recount all the scenery and history of this unique part of the state - what follows is just a brief summary!

Above, the Fish Basket food truck in Munising. My husband learned about this place on Yelp. Fresh-caught Lake Superior fish and French fries made to order - what's not to like? Fresh fish is a real treat, and we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch here. 


Our first stop to take photos of Lake Superior; taken at a roadside rest area off M-28 near Au Train. Not sure, but that might be Au Train Island off in the distance. 

Driving across the UP is a bit of a lesson in patience, as there's no freeways once you leave I-75 north of the Mackinac Bridge. Over the years, we'd pass the time by looking for various "landmarks" near the roads. As I'd said in the beginning of this post, it's been several years since we were last this way, so we were curious to see what was still around. 

Alas, the Laughing Whitefish market, down the road from a river of the same name, appeared to be closed. I hope that its sign, with its caricature of a laughing whitefish, lives on somewhere else. Love the name of the river, loved that sign!

Also gone was the giant cactus statue that stood out in the front yard of a house in the Marquette area. I suppose that the cactus went along with the Spanish-style exterior of the house, but both seemed incongruous in an area more known for woods, lakes and long, snowy winters.

Additions: a few more art galleries and studios here and there, and a number of traffic circles have been constructed in Marquette (to take the place of traffic signals, I think). Not really a fan of the latter, but it is what it is. A lot more chain stores in the Marquette area than there used to be too.

Finally we arrived at our destination, a Country Inn and Suites in Houghton. We can remember when this hotel wasn't even there. Since we'd been in the car for several hours already, my husband suggested walking to the downtown for dinner. It wasn't that far - about a mile - but since the hotel is atop a steep hill, the trip back from dinner meant going up that hill. No need for using the hotel fitness center's treadmill here! 

Spied this sign while in downtown Houghton:

A display of kayaks blocked part of the sign, which read "Houghton County Snowfall 286.6". That's a lot of snow, but not unusual for the area. My sister said that 299" had fallen during one of her winters there; folks said it might as well snow one inch more so they could say they'd gotten 300" of the stuff. But it was not to be. 

No sign of snow while we were there, of course - but also no sign of normal temps for the time of year. In fact, one day during our visit Houghton was just one degree shy of tying the record high for the date. It was in the low 80's during our stay, well above the norm.

Saw a number of boaters out enjoying the waters of the Portage Shipping Canal, a waterway that divides Houghton and the neighboring city of Hancock. Saw members of the Michigan Tech sailing club:





It looked like they were having a great time!

We hadn't gotten enough walking in while making our way up that steep hill back from dinner; no, the next day it was time to set out on foot again. This time, we were heading to the Porcupine Mountains Wildnerness State Park, near Ontonagon.

We've been to the "Porkies" many times before, and have hiked most of its 90+ miles of trails. But this jaunt would be just for fun. As it was going to be a hot, humid day, we planned on doing a short hike. Armed with water bottles and lunch (trail snacks from Keweenaw Co-op in Hancock), we set out toward the state park. As we'd done yesterday, we looked to see what has come and gone along the route. The biggest difference we noticed, besides a few more new businesses on the outskirts of Houghton, was the route changes in South Range and Ontonagon. Before, you drove through the commercial districts of both towns, now you drive past them if you're staying on the main road. Bummer - I always like going through small towns, just to see the houses and businesses there.

The Porcupine Mountains, at least, are the same: forests, rivers, hills, waterfalls, and the Lake Superior shoreline. The latter would be our destination for lunch.

A few pics:

We started out on the Pinkerton Creek Trail, which connected to the Lake Superior Trail. 

Lunchtime along Lake Superior. Although there were several cars parked at the Pinkerton Creek trailhead, we saw no other people on this hike. 

We returned on the same route we'd taken, which led to this photo of Pinkerton Creek:

Very typical scenery for the Porkies. I was glad Pinkerton Creek  had a footbridge for its crossing. I'd been on many a watery crossing in the park that involved stepping on wet stones or cautiously navigating on logs several feet above a river. I always feared falling off one of those logs; although I can swim, I didn't relish getting wet in my hiking clothes and boots. Thankfully, that never happened!

This day's hike was only six miles. Back when we were much younger, over 30 years ago, our hikes here were much longer distances and often included rugged terrain. We can still recall the Memorial Day weekend hike of 1988. Like this most recent hike, it was abnormally hot and humid, but that didn't stop us from hiking 16 miles. The excursion included going up to the 1,850 feet Government Peak, second highest point in the park. My husband's brother had come with us and he insisted after that climb that he would die of hydration. But he's still around. 

The Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park does have a few niceties that it didn't have in the earlier years of our visits: a bigger visitor center, a folk school, an artist-in-residence program (we saw past works from this program on display at the visitor center), and a music festival. But I don't think much else has changed over the years - it's still a great place to visit, whether you want a challenging hike or an easier one. Well worth the travel time from Houghton! (over an hour)

In my next post I'll talk about what we did on the rest of our vacation.   

 











Friday, September 15, 2017

Thrifty Acres: An Oldie But Goodie

Hello! I first did yoga in the mid-to-late 1980's, using a paperback book I'd gotten at a rummage sale. The book was already quite a few years old then. I don't recall why now, but eventually I stopped doing yoga, and so donated that book to a thrift store. 

Yoga's now become trendy, and so I come across books devoted to this practice quite often at secondhand markets. I've purchased a few of these books, and while they were nice to work with, I often found myself confused by the directions. And it wasn't always exactly clear what progress I could hope to make over time.  I missed the step-by-step instructions that were the foundation of the book I'd once had. 

Came across a copy of that years-ago yoga book at a fundraiser garage sale a few weeks ago, so I eagerly snatched it up:

Richard Hittleman's Yoga 28 Day Exercise Plan. This book was first published in 1969, but my edition came out in 1973. Some reviewers on Amazon.com say that the book is still in print! 

The cover photo shows some color, but inside, demonstrations of the poses look like this:

That's right, all the poses were photographed in black and white - no color shots of the model clad in various examples of coordinated yoga clothes. No props such as straps or blocks either: you just stretch as much as you comfortably can. 

The program is set up in a progressive way, with each day building on what was learned on previous days. The photos of the poses, and the accompanying descriptions, are very helpful. To reinforce the lessons, every four days a review session is given.  There's also a brief essay at the end of each day's practice ranging from nutrition advice, to how to judge one's progress, and to how yoga can help arthritis sufferers. 

And how has this yoga work helped me thus far? Well, with my latest go-round of using this book - I'm on day 19 - I do feel less  "creaky" and more limber than I had before I started the routine. My back doesn't feel as tight. I've been sleeping very well too. So all in all, pretty good results in less than three weeks.

I'm glad I found this book again at that garage sale. Maybe I've learned a lesson: instead of falling for something flashier, stick to an oldie but goodie!

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Eats: DIY Kombucha Tea

Hello! I'd been reading about kombucha tea lately, but didn't know much about it other than the various health claims (purported to be probiotic, anitbacterial, and more). Then a friend told me about purchasing the Sacred Springs brand at our local farmer's market, so I tried some from the vendor there. The guy was super nice and his ginger-flavored kombucha tea was awesome.

But was not awesome was the cost: I think around $4.00/bottle. The brands at grocery stores and health food stores are priced lower, but still not low enough to make buying kombucha tea a regular habit. 

So of course I investigated making my own, and came across this clearly-written tutorial.

According to the recipe, I needed to start out with a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), which I could have ordered online. However, my recipe also included a link for making my own SCOBY as well (the link is in the last line of the ingredients list). For this SCOBY-making step, I did need to buy some unflavored kombucha for making the starter tea, to go along with tea bags, sugar and water. For the tea itself, I used ordinary Lipton's since I already had a big box of it on hand, but opted for organic cane sugar(purchased for a reasonable price at Sam's Club).

You need a large, clean glass jar for making kombucha tea, as both the SCOBY-making process and the kombucha tea-fermenting step yield 8-10 cups of liquid. Fortunately I had 2 large jars, purchased years ago at a store-closing sale. (the recipe can be made in two smaller jars, or can be halved if desired). 

I think I jumped the SCOBY-making step a bit. The instructions say to let it "grow" to a thickness of about 1/4" thick. This is supposed to take 1-4 weeks. After 8 days, I looked at my SCOBY and thought it was thick enough. But you know how shapes look distorted under water? Well, that's what happened when I took my SCOBY out of the starter tea. It was probably closer to around 1/8" thick. However, I'd already made the tea base that, along with the SCOBY, would be set aside to ferment for 7-10 days to make kombucha tea. So I decided to go ahead with the fermenting step, figuring that the lesser amount of SCOBY would be okay for this first time around.

After seven days of fermenting were up, it was time to flavor/bottle/carbonate my kombucha tea. Flavoring options are included in my recipe, so I decided to go with the easiest one, which was to add fruit juice. I used R.W. Knudsen's organic black cherry juice. 

I've read that carbonation works best with the type of bottle that has a stopper that is clamped down with a wire mechanism. I didn't come across an inexpensive source for these bottles, but will keep on looking. In the meantime, I bought some plastic bottles with screw-on lids from American Science and Surplus's website.

The carbonation step takes 1-3 days, then the kombucha tea is refrigerated and ready to drink. The tea will keep for a month in the refrigerator. I decided to refrigerate my first batch after one day was up, since I was anxious to start drinking it. I liked how it turned out! It wasn't really fizzy, but I didn't care about that.

Okay, that's enough chatter about my first foray into DIY kombucha tea. As of today, I'm ready to bottle my 4th batch, so here's how things look:

Above, the fermented tea base, with the SCOBY on top (that lighter-colored blob). The glass jar is kept covered with a cloth napkin, but I took it off so the SCOBY would be more visible in the photo. Next to the jar is one of the bottles I use, and behind these containers is the tea base for the next batch of fermenting tea. 

Making kombucha tea is like using a sourdough starter (which I've also done): you have to reserve some of the fermented tea (before you add any flavoring to it) to use in making the next batch of kombucha tea. Thus, you make the fresh batch of tea and let it cool down before you're ready to bottle the fermented batch. 

My first two batches of kombucha tea were flavored with that bottle of cherry juice. But then I wanted to try replicating the tangy ginger flavor I'd enjoyed before. Again, I went for an easy way of adding this flavor: I peeled about 3" fresh ginger and placed it and 1/4 cup raw honey into my Vitamix along with 3/4 cup water. I blended this mixture until smooth, then strained into my jar of kombucha tea. It tasted great! I think this will be my go-to flavor. 

As with many DIY projects, there are various cautions involved in the making of kombucha tea. Contamination can be an issue if a bad SCOBY is used. The recipe I use has a page on troubleshooting typical SCOBY problems, the worst of which is mold. And of course, all kitchen utensils, bottles, jars, etc. need to be clean when going through all the steps in the process. But that is just common sense. 

To keep things straight, I keep a running list of when each step is completed (fermenting, bottling, carbonating). It seemed a little confusing at first, but I'm getting the hang of it. 

So far my SCOBY has been behaving just fine, so I will keep making kombucha tea with it. I don't know if I feel any different after drinking it for a few weeks now, but I like how it tastes, and I like the money I'm saving by going the DIY route.