On the road again…

September 6, 2017

Mackinaw City, Michigan

On the road again…

Actually, we’ve been on the road for four days and are just getting motivated to create our annual travel blog.  Since leaving Richmond, we have encountered rain almost every day.  That sure cuts back on the activities and the excitement of travel.

We left Richmond on Sunday afternoon—after waiting out two days of rain.  It was dry that day, and we had a beautiful drive through the western VA and West Virginia mountains. We’ve seen a lot of majestic mountains in our travels, but I don’t think there are any more beautiful than the layered tapestry of the Blue Ridge and Alleghenys.  West Virginia always takes me in and makes me feel at home.

After our first night in Beckley, we traveled north on I-77 and stopped by Tamarack, a center that displays and sells the work of West Virginia artisans.  I could spend a whole day there inspecting and appreciating the pottery, quilts, books, jewelry, music selections, etc.  It’s just a nice place to be—so spacious and open and right off I-77.  We bought two of our “friend” Sam Rizzetta’s hammered dulcimer CDs for the road and a few other small treasures.


 

We moved on up to the rolling hills of southern Ohio.  In all the years I lived in Western PA and in Ohio, I never knew much about the Amish communities in Ohio until my PA friends told me about them recently.  We waited all day to eat because we heard about the Dutch Valley Restaurant in Sugarcreek.  I love the salad buffets in such restaurants—filled with the regular greens and spinach, broccoli chopped so fine that you don’t even know you are eating broccoli, kidney beans, pickled eggs and beets (my favorite), ham salad, etc.  The best part of the day, though, was traveling through the farmland of Ohio and enjoying the red barns, as we got a bit lost trying to find the restaurant.  We spent that night in Stow, a suburb of Akron.

The big event planned for the next day was a visit to Cuyahoga Valley National Park between Akron and Cleveland.  Our visit was delayed because, as we were leaving the hotel in Stow, Robin stopped at the front desk and parked the cooler nearby.  When we arrived at the park, I opened the back door to grab a bottle of water out of the cooler—only it wasn’t there.  Back to Stow we went!

I have to admit—we didn’t give Cuyahoga a good chance because, just about the time we were ready to hike out to Brandywine Falls, the rains came.  We were actually at the trailhead, ready to go with our walking sticks.  What we discovered is that this park is oriented to cyclists.  It is a heavily wooded expanse of land between two metropolitan areas.  A train runs through it as well as two major interstate highways (I-80 and I-271). 

Complete with an observation car,

Cuyahoga Valley National Park runs excursion trains several times daily.

I-80 and I-271 both cross Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

 The charming, little town of Peninsula with its buildings dating back to the 1700s and its front yards bursting with mounds of colorful perennials is nearby, and we found ourselves driving through it several times during the day—enjoying its charm.

More rain followed us to Michigan.  We worked our way through Detroit, with the help of Samantha, our trusty GPS, and ended up north of Flint for the night.  As we drove north on I-75, it struck me that northern Michigan’s highway reminded me of northern Maine’s I-95—flat, straight, speed limit of 75, and little traffic.

More rain clouds gathering.

 

One of our goals for this trip was to go back to Busia’s Polish Restaurant in Gaylord, Michigan—a wonderful place we discovered over 30 years ago.  I checked it out on Google to make sure it was still there—even read the menu.  We set off for Gaylord the next morning and arrived there in a downpour.  I had the address for Busia’s, and we found the street easily; however, we never found Busia’s.  We pulled into another restaurant.  Robin ran in through the rain to ask about Busia’s and learned that they had closed several years ago!  Yet they were still on Google.  Sad and wet, we had a late lunch where we were and headed west to Traverse City, along Lake Michigan, where we stayed last night.  Traverse City is not only a busy town with a beautiful view, it is also the Cherry Capital of the World; in fact, it is the top producer of tart cherries in the world!

Tomorrow we are heading to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and beyond.