Rockford travels a fair bit for work, and it takes him all over the world. Meanwhile, the kids and I are at home maintaining our regular routine. On his most recent trip, we thought it might be entertaining to take pictures to compare what he’s up to at a given time to what’s going on at home. The conclusion? He may be visiting exotic locales, but he rarely has time to see more than conference rooms and continental breakfasts.
This time he went to Japan, China and India. It was a lengthy trip, so I’m breaking this up into a trio of posts. Here’s what was happening here and there for the first few days:
Saturday, 4/11. 11:30am
Saturday, April 11. 11:30am. Preparing for takeoff in Atlanta. / Playing soccer under blue skies.
Sunday, 4/12. 6pm
Sunday, April 12. 6pm. An appetizer with tentacles. / A dinner with family.
Monday, 4/13. 12:15pm
Monday, April 13. 12:15pm. Getting ready for a meeting in Tokyo. / Lunchtime at co-op.
Tuesday, 4/14. 9am
Tuesday, April 14. 9am. Some video games before school. / Navigating the train station in Kyoto.
Swiss Cottage DesignsDisclaimer: The Henry Ford provided me with tickets to the museum and the factory tour. Everything else was on our own dime.
Today we’re going to talk about one of the Butterscotch Sundae family’s favorite vacation destinations: Mid-Michigan.
OK, so Michigan might not be the first location that springs to mind when you think Summer Vacation. But I spent every summer of my first 15 years there and at least a week of the last 15 summers there,[ref]What about the five years in the middle? I was working at jobs that didn’t come with a summer vacation. Otherwise, I’d have been there![/ref] and you can go ahead and trust me when I tell you this: Michigan is a top-notch place to spend your summer vacation.
(A lot of Michiganders would agree with me, I think, although they’d probably tell you to go Up North when you visit. That’s the lovely, lake-filled, adventuring part of the state. It’s also the part I’ve spent the least amount of time in, so I’ll leave it to someone else to tell you what you ought to do up there.)
You probably won’t be able to get a reservation for my favorite Mid-Michigan “resort” — my dad’s house, home of the Greatest Backyard in the History of Backyards — but you can visit some of our “Middle of the Mitten” favorites.
The Henry Ford
As you may have surmised, The Henry Ford museum is heavy on transportation-related displays. The museum explores how the automobile has shaped America, from the way we work to the way we eat to the way we sleep. The museum also has a lot of items from American history, such as George Washington’s camp bed, George Washington Carver’s microscope and — of special interest for aficionados of the macabre — both the chair in which Abraham Lincoln was sitting and the car in which John F. Kennedy was riding when they were assassinated.
Other points of interest at the Henry Ford:
The Weinermobile (and a foam hotdog bun where you can pretend to be a hotdog).
An impressive collection of silver and pewter.
Ginormous trains, some of which you can climb on.
Buckminster Fuller’s “house of the future,” the Dymaxion House.
The “green roof” on the Dearborn Truck Plant lowers temperatures inside the plant by as much as 10 degrees, and the sedum absorbs up to 4 millions gallons of rainwater.
Henry Ford wanted the Rouge to be an “ore-to-assembly” complex that was entirely self-sufficient. That didn’t quite come to fruition, but it’s still an impressive factory. The Rouge first produced farm tractors; now it’s where they make Ford F-150s.
The first part of the tour includes a couple of short movies about the history of the plant and the company. I expected to see a lot of Henry Ford hero worship, but they didn’t gloss over the less savory aspects of Ford and his company. It was a pretty balanced presentation.
After the movies, visitors can wander around on walkways suspended above the factory floor. While it felt a little weird watching people work, it was really cool to see how huge and intricate the assembly line actually is.
Our family loves to go to baseball games. We’ve never gone to a major-league game, though, because they’re too expensive. The minor leagues are where it’s at.
I’ve been to a number of minor league baseball games, and Dow Diamond is definitely the fanciest minor league park I’ve seen. It’s the home of the Great Lakes Loons, and it features a playground, a lovely lawn seating area and pretty good food at decent prices. And it was $1 hotdog night and there were fireworks and Rockford caught a foul ball when we were there! That’s tough to beat.
The Great Lakes Loons
Cost: $6.50 for lawn seats; $9.50 for reserved seating
Address: 825 East Main Street, Midland, MI
Junction Valley Railroad
Junction Valley Railroad is the largest quarter-size railroad in the world, featuring 75 different types of cars and more than 865 feet of trestle and bridges. We took the kids there a few years ago, when Pete was 4 and Poppy was 6. They were both thrilled to ride the little train, which lets visitors off at a small playground where the kids can run off some steam before riding back to the station. There’s also a nice hobby shop at Junction Valley, where grandfathers may, hypothetically, be tempted to buy a model train for their grandchildren.
We went to the Saginaw Children’s Zoo a lot when I was a kid, and it was the site of one of the greatest self-inflicted terrors of my young life. The reptile house was in a boat in the middle of a little pond, and you had to cross a bridge to get to it. I was deathly afraid of snakes, but for some reason I forced myself across that bridge and into the snake boat every time we went. Then I would scamper back across to the safety of the mainland, where I’d reward my bravery with a visit to the prairie dogs.
(I’m sure you’re not surprised to learn that I was an odd kid.)
The snake boat is no longer there, but the prairie dogs are, and they’re just as cute as they were back then. The zoo also still has a great carousel, a petting zoo and a bunch of free-range peacocks that love to have their pictures taken.
Rockford had a work trip to Savannah GA this week, and we decided at the last minute that we should all go along. We’d never been to Savannah before, and the kids and I loved it. We saw a baby dolphin, I ate every praline sample the candy store offered me, we went to the beach, and the kids became Junior Park Rangers.
It was a great trip.
Dolphin tour on the Savannah River
At $30 for adults and $15 for kids, the Dolphin Magic tour was a big splurge for us. Poppy and I really enjoyed the boat ride; Pete was pretty crabby the whole time. We saw a good number of dolphins, including a baby who was zipping along with two big guys, but I do wish we’d nabbed better seats. Ours were right behind a column. That didn’t impede our view of the dolphins, since the captain stopped the boat and everyone moved around to find the best vantage point, but it did shield us from the breeze while we were moving. If we did the tour again, I’d try to get a seat in the front of the boat.
Beach walk at Tybee Island
We did a beach walk with a guide from the Tybee Island Marine Science Center. I learned a few things about all the critters that live and/or wash up on the beach, and I think the kids did, too. Pete’s favorite part was learning how to squirt water at someone with a tunicate. It was sort of hard for Pete and Poppy to concentrate with all of the beach-goers building sandcastles and skim boarding and having fun beach time. They definitely had more fun when we went back to the beach later without an educational agenda.
Exploring Fort Pulaski
Fort Pulaski is a Civil War-era fort located between Tybee Island and Savannah, and it was well worth the $5 it cost us to get in. Following the advice of the guy at the front gate, we picked up a couple of Junior Ranger activity books at the visitors center before we crossed the moat via a drawbridge to check out the fort. They were really informative and well-written, and they gave the kids something to focus on at each part of the fort. Pete was especially taken with Fort Pulaski. He wanted to check out every nook and cranny, including the tunnels under the man-made hills in front of the fort.
The kids learned a little about the Civil War, which we haven’t covered yet, and I learned that Fort Pulaski would be a great place to be in the event of a zombie apocalypse. (Did I mention the drawbridge? And moat? It’s perfect.)
We took the kids’ schoolwork along with us to Savannah, and they worked every day we were there. Saturday and Sunday included! Which meant that today was our last day of school! They celebrated by having sweet rolls for breakfast and bursting through a paper banner Kool Aid man style. As one does.
