Gloria and I have been given a special opportunity to lead a tour, that we helped design, through our “home” State of Michigan. We will be visiting places my parents and grandparents took me as I was growing up; places that Gloria and I took our kids on weekend getaways and summer vacations.

Although the Holland Tulip Festival is the headliner of this tour, it represents only a small portion of the exciting things we’ll experience and places we’ll visit in Michigan. Our journey will begin in Dearborn at The Henry Ford an amazing museum and historical village built by Henry Ford to house an enormous collection of items representing the contrast between the agrarian lifestyle of the early farmers and industrial revolution – from a Dutch stone home to a massive steam locomotive.

It should come as no surprise that The Great Lake State would have an interesting maritime history. During our tour we will visit the location of the Indian mission where Jesuit missionary Jacques Marquette and his party departed St. Ignace in 1673 to seek out and explore a great river know by the Indians as the “Messissipi.”

At the museum ship Valley Camp, we can walk around the destroyed life boats recovered shortly after the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, one of hundreds of ships lost to the stormy waters of the Great Lakes. I’m sure we’ll get a chance to see one of the new generation of lake freighters, now reaching lengths of 1000 feet or more, squeeze through the navigation locks first established in 1855 to allow ship traffic to pass the rapids on the St. Mary’s River.

We will visit the reconstructed Fort Michilimackinac established by the French at the Straits of Mackinac in 1715 and Fort Mackinac surrendered by the Americans to British and Indian forces during the War of 1812. This will be only a small part of our activities on Mackinac Island during our stay in Mackinaw City and the Straits of Mackinac area. We are really looking forward to serving you a “pasties” dinner the regional favorite introduced to the area by Cornish miner immigrants.

On our way to our final stop we will visit a unique wildlife museum in Gaylord and the logging camp museum built in the 1930’s by the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps near Grayling. Here we will have time to walk among the pines and learn about the logging industry that supplied the lumber to rebuild Chicago after the fire of 1871.

We’ll finish our tour at Frankenmuth, Michigan’s Little Bavaria. My mouth is already watering thinking about the golden-fried chicken, dressing, and noodles served family style at our farewell dinner at Zehnder’s.  For more details about this tour, click here