Thursday’s Theme: A Lot of Good Things Get Lost or Kicked Around

Posted on March 2, 2023 by admin

March came in like – an emu? Golden retriever? – came in pleasantly, with temps nearly 60 F. That didn’t last, of course, and chilly air is back today, with snow forecast for Friday, which will melt over the weekend.

The other day, I found a Sears bag tucked away in a semi-storage corner of the house under various things. This made me want to look up how many Sears locations survive. As of November, anyway, when Sears Holdings Corp. emerged from Chapter 11, there were 22.

That’s not even a shadow of its former self. That’s dryer lint of its former self.

I don’t know when we got the bag, or what we bought at Sears that needed such a bag. It’s fairly large, though. About as tall as a kitchen trash bag, so I decided to take its picture and then use the bag for trash. Interesting trademarked slogan. One the company maybe didn’t think through. Where else?™

There’s a lot of possibilities, Sears.

Last week, as mentioned before, there seemed to be overnight microbursts in the area, to judge by the tree branches on the ground afterward. This was the only tree knocked down that I noticed, a few days later, after it had been chopped up somewhat before being cleared away. Note the crust of soil it took with it.

I suspect it wasn’t just the wind, but also the fact that the tree stood in a low-lying area that usually fills up during a rain and takes days to empty, weakening the soil. Besides, it might have been a sick old tree whose roots didn’t have the grip they used to, so bam! Down it came.

But even healthier trees can take a beating if the wind is aggressive enough.

Speaking of fallen things, I learned today that the Hotel Pennsylvania is being demolished. That isn’t news, just that I don’t keep up with everything happening in Manhattan. I stayed there a couple of times in the early 2000s, where the company I worked for at the time put me up. I thought it more solid than grand, but I’m still sorry to see it go.

What else to say but, Pennsylvania Six Five Oh Oh Oh

One more thing about time passage, destruction and decay. Something I found unexpectedly. An algorithm suggested it. Might as well be by chance, then.

A poignant song from the point of view of an abandoned house, included on an album called The Rat Plague of ’66. The kind of thing that happens in Australia. Don Morrison seems to be a singer-songwriter from Adelaide, South Australia.

Thursday Collection: Claw Machines, Ramen & Dreams Odder Than Usual

Posted on February 9, 2023 by admin

Spotted recently at the mini-mall attached to Mitsuwa, the largest Japanese grocery store here in the northwest suburbs, which is in Arlington Heights.

Banks of Japanese claw machines where a travel agency used to be. Not quite sure what this one is.

The arcade, if you can call it that, is under the brand name Kiddleton Kiosk. Turns out there are quite a few of them, mostly associated with Japanese grocery stores in the U.S.

I never had much use for claw machines. Probably because they seemed like a good way to feed quarters, or tokens, into a machine, and watch it give you nothing. Maybe Kiddleton has a different business model involving a low cost of prizes, which do deliver sometimes, compared with a higher input of tokens. I didn’t feel like testing out that idea.

Not long ago, we went to Hokkaido Ramen House in Hoffman Estates. Hit the spot. Hot steamy ramen, mine with thin slices of pork, egg and some vegetables. Just the kind of thing to enjoy on a raw winter evening.

I didn’t realize it was part of a chain until after we were there. When I found out, I looked at the chain’s web site to see where the others were. California, I figured, and maybe in the Northeast and Texas. You know, the usual chain restaurant suspects.

Turns out there’s only one in California (Santa Cruz). Guess the Asian restaurant competition’s a little stiff in that state. There are indeed a few in the Northeast and Texas as well, including one in Waco, which is a little surprising. But the real surprise is five in Montana and three in Idaho. Then again, maybe not a surprise. It’s cold a lot in those places, and ramen warms you up.

Two old friends of mine met for the first time recently, in a dream of mine. One a lanky bald fellow I’ve known 40 years, the other sporting long gray hair and a thick beard for that Old Testament prophet look, whom I’ve know nearly as long. They were sitting at a table, with me, eating a meal, despite the fact that we were weightless in a space station. They seemed to be getting on well, and one of them, or me, or someone, explained that the company that built the space station had done so well renting cars that it was able to send people to the station at a low cost.

An even odder dream, later the same night: I climbed a ladder to rescue – kidnap? – a group of sentient pens and pencils. Semi-sentient, at least. I couldn’t carry them in a pocket, so I put the group of pens and pencils, who knew what I was doing, under my arms to carry them down the ladder. It all felt a little precarious.

Mochidou

Posted on February 8, 2023 by admin

Not long ago, we noticed Mochidou, a pastry shop in Hoffman Estates, Illinois. How that happened involves a change of veterinarians from a few years ago.

Once upon a time, we took the dog to a nearby practice that included a husband-and-wife vet team who had good bedside (kennel-side?) manor. Then about three years ago, they moved on at about the same time as a soulless chain of veterinary practices acquired the location. This new owner – let’s call it Three Initial Animal Care – soon showed its true colors when the dog acquired a snout infection in the summer of 2020.

Things were looking bad, and during a consultation by phone (these were high pandemic days, remember), whomever had replaced the competent married couple prescribed medicine we couldn’t get the dog to eat. Then the infection spread to one of her eyes. Later, the new vet saw the dog in person, while I waited in the car, and she seemed just a little too eager to fob us off on a specialty hospital, which also happened to be part of the chain.

After some expensive tests at said hospital, no cause could be determined. Could have been a virus. Or bacteria. Or a fungus. Nevertheless, the specialist there said we could proceed with very expensive surgery to try to fix things. As fond as we are of our old dog, we determined at the point that she was either going to live or not, without further intervention.

She lived. And lives to this day, with more energy than you’d expect from a dog around 13 years old. The infection destroyed her right eye, and she sneezes more than she used to, which seems to be a permanent result of the snout damage. She might also have a diminished sense of smell, which I suppose would be worse for a dog than losing some eyesight. But she doesn’t complain, and more importantly, has a vigorous appetite, and still barks at passersby, lolls around on the floor, begs for food, and does all the other dog things dogs do.

In early 2021, we decided to find a new vet, and so we did, a fellow with a solo practice in Hoffman Estates. We like him, and I believe he gives good advice.

The last time we took her to see him, we noticed that Mochidou had opened in the same strip center. Seems to be the only one of that name (so far). It sells mochi doughnuts — that is, a fusion of Japanese mochi and American doughnuts.

Last week, I was in the vicinity on non-dog business, and bought a box. We gave them a try. Man, are they good.

They aren’t as hyper-chewy as mochi, or as soft as a regular American (non-cake) doughnut, but in between. They aren’t as plain as mochi, or as sweet as a typical doughnut, but in between. Add to that a dash of flavor, mango in our case, and you have a wonderful treat.

“Enter the mochi donut: a donut trend that is sweeping across America due to its uniquely bouncy texture and naturally gluten-free qualities,” Thrillist reported in 2020. “The mochi donut has existed before its stateside debut, but was mostly popularized in Japan under the name ‘pon de ring’ from the donut chain, Mister Donut.”

(Mister Donut’s a post for another time. I’ve got some fond memories of mornings at the Mister Donut across the street from Nagai Koen Park in Osaka, savoring the fine doughnuts, refreshing milk tea and the incongruous rockabilly soundtrack.)

Mochidou’s confections are probably made of tapioca flour, since glutinous rice flour would end up chewier, but I didn’t ask about the ingredients, and box didn’t say. Note that they are rings of eight attached dough balls. An elegant design that makes it easy to share.

Only one gripe: they are expensive. A half dozen sells for about $16. Hipsters in high-rent urban settings spurred along to the next gustatory experience by FOMO might not consider that pricey, but we suburbanites — who take what comes — do.

The Bronze Giraffe

Posted on January 18, 2023 by admin

Took Ann back to school on Sunday. Mostly a straightforward shot down to Normal and back, with one small detour. A stop to see Maybelline and Charley.

At least, that’s what paper signs taped to their necks called them. They can be found at the Bronze Giraffe Antiques.

The shop is in a grocery-anchored strip center just off I-55 in Normal, next to the grocery store in fact. Ann needed a few items for her room, so we stopped at the grocery. Then we took a peek at the antique store.

I liked the place. Not only stuff in profusion, some neatly arrayed on shelves and tables between partitions – as you often see at antique malls – but some spots as cluttered as an old-timer’s garage. Was there ever any mention of a garage on Fibber McGee & Molly? It surely would have shared some jumbled characteristics with the famed closet.

To be fair, most of the cubicles were less cluttered. But whatever the organization, there were oddities to see. For instance, a bath toy of some vintage.

The bartender in Hell.

“Horseshoe ornaments.”

A Nativity set with a few additional characters.

And Whiz Kids. It was a publication I’d never heard off.

In a rack of third-string titles? I don’t know comics well enough to know for sure, but I have my suspicions.

TV Tropes has a short description of Whiz Kids.

“The Tandy Computer Whiz Kids series was a series of promotional comics published by Radio Shack from 1980 to 1991, and produced initially by DC Comics, then later by Archie Comics. In them, the two titular Whiz Kids, Alec and Shanna, teach their class (and by extension, the audience) about Tandy computer products and occasionally other topics (substance abuse, child kidnappers, environmentalism, etc.).

“They [the Whiz Kids] love school and learning, spend their summer vacations doing charity work and/or something educational, and help the police catch criminals out of a sense of civic duty.

“Alec and Shanna seem more interested in the educational software for the computers they promote than any video games that the computers may have.”

Well, that sounds bad. Nothing I saw in my quick look at the issue made me think otherwise.

Just before we left, I asked the clerk about the bronze giraffes, which are prominently placed at the front of the store. A whim of the previous owner, she said. If you don’t have some whimsy at your antique store, you might as well hang it up.

Vestiges of Marshall Field’s

Posted on January 12, 2023 by admin

Back to posting on January 17, out of respect to the legacy of Dr. King, because a holiday’s a holiday, and also since it’s nice to have a little time off not long after a sizable stretch of holidays, which can be a bit tiring.

We’re just ahead the pit of winter, but for now anyway the weather isn’t that bad. “Pit” is an inexact term, of course, but I think of it as the last week of January and the first one of February, more or less. Since the Christmas freeze, temps have been more moderate, but I expect another gelid blast sometime soon.

The following is a reminder that, once upon a time, department stores were the disruptors.

“The development of the department store posed a serious threat to smaller retailers,” explains the Encyclopedia of Chicago. “Many small merchants tried to rally the public against the new behemoths, but they failed to gain much support. Rather than rally to the side of traditional merchants, Chicago shoppers embraced the new form of retail.

“The opening of the new Marshall Field’s State Street store in 1902, only a few years after anti–department store protests, signaled that this newer type of institution had won the admiration of consumers. The opening was a sensational event, and the store decided not to start selling items on its first day of business so that more of the eager public would be able to pass through.”

Ah, if only passing through the building were quite as awe-inspiring here in the fraught 21st century. Still, a visit has its moments of visual splendor. If you look up.

I need to spend more time looking this masterpiece. In person, I mean. Closer views are available on higher floors, but it’s a wow even from the ground floor. Worth the crick you might get putting your neck in just the right position to see it.

“The highlight of the Marshall Field store was the Tiffany Dome (1907), a glass mosaic covering six thousand square feet, six floors high,” EOC says.

Not just any glass, but a special kind of glass that Tiffany & Co. had just invented. State-of-the-Victorian-art amorphous solids in a glassy myriad of hues, in other words.

The Marshall Field Building’s other yawning space – a building that takes up a city block has ample room for yawning spaces – is worth the uplook too.

A building of this kind also has a practically limitless supply of engaging detail. Some of it is literally underfoot, and by literally, I mean literally.

Back on the seventh floor, not long after noon, we wandered through a not particularly busy clutch of quick-service restaurants. At some point, department store management erased the longstanding and high-quality casual food service in the basement, and reconfigured parts of the seventh floor for food service.

Near the restaurants is a corner with floor-to-ceiling windows. Hard to pass those up, so we didn’t. We took in the views from northwest corner of the building.

Looking north on State St.

Looking west on Washington St.

A few years ago, the ornate venue originally known as the Oriental Theatre, which started as a 1920s movie palace, took a new name, Nederlander. After theater impresario James M. Nederlander (d. 2016). Doesn’t he count as a New Yorker? Guess his company would argue that it is national, as indeed it is.

Elsewhere on the seventh floor is a pocket-sized, plain hallway with a small exhibit of figures from Marshall Field Christmas windows on State Street, which were as much holiday tradition at the store as decorating the Walnut Room or hiring a Santa Claus, with thousands of Chicagoans and tourists seeing the windows every year and developing fond memories of the place.

As recently as 2015, the windows were inventive expressions of the window designers’ art.

The items on display in the hall aren’t particularly old: most are from this century. Such as from 2004.

2006.

A luminous creation from 2005.

I could write more – say, 1000 words – contrasting these artifacts with the 2022 State Street Christmas windows, but I don’t need to. Here’s one of the storied windows this Christmastime.

One could take the current owners of the building to task for this diminished creativity, but it isn’t the cause of anything, only a symptom.

I can’t end on that sour note.

While taking pictures at an elegantly decorated part of the seventh floor, I caught an image of a passing lass, elegant as her surroundings.

The Ghost of Marshall Field

Posted on January 11, 2023 by admin

On the second to last day of 2022, we spent a while at Macy’s downtown Chicago store. The chain does business in the magnificent building originally occupied by Marshall Field & Co., the celebrated retailer on State Street, which takes up an entire city block.

On the seventh floor, Marshall Field looks out upon the modern operation. It hasn’t had his name since the early 21st century.

Does the mustachioed shade of Mr. Field (d. 1906) wander the building at night, collar taut, making no noise and visible to no one, because he’s a happy ghost? After all, his building, not quite complete when he died, is still there, and still retail. Or is he having trouble keeping quiet, considering the direction of the department store business?

For some modern context – business context, that is – I fed “Macy’s” into Google News today. Some headlines that emerged:

Macy’s Analyst Remains Bearish Following Disappointing Q4 Preannouncement: ‘Longer Term Structural Challenges’

Macy’s Cautious View on Consumers Hits Shares

Macy’s quietly lays an egg — and more may be coming for retail: Morning Brief

All those are actually relatively good news in the world of department stores, which cling to life but which further disappear with each passing year. I’m not saying that Macy’s is doomed, just operating as one of the last players standing on much smaller playing field.

The downtown Chicago location was fairly busy that day and still decked out for the holidays. Especially on the seventh floor, home to the Walnut Room, which still has a reasonably impressive Christmas tree.

The Walnut Room is a grand space even in our time, serving meals of one kind or another since 1907, and the site of large Christmas trees since that same year. Originally named the South Grill Room, this is how it looked in 1909, not in the holiday season.

Generations of Chicagoans came here to eat or, like me as long ago as the late 1980s, to see the grand tree. Looks like they are still coming for both purposes, so at least Macy’s has that going for it.

“The bold selection of grilled foods was meant to distinguish the South Grill Room from the daintier tearooms,” the Digital Research Library of Illinois History notes. “The restaurants’ role was not to make money (they usually operated at a loss) but rather to lure hungry visitors into the store and give those already inside a reason to stay. Their upper-floor location required diners to navigate past enticing impulse goods while making their way upstairs.

“Because so many customers spoke of this restaurant by referring to its Circassian walnut paneling, it was later renamed the ‘Walnut Tearoom,’ next as the ‘Walnut Grill,’ and finally as the ‘Walnut Room’ in 1937.”

Also on the seventh floor: the Narcissus Room. It used to be a tea room. One of those daintier rooms mentioned above. There were still signs pointing to it, so I decided to go take a look. For all I know, tea rooms are the latest thing among hipsters and Gen-Whatever social media posters.

The room as it once was. My source puts the card at 1920.

The entrance to the Narcissus Room much more recently. As in, about two weeks ago. Note that it isn’t locked, and there were no signs advising against entry by non-employees.

Nice detail on at the threshold.

I opened the door.

I did not, in fact, enter. This view was freely available from outside the door, which is in public hallway in the store. According to Macy’s, you can rent the room for an event. As of that day, anyway, no events seemed to be in the works.

Plan B Travels at the End of ’22

Posted on January 5, 2023 by admin

Since Tucson was a no go, we decided to spend the same three days, December 29 to 31, visiting new sights close enough to home to be at home, come bedtime. A suite of day trips, that is. If you can’t go far, go near.

On the first day, we drove southward to near our old west suburban haunts, stopping first in Darien, Illinois, which is home to the National Shrine of St. Thérèse. I’d visited the shrine by myself at some point ca. 1999, but took no notes and made no photos, so I didn’t remember much. Besides, I’d read that a new shrine building was completed only in 2018, so it counted as a new place for me.

I’d also forgotten that Thérèse of Lisieux is also known as the Little Flower of Jesus. The entrance of the new shrine announces that, silently, as you enter.

Later that day, we made our way further south to the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. Strictly speaking, we’d been there before as well, all the way back in the summer of ’04. I told Yuriko we’d been there, but she didn’t remember. Maybe I remember because I spent a lot of time that day pushing Ann’s stroller along an uneven grass path under a hot sun. I seem to have left that part out of my posting about it, however.

On the other hand, Midewin is large, with about 13,000 acres and 30 miles of trails open to the public, so I’m sure we walked through an entirely different part this time – one with visible reminders of the area’s time as the site of an ammunition plant.

The sun wasn’t an issue this time.

On December 30, we made our way to a different sort of human environment: downtown Chicago, by way of driving to near O’Hare, parking the car, and riding the El into town. Without planning to, we found something downtown we’d never seen before, an art exhibit in the underground Pedway.

The Art of American Victorian Stained Glass, featuring well over a dozen windows from the late 19th century and early 20th. Wow. Well hidden and remarkable.

We also spent time in other parts of downtown, including a walkabout inside holiday- season Macy’s. I’ve been there any number of times, of course, but this time I appreciated the place with new eyes. One conclusion: it ain’t no Marshall Field.

Well, some things are the same. Macy’s still has the holiday horns hanging on State Street.

One of these days, I ought to give State Street the Wall Street or William Street treatment, but I’d have to be by myself to do so. State Street might not exactly be a great street, but it still has character.

By that, I mean skyscrapers from the early days of steel-reinforced buildings. Also, astonishingly intricate ironwork from a time when a department store (the vanished Carson Pirie Scott) could afford such things.

Actually, the Louis Sullivan building at State and Madison — the (0 0) of the street numbering system in Chicago — was built in 1899 for the retail firm Schlesinger & Mayer; Carson Pirie Scott was a Johnny-come-lately when it bought Schlesinger in 1904. These days there’s a Target in the lower floor. Sic transit gloria tabernae, I guess.

On the last day of 2022, we headed away from metro Chicago again. We’d considered Starved Rock State Park as a destination, but I wanted something new, so we went to Buffalo Rock State Park, which is more-or-less across the Illinois River from Starved Rock. Nice little park.

Afterward, the weather was good enough, and the temps just warm enough, to allow us to eat Chinese takeout at a picnic table in Washington Park in Ottawa, Illinois, in our coats. The last time we were there, it was hot as blazes.

Didn’t look around too much this time, though someday I want a good look at the many churches along Lafayette St. in Ottawa. I did take a look at LaSalle County’s Civil War memorial.

A closer look at the base –

– reveals that even the names of the Honored Dead are no match for Time.

American Science & Surplus

Posted on December 21, 2022 by admin

Regards to all for Christmas and the New Year. Back to posting around January 3, when I will wonder, as usual, how we could possibly be so far into the 21st century. Which still seems like a new century to me.

On Sunday, I bought a rubber chicken from this plentiful stock, at a retailer I know. I got the regular one for $10.95, not the more expensive, fancy-pants glow-in-the-dark model. Bet a regular one cost $9.95 a year ago, but such is the retail economy in our time.

Why a chicken? (Why a no duck?) My old one must have worn out. Not because I used it for anything, just that rubber doesn’t last forever. Anyway, no household is complete without a rubber chicken. Words to live by.

Where? The truly wonderful American Science & Surplus, which has three stores, two in Illinois — Park Ridge and Geneva — and one in Milwaukee. None of them are particularly close to where we live, so we don’t go often. In fact, I think it’s been about 10 years. We ought to go more often.

This is the AS&S in far west suburban Geneva, which we patronized just around sunset.

As you can see, the store promises rubber chickens.

But that’s only the beginning. AS&S has a retail selection unlike any other in my experience. Toys and toy-like items, but also electronic parts, lab equipment, optical gear, craft items, camping equipment, tools and hardware, militaria, office goods, novelties and more. Much, much more.

The place was fairly busy, with people probably doing what we were doing. Looking for oddities for presents.

You can also buy Teslas there.

Affordable Teslas, that is, though at $20, I took a pass.

Kong Dog

Posted on December 13, 2022 by admin

When you see something like this, you may ask yourself, how did that get here? (Not how did I get here?)

How it got here: worldwide cultural diffusion. Considering the near-ubiquity of electronic communications and physical travel in out time, the world’s many, many kinds of human expression are essentially in the same pot now. Let it boil.

To be more specific, culinarily inventive people in South Korea encountered the corn dog at some point. Corn dogs are the kind of folk-food attributed to various inventors, but in any case they originated in the South, as in the southern United States.

The Koreans tinkered with the formula, adding flavors and modifying the texture, but not too much, and pretty soon Korean corn dogs were sold from stands and small chains in that country. Like the dried cuttlefish on a stick that I saw for sale in Japan, and sometimes bought, corn dogs are a natural for the take-away trade on streets dominated by pedestrians, as many are.

An idea like that, it turns out, is too good not to be exported. Korean corn dogs have arrived in the North America. Maybe not always as street food, but instead adapted to the American suburbs as take-out joints in strip centers.

I know all this because we visited a small storefront called Kong Dog on Saturday after our walk. It appeared at that site a little while ago, a month or two maybe, selling Korean corn dogs from a shop in a large strip center a few miles from our house.

We were intrigued. We already knew that Korean-style fried chicken is good eating, something I’m sure even my hillbilly ancestors would have appreciated, if they’d had it. So Korean-style corn dogs were worth a try.

I’m happy to report that they are delicious. As usual, I’m not an early adopter. Google Image turns up a lot. But I guess I’m not too far behind the curve on this one: “Korean corn dog is the latest K-food craze to hit London, and they’re making waves among the foodies of this city,” Honest Food Talks reported breathlessly only in September.

You could call them a kind of gourmet corn dog, a concept that exists here but doesn’t seem to have a lot of traction, since corn dogs are largely still considered children’s food. (And that creation pictured at the Honest Cooking page I’ve linked to are hush puppies, not corn dogs.)

It took me a moment to work out the name. Kong, as in large. Talk about the lasting influence of a movie that’s nearly 90 years old.

Flavor options: original, potato, sweet potato, churro, rainbow, ramen, hot Cheeto, sweet chili Doritos (Yuriko had that), and injeolmi, a “roast yellow bean powder.” The Kong Dog web site says there are 11 sites open, many in metro Chicago but also in some northeastern states (NY, PA), with 23 more locations in the works, in roughly the same parts of the country.

For extra atmosphere, K-pop fills the room. K-pop idols make their moves on video. At least, I assume all that is K-pop. It wasn’t J-pop. Maybe there should be a genre of music for each letter of the Roman alphabet; that’s two right there. A-pop to Z-pop, and the world could not agree on whether that last one is “zee pop or zed pop.”

I digress. They each come in their own little box.

That’s an original. When I try a new place, that’s usually what I get. With all sausage, since you can opt for all sausage inside, or mozzarella, or half-and-half. It was distinctly crisp, and tasted like a corn dog.

A really good corn dog, that is, anchored by high-quality sausage and clothed in a batter tastier than the frozen dreck that’s fobbed off on kids. Guess that’s a low bar. But anyway, it’s good eating, even if a little expensive for a single item ($6). Hillbillies would approve, once they’d scraped up the price.

Around Lake Michigan Bits & Pieces

Posted on August 22, 2022 by admin

Here’s a set of facts that only I’m likely care about, but I find remarkable anyway.

My recent trip with friends to the UP and back began on July 30 and ended on August 7. Fifteen years earlier, in 2007, I took a trip with my immediate family to the UP and back, from July 30 to August 7. I didn’t know about the coincidence until I read a previous posting of mine. I wish I could say that I’d taken a July-30-to-August-7 trip 15 years before that, in 1992, but no: Singapore and Malaysia was June 29 to July 10 that year (I had to check.)

Both were counterclockwise around Lake Michigan, but such is the richness of worthwhile sights in that part of the country that the two trips touched only at one point: the Mackinac Bridge. And in the fact that we spent time in the UP.

Is it so different now than 15 years ago? Except for maybe better Internet connectivity (I hope so) and maybe a worse opioid problem (I hope not), not a lot seems to have changed.

The UP’s population in 2020, per the Census Bureau, was about 301,600, representing a decline from 311,300 in 2010 and 317,200 in 2000. Truth be told, however, the UP’s population has never been more than about 325,600, which it was in 1910. After a swelling in population in the 19th century, especially after the Civil War, numbers have held fairly steady, meaning an increasingly smaller percentage of Michiganders and Americans, for that matter, live in the UP.

A spiffy public domain map.

Of course, the trip started in metro Chicago, and our first destination was BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Chicago in Bartlett, Illinois. A striking piece of India within short driving distance of home, I once said, and I’m pretty sure my friends agreed with that assessment.

Next: Indiana Dunes National Park. I had in mind we’d walk along a trail I knew, and a beach I liked, but no parking was to be had on a Saturday in summer. We were able to stop at the the Century of Progress Architectural District for a few minutes, and amble down to the beach for a few more from there. They liked that, too, and I’m sure had never heard of that corner of Indiana.

Across the line in Michigan, we went to Redamak’s in New Buffalo. Crowded, but it was then that we collectively decided, though it was unspoken, that good food in a restaurant setting was worth the risk of the BA.5 variant. I’m glad to report that none of us had any Covid-like symptoms during the entire run of the trip.

Those were my first-day suggestions. Now my friends had one: Saugatuck, Michigan, which is actually two small towns, the other being named Douglas. I’d seen it on maps, but that was the extent of my awareness. Turns out it’s a popular place on a summer Saturday, too. Especially on the main streets.

Once we found parking, the place got a lot more pleasant. We wandered around, looking at a few shops and buying ice cream for a short sit down.

A small selection of Saugatuck businesses vying for those visitor dollars (no special order): Uncommon Coffee Roasters, Glik’s clothing store, Kilwin’s Chocolate, Sand Bar Saloon, Country Store Antiques, Bella Vita Spa + Suites, Tree of Life Juice, the Owl House (“gifts for the wise and the whimsical”), LUXE Saugatuck, Santa Fe Trading Co., Marie’s Green Apothecary (“all things plant made”), Mother Moon book store, and Amazwi Contemporary Art, just to list only a fraction of the businesses.

Not a lot of neon, but there was this.

I liked the little public garden. Rose Garden, at least according to Google Maps.

And its sculpture, “Cyclists,” by William Tye (2003).

At the Frederik Meijer Park & Sculpture Garden, we encountered a flock of what looked like wild turkeys.

The marina at Mackinaw City, from which boats to Mackinac Island depart, and a highly visible structure nearby.

You can be sure that we spent that afternoon on Mackinac Island.

Besides the Mackinac Island Ramble (that’s what I’m calling our walk there), we took a number of other good walks on the trip.

One was at the 390-acre Offield Family Working Forest Reserve, near Harbor Springs, Michigan. Its excellent wayfinding — clear and immediately useful signs and maps — helped us through its mildly labyrinthine paths that curve through a lush forest with no major water features, including parts that had clearly been used as a pine plantation.

Clouds threatened rain but only produced mist in the cool air. Wildflowers might have been a little past peak, but there was a profusion, and a rainy spring and early summer put them in robust clusters of red and blue and gold and white, near and far from our path. Everywhere a damp forest scent, wonderful and off-putting at the same time.

On August 5, our last full day in the UP, we had lunch in the small town of Grand Marais, on the shores of Lake Superior. As tourist towns go, it’s minor league, but all the more pleasant for it. The extent of souvenir stands at the main crossroads was a single enclosed booth, staffed by a young college woman who was maybe a relative of the owner. The selection of postcards was limited, but I got a few.

Right there on the main street of Grand Marais is the Pickle Barrel House. You can’t miss it. We didn’t.

Afterward, we found our way to the eastern reaches of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, since the town is considered the eastern gateway to the lakeshore. That end of the lakeshore doesn’t have the pictured rocks, but there’s a lot else.

One trail on lakeshore land took us down to a beach on the south shore of Lake Superior. Sabel Beach, by name. You climb down a couple of hundred stairs to get there, but see the vigorous Sable Falls on the way. The way wasn’t empty, but not nearly the mob city on the southern shore of Lake Michigan or the waterfront at Mackinac Island.

Another lakeshore trail took us along Sable Dunes, which only involved a modest amount of climbing — not nearly as much as the Dune Climb at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore — though sometimes the path underfoot was sand without vegetation. On the whole, the dunes support a full collection of the sort of hardy yellow-green grasses and bushes and gnarled trees you see near a beach. For human hikers, the dunes eventually provide a more elevated vista of the lake, which reminded me of the look over Green Bay last year.

We spent two nights in Newberry, Michigan. Still no more signs of møøse than the last time I was there. I did have the opportunity to take a short walk around town. This is the Luce County Historical Museum (closed at that moment), which was once the county jail and sheriff’s residence. It’s complete with a time capsule on the grounds for the Newberry centennial in 1982. Planned re-opening: 2082. That’s optimism.

A few other nearby buildings.

Saint Gregory’s Catholic Church.

We encountered rain much of the last day of the trip, August 7, so mostly it was a drive from our lakeside rental near Green Bay (the water feature) in Wisconsin home to the northwest suburbs. We didn’t stop in Milwaukee, though we buzzed through downtown on I-94, which offers a closeup of the skyline.

We did stop at Mars Cheese Castle before we left Wisconsin. How could we not do that?

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

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