We left Ohio last week. We stopped overnight in Wheeling, West Virginia and parked the RV in the lot of the Kruger Toy and Train Museum, a Harvest Host. Housed in a former elementary school built in 1906, the museum is the pet project of a father and son who began collecting Lionel trains in the mid-70s. They expanded their collecting to other classic toys and eventually needed a dedicated space to display their collections and share them with others. Now, the former classrooms are filled with classic toys. The museum opened its doors to the public in 1998.

We’re currently at the Cherry Hill Park Campground in College Park, MD, our home base whenever we come to Washington D.C. This leg of the trip is what I call the friends and family stop. We’ve been hanging out with Tessa and Dan. We had a lovely visit with Michael’s sister and niece. And we have some more folks to visit before moving on.

Sadly, a shadow of horror and disbelief at the events in Israel now hangs over our visits. I’m heartsick, and our happy reunions feel a little less happy. Hope seems to be in short supply. It’s a challenge to stay in the moment and focus on the positive, but we try anyway.

It was a pleasure spending time with Tessa and Dan, as always. In addition to the good food and good conversation, we visited the Phillips Collection museum with them.

The Phillips Collection, considered the country’s first museum of modern art, was founded by art collector and philanthropist Duncan Phillips. It opened to the public in 1921 in Washington D.C.’s Dupont Circle neighborhood.

Phillips and his mother found solace in adding to their art collection and displaying it to the public following the deaths of his father and brother within a year of each other. It was originally called the Phillips Memorial Art Gallery. As the collection grew, they moved out of their Dupont Circle home, allowing the entire 3-story Georgian Revival brick and sandstone house to become a dedicated space for the museum.

Two wings have been added to the original house. The museum currently owns a growing collection of over 5,000 works of modern and contemporary art. The private museum is funded primarily by donations.

African Modernism in America, 1947-67

This special exhibition reimagines an art installation from 1961 sponsored by the Harmon Foundation – a major supporter of African American creativity and ingenuity – that brought visibility to modern African and African American artists.

From the permanent collection

“The Migration Series” is a series of 60 panels of tempera on hardboard by Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) completed in 1941. It tells the story of the Great Migration – the exodus of over 6 million African Americans from the rural South to urban areas in the North. The odd numbered panels are at the Phillips Collection.

It was such a treat to see “Luncheon of the Boating Party” in person, one of Renoir’s most famous paintings. The 51 by 68 inch painting depicts some of Renoir’s closest friends, including his future wife (the woman playing with the small dog), enjoying a social outing on a restaurant balcony along the Seine in France.

Duncan Phillips spent twelve years on a mission to acquire the painting after seeing it in Europe. He was finally able to buy it in 1923 paying $125,000, an astronomical amount of money at the time for a piece of art. It became the crown jewel of his collection.

We have just 2 more stops left on this trip – an overnight in Delaware, a few days in the Hudson Valley, then home.

We’ve wrapped up our 2-stop stay in Ohio. Ohio wasn’t a destination – it was a pit stop on the way to Washington D.C., so there wasn’t a lot that we wanted to do.

Ohio launched a new brand in May, 2023 with the slogan “Ohio, The Heart of It All.” It replaces the slogan “Find it Here.” The current marketing people think the new slogan is more “holistic”, attracting tourists and potential residents. Ohio and especially Columbus has become a major technology hub. It’s been dubbed the “Silicon Valley of the Midwest.” Ohio needs people to fill all those new jobs and to move in to the several housing developments we saw under construction.

Things We did in Ohio

Our first stop was at a campground in Plain City, a small, sleepy town in the midst of cornfields and farms. We chose the area for its easy access to Columbus.

There’s not much happening in Plain City itself. The one fun thing we did there was hang out at a local brewery called “1487” where we played cribbage, drank beer and learned about the Munich Purity Law.

In 1487, Albert IV, Duke of Munich issued an edict stipulating that only hops, water and malt were to be used in the making of Munich beer. The Reinheitsgebot, translated as ‘purity law’ was enacted across Bavaria in 1516. It’s considered the first food related legislation. Today, German beer brewed according to the Purity Law has protected status in the E.U. as a traditional foodstuff.

The Plain City stop included visiting Michael’s nephew and his fiancé at their new home outside of Dayton. We observed the Jewish holiday at a warm and welcoming congregation in Columbus; we felt very much at home there. And we spent a day exploring Columbus.

Columbus

We explored a couple of neighborhoods in the city. The Short North Arts District is the area along High Street, one of the city’s main streets, located “north of downtown Columbus and short of The Ohio State University campus.” In the early 1900s, arches were used to support streetcar lines giving Columbus the nickname ” the Arch City.” Today, 17 arches line High Street defining the boundaries of the Short North district. One of the original arches is still standing.

We checked out German Village, a neighborhood of tree-lined cobblestone streets with closely spaced, simple brick houses. It was first settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800s. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant at the edge of the neighborhood called Comune.

Comune describes itself as “plant-forward” serving vegetarian and vegan dishes. It was all very tasty. I didn’t think I had room for dessert, but I couldn’t resist the interesting options. So we ended up sharing an Apple Sorbet on almond cake with coconut whipped cream and basil. I would never think to use basil in a dessert, but it was so good.

Zanesville

Our second stop was in Zanesville in central Ohio. We had a resurgence of summer weather with temperatures reaching the 80s by mid afternoon every day we were there.

Zanesville was founded in 1800 by Ebenezer Zane, an early settler in Ohio who cleared a frontier road named Zane’s Trace. The city of nearly 25,000 was the capital of Ohio in the early 1800s.

Mission Oaks Garden

In 1988, a Zanesville couple bought a 1925 mansion with acres of property in a quiet neighborhood. They indulged their love of gardening and collecting interesting plants and slowly turned five acres of land into a series of gardens that was eventually opened to the public. Today a crew of volunteers maintain the Mission Oaks Garden.

Locks and Dam

The Muskingum River Navigation System was made up of 10 hand-operated locks constructed in 1837. The system of locks and dams enabled steam-powered ships to navigate upriver along the Ohio & Erie Canal that connected the Ohio River to Lake Erie.

We’ve been staying in Plain City, Ohio, a small town of about 4100, 24 miles northwest of Columbus. We chose this location so we could attend holiday services at a Columbus synagogue.

Interesting Things About Ohio

The name Ohio comes from the Iroquoian word for the region – Ohiyo – meaning “good river.”

There’s overwhelming archaeological evidence that the area was inhabited as early as 13,000 BCE by nomadic people, referred to as Paleo Indians, who were primarily hunters-gatherers.

Prior to the known native peoples, Ohio was home to Mound Builder societies. There is archaeological evidence that sophisticated civilizations developed throughout the area from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, about the same time the Egyptian pyramids were built. These organized cultures are referred to as Mound Builders for the extensively constructed earthworks they built. There is no record of their tribal names and cultures.

By the time European explorers arrived in the area in the mid 1600s, the Mound Builders had disappeared. The reason for their disappearance is unknown.

Artifacts of more than 1000 Mound Builder sites have been found in Ohio alone. The existing 70 intact Indian Mounds in Ohio are designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The region’s Indigenous people include the Lenape, Miami, Ottawa, Seneca and Wyandot tribes.

The first permanent non-native settlement in Ohio was established at Marietta, Ohio in 1788 by a group of New Englanders.

Considered the “Father of Ohio,” Massachusetts native Rufus Putnam convened a meeting of Revolutionary War veterans at a Boston tavern in 1787 to discuss how to spend their Continental Certificates which were used to pay the troops. The result was the establishment of the Ohio Company of Associates, a group of 48 New Englanders, with a plan to purchase a large tract of land in the newly designated Northwest Territory from the federal government.

In December, 1787 the first group of the Ohio Company of Associates left Ipswich, Massachusetts by oxcart with a vague idea of where they were headed.

The group arrived in the new territory in April, 1788 and named the area Marietta in honor of the French Queen Marie Antoinette.

Ohio was the first state to be carved from the Northwest Territory. It became the 17th member of the Union in 1803.

Known as the Buckeye State, Ohio gets its nickname from a common Ohio tree, the Buckeye Tree. The tree’s nut looks like a deer’s eye or buck’s eye.

Ohio has the second-largest Amish population in the country.

Ohio is known as the “Mother of Presidents.” Eight presidents were natives of Ohio:

• William Henry Harrison
• Ulysses S. Grant
• Rutherford B. Hayes
• James A. Garfield
• Benjamin Harrison
• William McKinley
• William Howard Taft
• Warren G. Harding

Ohio has also given us many celebrated Americans.

• Thomas Edison, inventor and businessman, his inventions included the light bulb and the phonograph.
• Orville and Wilbur Wright, considered the “Fathers of Aviation.”
• Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two high school students from Cleveland, created the Superman comic books.
• Jesse Owens, Olympic medal winner in track and field.
• Neil Armstrong, astronaut and first man to walk on the moon.
• Carl Stokes, mayor of Cleveland from 1968-71, the first Black mayor of a major U.S. city.
• Toni Morrison, novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1993.
• Steven Spielberg, award-winning director and screenwriter.
• Gloria Steinem, feminist journalist and social activist.
• John Legend, singer-songwriter, producer, and actor.
• LeBron James, one of the all-time best NBA players.
• Simone Biles, champion gymnast and Olympic medal winner.

Elkhart, Indiana is the mecca of the RV world. Besides being the location of the majority of RV manufacturers, it’s home to the RV Museum. It’s the reason we’re in Elkhart.

While planning our journey back home via D.C. (stopping to visit Tessa and Dan is a must), we realized Elkhart was on a logical route back to Rhode Island. It was as good a place as any to stop for a few days. And if you’re in Elkhart and you own an RV, why not go to the museum.

I didn’t have high expectations for the museum (an RV museum seemed silly) but it turned out to be fun. The museum covers over a hundred years of RV and mobile home history with 50+ vintage models on display. It was interesting to see the evolution from the early models, a few of them built by the owners, to today’s. The museum suggests that the “last frontier” for the RV industry is factory-built homes to be shipped to planets beyond Earth.

They had several park models on display – RVs designed for permanent placement (think mobile home parks.) I found them interesting mostly for the examples of mid-century furniture and decor.

Mobile homes can be a source of affordable housing, but they come with risks. To their credit, the museum was playing a TED talk by Esther Sullivan, Ph.D., explaining the disadvantages of mobile home ownership. Dr. Sullivan is a sociologist on the faculty of the University of Colorado/Denver who studies housing insecurity. https://youtu.be/gV8Cy8rIock?si=lG5mGnXIow7VyE5a

After our museum visit we got lunch at an Elkhart restaurant called The Chubby Trout Brewbarn and Eatery. They make their own craft beers.

We found another wonderful small art museum. The Midwest Museum of American Art is located in the renovated St. Joseph Valley Bank in downtown Elkhart. The Museum showcases American Art from the 19th through the 21st century. The bank vault is repurposed as an exhibition room for the museum’s collection of American Western paintings, photographs and Native American pottery.

The museum has a collection of 6,000 works with 900 pieces on display at any given time. Their exhibits included a roomful of Norman Rockwell prints, an exhibit of American Impressionism and a Pop Art exhibit that included 3 Andy Warhol works.

From the museum’s material: “If art is the reflection of the human experience, then it should follow that museums have examples of finely crafted works by society’s best storytellers.”

Their special exhibit was called “American Potraits: Identity, Persona, & Power.” The exhibit had 80 examples of American portraiture of varying styles, including self portraits.

We’ve made the turn east towards home, stopping in Elkhart, Indiana. Situated on the St. Joseph and Elkhart Rivers, tributaries of Lake Michigan, Elkhart has a population of 50,000. It’s the largest city in Elkhart County. It’s located 15 miles east of South Bend. It’s believed that the Elkhart River was named for the Shawnee Indian chief Elkhart, cousin of the famous Chief Tecumseh.

Elkhart and Indiana history

• Inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, the region is the ancestral home of several Indigenous nations, primarily the Miami, the Shawnee and the Potawatomi peoples.
• The Potawatomi called the now-named St. Joseph River “Sheggwe” meaning “happened spontaneously.” The River’s southern bend gives the city of South Bend its name.
• The St. Joseph River was discovered by French traders and documented as early as 1669. In the 1680s, Jesuit missionaries were granted land by the French crown and established the Mission Saint Joseph.
• In 1800, Congress passed legislation dividing the Northwest Territory into two areas; it named the western section the Indiana Territory – “The Land of the Indians.”
• Indiana became the 19th state in 1816.
• Over a period of fifteen years, with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 under Andrew Jackson, the region’s Indigenous nations were forcibly removed and sent to territories west of the Mississippi.
• Indiana was the first of the western states to mobilize troops for the Union Army.
• The home of Catharine and Levi Coffin, Quaker abolitionists, was known as the “Grand Central Station” of the Underground Railroad. Their house was located in Newport, Indiana (now named Fountain City) where three of the escape routes to the North converged. It’s believed that they assisted 2,000 enslaved people escape to freedom. The house is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
• In 1934, the first RV factory opened in Elkhart. Similar companies followed their lead. By 1949, Elkhart was dubbed the “RV Capital of the World.” 80% of the world’s RVs are manufactured in the region.
• Elkhart is the home of the RV Hall of Fame and Museum.
• The area is also known for its large Amish and Mennonite communities.
• Indianapolis is the hub for several major interstate highways that criss-cross Indiana, connecting the state to the rest of the country. The state motto is “The Crossroads of America.”

The Milwaukee Brewers were in town and there were plenty of seats available. We got tickets for Sunday’s game. They were playing the Washington Nationals.

The stadium caught our attention on the day we arrived in Milwaukee as we were driving on I-94, right by the ball park. The park has an eye-catching, fan-shaped retractable roof. It was originally named Miller Park then American Family Field when the Miller Brewing Company’s naming rights expired at the end of the 2020 season. American Family Insurance is a Madison-based insurance company. The ballpark has a seating capacity of 41,900.

A walk on the beach

Dinner at DanDan

Opened in 2016 by 2 friends, both named Dan, the restaurant is described as “chef-driven food with a Chinese soul and a Midwestern sensibility.” Dan and Dan both grew up eating Chinese food and love to cook it. Dandan is also the name of a noodle dish from the Sichuan region of China.

In my opinion you can’t come to Milwaukee and not check out the beer. So after services we made our way to one of the most popular beer halls in Milwaukee, the award-winning Lakefront Brewery. It’s located in the Beerline B neighborhood. The neighborhood is along a former industrial rail line.

Brothers Russ and Jim Klisch started home brewing beer as a hobby. As their hobby grew, they started a small brewery at the site of a former bakery. They sold barrels of their beer to local taverns within “rolling distance” of the brewery. Their business expanded and they needed more space. Their search for more space coincided with the city’s plan to tear down the former Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company’s coal-fired power plant on the Milwaukee River. Lakefront Brewery and Beer Hall opened in 2000.

The Lakefront Brewery and Beer Hall

The beer hall has an outdoor patio as well as a lower level patio on the Milwaukee RiverWalk. It was a very busy place.

After taking a drive to see Lake Michigan and Milwaukee’s waterfront we set out for dinner. We picked the Palomino Bar for its plant-based menu options. It’s an old school neighborhood bar on a corner in Bay View.

The Palomino Bar

We arrived in Milwaukee on Friday. This weekend is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Our main reason for stopping in Milwaukee was to celebrate the holiday at a local synagogue. I haven’t attended holiday services in person since 2019 so I was looking forward to it. We found a congregation we liked and they graciously welcomed us in. It was a lively, meaningful service.

It turns out that Milwaukee is a beautiful, vibrant, interesting city with lots to offer. We could easily spend a week here. My introduction to Milwaukee was driving into the city to get a haircut shortly after we arrived. The salon I had chosen is in the Bayview neighborhood. It reminded me of our neighborhood back home, only bigger and a little grittier. I now understand that the neighborhood was shaped by its early industrial roots.

Bay View was originally an independent village. In 1868, the Milwaukee Iron Company opened in the village. It manufactured rails for the railroad. Housing was built for the company’s employees turning Bay View into a company town. In 1887 Bay View residents petioned for annexation by the city of Milwaukee so that the village could receive public services, like sewers, street lights and sidewalks. Today, Bay View is considered one of the best neighborhoods to live in.

About Milwaukee

• With a population of 590,000, Milwaukee is Wisconsin’s largest city and one of the biggest cities in the Midwest.
• The area had been inhabited for more than 13,000 years before the first Europeans arrived. The first Europeans were French fur traders who claimed the territory for France.
• Several Indigenous groups lived in the area. The name Milwaukee comes from the Anishinaabemowin word “minowakiing,” meaning “good earth.”
• Milwaukee lies at the confluence of three rivers – the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic – where they empty into Lake Michigan.
• In the mid 1800s German immigrants flocked to Milwaukee, bringing their beer brewing skills with them. Today, 40.5% of Wisconsin residents identify as German-American.
• Milwaukee was one of the destinations of the Great Migration.

This extensive museum captures the history of Manitowoc on Lake Michigan and the entire Great Lakes region. It highlights the city’s history in World War II and the building of 28 submarines for the war effort. You can take a tour on the USS Cobia, a submarine docked in the Manitowoc River.

I was mostly interested in the special exhibit “Bringing Shipwrecks to Life.” It featured the work of Becky Schott and her company, Liquid Productions. Schott is a technical diver and underwater photographer. She’s won 5 Emmies for her underwater documentaries.

The Great Lakes have claimed thousands of ships. Each year a few new wrecks are discovered.

We checked out the city of Manitowoc on Tuesday – Two Rivers’ neighbor. It has a population of 35,000. MAN-i-tuh-wok – we had to ask a local how to pronounce it – comes from the Native American word “Mundeowk” meaning “home of the good spirit.” The receptionist at the art museum told us that, as an initiation rite, when new players join the Green Bay Packers they’re given a list of Wisconsin place names and asked to pronounce them. WIth names like Oconomowoc, Outagamie and Chetek that just seems cruel. By the way, they’re pronounced oh-CON-oh-moh-wok, ow-tah-GAY-mee and SHU-tek.

Manitowoc is known for its shipbuilding industry dating back to 1847. It was a major supplier of cargo ships, submarines and Landing Crafts, the vessels used to transport and land tanks at beach heads, during World War II.

The Manitowoc company Burger is recognized worldwide as a manufacturer of luxury super yachts (Logan Roy’s yacht probably came from Manitowoc. Actually, the yacht used in the TV show was built in Germany and belongs to a Saudi prince. I checked.) Burger was a pioneer in building steel yachts. It now builds primarily aluminum yachts.

We stopped at the first beach we came to. It was an in town beach, near a marina and by the YMCA, named YMCA beach. The beach is part of the bigger Red Arrow Beach Park.

After our stop at the beach, we visited the Rahr-West museum.

The Rahr-West Art Museum

A Queen Anne style 13-room Victorian mansion was built in 1893 and eventually purchased by the Rahr family. Reinhardt Rahr was a businessman who became Manitowoc’s youngest mayor in 1886. In 1941, his widow Clara donated the house to the city to be used for educational and civic purposes as a museum and civic center. It was named the Rahr Civic Center.

By the 70’s the Center had outgrown its space and faced closure. Art patrons John and Ruth West stepped in to save the Center. They purchased the building and oversaw the addition of an exhibition wing to the original house. In 1986, the John and Ruth West Foundation added additional gallery space for a rotating display of the museum’s permanent collection.

REALLY BIG PRINTS 5.0

The exhibit called “Really Big Prints” displayed the results of the Big Print printmaking event held every two years in Manitowoc. It’s a 5-day, large-scale street printmaking event hosted by a couple of Wisconsin printmakers and The Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers. Printmakers hand-carve images on large fiberboard panels, up to 4 by 6 feet in size, ink the panels and press the prints on fabric using a small steamroller. The steamroller acts as a printing press.

Being: a Recognition of Self and Other

This was a juried exhibition that allowed for a wide scope of artistic interpretation around issues of personal and social identity. The juror was Dr. Sam Watson, an art historian and full-time professor with the University of Wisconsin System. From the juror’s statement: “The theme “Being: A Recognition of Self and Other”, intentionally allows for a variety of responses. At the most fundamental level it asks the artist to ponder the age-old question, Who am I? “

We wrapped up our day at Casa Mexico in Two Rivers, serving delicious Mexican food.

Early history

• Wisconsin is the 30th state, admitted to the Union in 1848.
• The Wisconsin River – 430 miles long – flows north to south, starting in the northeastern corner of the state and emptying into the Mississippi River.
• It’s believed that the first European to see the Wisconsin was the explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634. He was searching for the Northwest Passage to China.
• Jacques Marquette, French missionary and explorer, referred to the river as “Meskousing” in his journals. The river was referred to as Meskousing by the native Algonquian-speaking tribes of the area. The name likely means “this stream meanders through something red.” Historians believe that “something red” refers to the red sandstone found in the region.
• A series of misspellings and mispronunciations of “Meskousing” eventually led to the spelling “Wisconsin.” The name was legally adopted in 1845.
• Green Bay is Wisconsin’s oldest city. Jean Nicolet established a trading post there in 1634.
• The region was first claimed by France as part of its territory in the New World. France ceded it to Great Britain in the Treaty of Paris. Then in 1783, Britain gave up its claim and it became part of the U.S. Northwest Territories.

Fun Facts

• Wisconsin is known as “The Badger State” not for the mean weasel, but for the transient miners who came to the area to mine for lead in the 1800s. The miners dug tunnels in search of lead ore and would live in abandoned mine shafts, reminding people of badgers.
• In 1957, four elementary-school kids petitioned the State to adopt the badger as the official state animal. The badger narrowly beat out the white-tailed deer for the honor.
• Ripon, Wisconsin is considered the birthplace of the Republican party. In 1854, a meeting was called by opposition members concerned about the expansion of slavery. The meeting was held in a little white schoolhouse, Ripon’s first public school. The idea of creating a new anti-slavery party was conceived and the Republican party was born.
• The Little White Schoolhouse is designated a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Registry of Historic Places.

• In 1881, Ed Berner’s ice cream parlor in Two Rivers began selling ice cream covered in chocolate sauce – but only on Sundays – and the ice-cream sundae was born. Ithaca, NY challenges that fact, claiming the Platt & Colt Pharmacy began serving an ice cream treat covered in cherry sauce with a cherry on top, also in 1881. An example of the 100th-monkey-effect?

For info on the 100th-monkey-effect: https://99thmonkey.com.au/blogs/news/the-story-of-the-100th-monkey

• The first jukebox was invented and built in Whitewater, Wisconsin in 1889 by Louis Glass and William S. Arnold.
• In 1903, William Harley and the Davidson brothers (Walter and Arthur) built their first motorcycle in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in a wooden shed in the Davidson’s backyard.
• In 1952, Les Paul, the jazz guitarist and native of Waukesha, Wisconsin, partnered with Gibson Guitars to create the modern electric guitar.
• The Sputnik satellite crashed in a farm field near Manitowoc, Wisconsin in 1962. A piece of space junk is displayed at the Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc. The piece crashed outside the museum’s building.
• Wisconsin is the #1 producer of cheese in the U.S.
• Wisconsin produces all of the ginseng grown in the U.S. which accounts for roughly 10% of the world’s supply.
• The first American Girl doll was created in Middleton, Wisconsin in 1986. The idea for the dolls was conceived by Pleasant Rowland, an educator and text book writer, following a visit to Colonial Williamsburg. She imagined educational dolls with backstories as a way to inspire kids to learn about history through story-telling and play.

On Tuesday we took a bike ride on the Rawley Point Trail which was accessible from the campground. The trail is hard-packed limestone that travels from Two Rivers to Point Beach State Forest. We didn’t make it to the beach but we did ride through forest, past wetlands and behind a residential neighborhood.

We’ve started our turn towards home. First south through Wisconsin, then turning east in Illinois. For the next few days we’re staying in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, 38 miles southeast of the city of Green Bay and near the Door Peninsula. The peninsula is 80 miles long and separates the southern part of the bay of Green Bay from Lake Michigan.

The peninsula likely got its name from the French who named the very narrow strait that cut through the peninsula connecting Lake Michigan and Green Bay, Porte des Mortes – Death’s Door. The turbulent waters, underground rocks and unpredictable weather claimed the lives of many Native Americans and early settlers crossing the strait. The strait was so dangerous that a canal was cut through at Sturgeon Bay in 1881.

Two Rivers, population 10,000, sits at the confluence of the East Twin River and the West Twin River, both tributaries of Lake Michigan. The rivers, originally referred to as the Mishicott and the Neshoto rivers, have been called the Twin Rivers since the 1800s. Several years ago the Two Rivers City Council denied a petition submitted by a local community group to officially rename the rivers back to their original names.

We’ve left Lake Superior and now we get to enjoy Lake Michigan, not quite as majestic, but still impressive. After running a couple of errands, we set out to see the “Spirit of the Rivers” a bronze sculpture set on the Mariners Trail. The paved trail follows the Lake Michigan shore between Two Rivers and the nearby city of Manitowoc. The trail has several “waysides”, little parks with cultivated flower gardens, sculptures, interpretive panels and some with access to the shore.

Saturday was our last day on Lake Superior. We’re moving onto our next stop: Two Rivers, Wisconsin on Lake Michigan. I’m sad to be leaving. I read someone refer to the “wild beauty” of Lake Superior and thought it was an apt description.

Falling Rock Café and Bookstore

It was a wonderful last day. The sun was out, the sky was cloudless and there was a gentle breeze. We started the day at the Falling Rock Café and Bookstore where they were having lunchtime live music. The Bayou Chocolat Cajun Band was playing, of course, cajun music. I pulled out a $20 dollar bill to put in the band’s tip jar. When Michael questioned the amount, I told him the band members looked like they could use the supplement to their Social Security.

Besides the opportunity to listen to live music, I wanted to try the smoked whitefish. I had read about their whitefish on a bagel and really wanted to try it. It’s what led us to the café bookstore in the first place. But they had run out of it the first time we were there and I settled for avocado toast, which was good, but I wanted that whitefish. I knew I had to go back.

Lake whitefish is native to the Great Lakes. Over a million pounds of whitefish are harvested from Lake Superior each year. The Café gets its fish from a local 5th-generation family run fishery. At one time there were 1800 commercial fisheries operating in the Great Lakes. Now there are only 13.

After lunch and the concert, there was one more trail and one more waterfall we wanted to checkout.

Sand Point Marsh Trail

The Marsh Trail is a half-mile interpretive trail loop that leads you through a beautiful wetland area. The start of the trail is paved, then switches to a wooden boardwalk that crosses a rich variety of wetland habitat – forested swamps, a wet meadow, a canopy of white cedar, a cattail swamp and a shrub swamp.

The first interpretive panel tells us that wetlands are supported by a patchwork of diverse wetland plant and animal communities.

The final interpretive panel, ‘ Legacy Of The Marsh’, was a reminder of the importance of wetlands.

“Somewhere today, a wetland is being lost to a drainage project, housing development, or the construction of a parking lot. Wetlands are important for many reasons. Wetland communities filter, purify, and slowly release surface water. They help control flood waters and protect water quality by recharging groundwater. They provide critical habitat to many plant and animal species. We must place a higher value on wetlands and the natural processes that maintain them.”

Scott Falls Roadside Park

Across the road from the roadside park was this pretty waterfall.

Michael took a video of the falls.

The sun reappeared after a couple of days of gray skies and occasional rain. It was a good day to track down waterfalls.

There are seven waterfalls in the Park alone and many more in the Upper Peninsula. A couple of them are only visible from the water. Spray Falls was on our boat tour route, but sadly it was only a trickle, as far as waterfalls go. Spring is the best time to see waterfalls when they’re fed by the thawing snow.

A few of the falls require a hike to see. But fortunately for me there are a few that are fairly accessible. So we set out to take a look.

Wagner Falls

In 1895, Tillie Wagner took out a homestead on forty acres that included a stream and waterfall. She vacationed on the site with family and friends. The Wagner family deeded the site as public land in 1935. The Wagner Falls Scenic Site was later designated a Natural Area under Michigan’s Wilderness and Natural Areas Act for the public to enjoy. These falls are state owned and not part of the National Lakeshore.

Munising Falls

Munising Falls was once the site of The Schoolcraft Blast Furnace. Founded in 1868, it manufactured pig iron and employed almost half the town’s population of 1000. Its steam engines were powered by water from Munising Creek. The furnace closed in 1887 when the supply of ore ran out. Forest has reclaimed the site creating new habitat for wildlife. The Falls are now part of the National Lakeshore.

Miners Castle

Miners Castle is one of the most famous rock formations along the Pictured Rocks shoreline. It’s the only cliff area in the park accessible by car. It’s an easy walk to the viewing platform. We got a much better view from the tour boat.

It was named in 1771 when the rock formation was discovered by workers searching for minerals in the area. Apparently it was a much more distinctive shape before a rockfall in 2006 washed one of its turrets into the lake. It’s still impressive.

Miners Beach

Miners Beach, at nearly a mile long, is the Park’s longest beach. It’s a mostly sandy beach with some rock outcroppings. You can get an up-close look at the cliff walls. And you have a panoramic view of Lake Superior as it stretches out in front of you. There was hardly anyone there, so it felt like we had the stretch of beach to ourselves. It felt magical. I didn’t want to leave.

Chasing waterfalls can make you hungry. So we picked up lunch at the Miners Pasties Kitchen. Pasties (PASS-tees) is a popular hand-held pie in the U.P. It was the common lunchbox meal of immigrants from Cornwall, a mining region in England. They consisted of last night’s leftovers, wrapped in dough and crimped along one side. It could be eaten with one hand.

Michael got a vegan pasty, loaded with root vegetables, and I got the chicken. It had chunks of roast chicken and vegetables. It tasted like a pot pie you can hold in your hands. I’m not sure about the one-handed eating, because I definitely needed 2 hands and a few napkins.

We took our lunch to the park near the dock. We had eaten our brown bag lunch there after the boat tour.

We get a distant glimpse of Grand Island from our campground.

If you were in charge of drawing state boundaries, which state would you give the land mass called the Upper Peninsula to – Michigan or Wisconsin? Given that the UP is a land extension of Wisconsin and doesn’t even touch the lower peninsula of Michigan you would think it was part of Wisconsin. But the evolution of States was sometimes messy.

The newly established United States of America consisted of 13 states and some territories. The map that was used in drawing boundaries was a map created in the 1750s called the Mitchell Map. The problem was that the Mitchell Map had inaccuracies, one of them being the position of the Great Lakes. This created problems when Michigan applied for statehood. Ohio, already a state since 1803, had claimed the Toledo region.

When Michigan applied for state hood it laid claim to the strip of land called the Toledo Strip based on the results of their own surveyors. When Ohio objected, the Jackson administration stepped in and brokered a compromise; Ohio would keep Toledo and Michigan would get the Upper Peninsula. In 1837, Michigan officially became the 26th state in the Union with a piece of land that’s actually connected to Wisconsin. Michigan is the only state made up of 2 peninsulas.

Wisconsin didn’t become a state until 1848, so it had no say in what happened to its eastern peninsula. I wonder how they feel about it today?