Up early, well earlier than yesterday to get down the road a bit for breakfast in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan (Go Big Blue). Lots of green trees and hills, lakes, rivers and a nice college town downtown. We found a place called Cafe Zola that served a great breakfast. Crepes, Belgian waffles, french toast and more, it was a great start to our day. After breakfast we drove around the U of M campus and then headed for our next tourist destination.
After being in the ruins of Detroit we thought we would take a step up and go to Hell, Hell Michigan that is
. Yes there really is a town with a post office called "Hell". Really it is nothing more than a couple stores that capitalize on the towns name. Once you have been to Hell you have all sorts of phrases you can honestly say. "I've been to Hell and back" or "This place is better than Hell". Truly it is a bit of a tourist trap, but we slipped out without buying a thing.
As we drove on across Michigan we saw numerous lakes, continuous green grass and trees with fields of corn and soybeans mixed throughout. We drove some state highways and also on I-94. Our next destination is a bit north of Kalamazoo on some country roads.
We arrived at the Gilmore Car Museum, considered to be one of the top five car museums in the US. It certainly deserves that recognition. Spread over beautiful green grass are several barns and historic buildings. Some buildings house a single historic car brand such as Franklin, Tucker, Ford Model A, Pierce-Arrow, Cadillac and more
. The main building has a mix of beautiful collector cars including hot rods, fifties, Corvettes, Hudsons, and more. I could bore you if I shared all the pictures that Jack and I took of the cars. I have included a few highlights. If you are a car fan this is a great destination to visit. You could spend a full day reading about all of the cars.
We now set the GPS for Indiana with a drive through on the way of Niles Michigan. Niles is where my sister was born. I just wanted to see if anyone remembers her. Niles is a cute town on the St. Joseph river that boarders Indiana. We drove south into Indiana and found a coal fired pizza place for dinner. The food was fresh, fast and tasted pretty good too. Time for something sweet, according to Yelp the ice cream to eat was at Kilwin's, right next to Notre Dame University. Yelp was right! I had a scoop of Georgia Peach and a scoop of Blueberry Waffle Cone. It was delicious.
After spending most of the day in the car and just eating two scoops of ice cream we needed a walk and Notre Dame is a great place for a walk. The campus is amazing. Looks like Oxford or Harvard, but neat, clean and well maintained. The buildings look very old but are new or renovated to look like old English architecture. We enjoyed the walk around as we read up on facts about the school. Tuition is over $45,000 per year, 80% of the 11,000 students live on campus, the school has a $6 billion endowment, along with academic excellence they are known for the sports teams. Go Fighting Irish!
By now it is about 8pm so we head to our hotel to get a little R&R before we head for Chicago tomorrow. Good night.
Crossing Michigan
Sunday, August 04, 2013
South Bend, Indiana, United States
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2025-02-15
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Michelle Riggs
2013-08-05
Looks like a fun day! Enjoy Chi town! The waterfront, Navy Pier , museums, and Sears Tower are all worth the time and travel. The night time water taxi is beautiful or the river boat tours are interesting.
Sharon Ammon
2013-08-05
Pawating Gen Hosp. didn't look like that when K. was born. Yes, would love to be tagging aong you are a great tour guide. Enjoy Chicago is a fun place as well.