Thursday, July 02, 2009

Day 3 - Rainy Day in Paris

The 29th of June started in Birch Run, Michigan.

Okay, this time it was raining in Paris, Michigan, we will get to that in a minute. Once again we started the day on the treadmills and then went shopping. Our hotel had given us a discount book to the Outlet mall and we needed some stuff that was on sale so we stopped. Afterwards we found Big Boy and because we don’t have one at our house we stopped and had a great lunch.
The next stop was added to our trip due to the Roadside Attractions website. It seems that back in the 30’s the WPA had some people working in the area of Paris, Michigan. When they left their old bed frames were left stacked in storage. In the 80’s as a high school welding project the bed frames were turned into a small scale replica of the Eifel tower and set near a fish hatchery.
Also near the hatchery is a stone carving of an Indian that was done by one of the WPA men in the 30’s.
The hatchery has different pools for the growing fish. By the way FabHub says they are trout. We used a well spent quarter to get the fish to jump for some food. The big ones looked kind of dangerous. This one seems to be all mouth.
Unless they were just swimming around waiting for food to appear.
The little ones went absolutely nuts after the food.
The rest of the day was spent driving over to Ludington where we would be catching the car ferry in the morning. Along the way we found this deer. He made it!
The other thing we saw as we drove across the middle of Michigan is that they have a lot of the same problems that we have in WV. If you have ever seen an area that just needs a little effort to be cleaned up and provide a little bit of pride in the owner, it would resemble what we saw on this road. There is really no excuse for that kind of mess. Rich or poor it doesn't matter.

Upon arriving in Ludington we got our room situated and then took off in the rainy evening to see Lake Michigan. No pictures of FabHub’s best side on the shore, he wouldn’t get out of the car, but plenty of gulls looking like they were grounded from flight due to the weather.
And the North Breakwater Lighthouse, which was built in 1924. If it looks a bit crooked, that is because it is. When the support settled a few years ago the inspection said it was not worth repairing since it was essentially safe.While driving around after dinner (at Hamlin’s it was delicious) we found the ship that we would be riding in the morning. The SS Badger was unloading the cars and passengers that had just arrived.
Can you tell we are really excited about this ferry trip! Well, we are.

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