Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone, this is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:08] Today I'm going to be sharing a story about Craig and I traveling around northern Michigan looking at lighthouses. I know it sounds kind of boring, but there's a message there.
[00:00:23] So we moved back to Michigan. As most of you are aware of, Craig came back in 2007, and then I moved back here into the summer of 2008, wanting to get the girls finished through their school year.
[00:00:39] He had never really lived outside of New England and New York State, so. And most of his adult life had really been in New England since he was a sophomore in high school. He lived in Vermont and then he lived in Maine.
[00:01:00] So he and his family, still immediate family, still lives in upstate New York.
[00:01:07] So they're not really a family that likes to travel and they're not really much of a risk taking family.
[00:01:17] And here he married me.
[00:01:19] He always defines me. And him said, don, take a tree. A tree that's got a lot of branches. Let's say the tree is in the front yard of our, our house.
[00:01:31] See how many branches there are on that tree? And I'll go, yeah. And he says, okay, you go, let's go climb a tree.
[00:01:41] And you start up the tree and you walk off the first branch and the branch breaks and you jump down.
[00:01:48] Then you go right back up the tree again and you go to the next branch and either it'll break or it'll, it'll stay. But then you'll walk back and then you'll climb up to another branch. That's how you are.
[00:02:02] You don't care if the branch breaks or not. You're a risk taker. Me, I climb up the tree, I put my toe on the branch, I push it down a little.
[00:02:15] I want to make sure that branch is going to hold me, but not you. You really don't care.
[00:02:22] So that pretty much defines how both of us have lived our lives.
[00:02:28] I'm always hauling him along and he's always trying to hold me back and keep me steady.
[00:02:36] So I was excited to bring him back to Michigan because I'm like, you have no idea what a great start state Michigan is. There is so much to do back there. I am looking forward to it.
[00:02:49] So he was like, okay, last week, what do we got to lose? Your family's back there. We lived away all this time.
[00:02:57] I think it's a good plan. Let's. Let's go back and I'll check out Michigan with you. You can show me what I'VE been able to show you in New England. So I'm like, okay, well, one of the first things I was telling him about were the lighthouses in Michigan, which completely shocked him that Michigan had so many lighthouses. Why would you be shocked about that?
[00:03:24] Michigan is completely surrounded by water. He goes, yeah, but they're lakes.
[00:03:30] Yeah, it's true, they are lakes, but people were still traveling back then. That's how they got carved cars, cargo to different places.
[00:03:42] The. The coast is rocky, just like in Maine. It's. It's a completely different thing in that it's not ocean based, but there's still water, there's still danger, there's still rocks. And so we needed a lot of lighthouses built. And really most of them were built in the middle 1800s to early 1900s.
[00:04:08] And so there's still a lot of them out there. And they've become national parks in Michigan. He's like, oh, wow, I had no idea.
[00:04:19] So we decided that we were going to start visiting some of the lighthouses up north.
[00:04:28] And it was a weekend.
[00:04:31] He wanted to go camping. That was the other thing. I really got him into camping once we got back here.
[00:04:38] And so he's always excited about going camping. He likes to be outdoors as much as me, Although he's the one that's going to bring the Coleman lantern and the Coleman stove. And I'm like, just use the fire.
[00:04:53] Right?
[00:04:54] You can see where these differences are coming in. Right.
[00:04:58] So we started camping and we were really enjoying it.
[00:05:05] Well, we had had a long winter.
[00:05:08] This is a couple years ago, a very long winter. I think that was the year of the polar vortex.
[00:05:15] It felt like we lived through Covid then we lived through the polar vortex. It was just too much all the time.
[00:05:23] And one Sunday.
[00:05:28] No, I think it was a Saturday. Had to be a Saturday. He says to me, what would you think about driving up north and just going to check out a couple lighthouses? We can bring the camping gear, and if we feel like staying overnight, we can do that.
[00:05:42] I'm like, okay, it would be good. It would be really good to get out of here. It's just been tedious, so to speak, and. And I could use a day at the lighthouses up there.
[00:05:55] So he's like, okay, well, we'll start over by Pentwater and we'll go up that way on that coast by the Sleeping Bear Dunes, and there's a couple of lighthouses over there that we can check out and it'll be fun. So I was excited.
[00:06:16] We'll get everything packed up in the car, and we're getting ready to head out.
[00:06:22] And we get over to the shoreline, which is probably about an hour maybe, or a little less than that from our house, and we notice that clouds are starting to come in. I'm thinking, oh, man, of course I'm gonna be grumpy about that. He's like, we don't care. We're gonna be going in the lighthouses. What difference is it gonna make?
[00:06:47] I'm like, yeah, you're right. You got a point.
[00:06:50] Most of the lighthouses, of course, if they're big enough, let you come into the lighthouse. And there's always a historical area.
[00:06:58] Area where you can read all about the lighthouse when it was completed, when they closed it down.
[00:07:08] And some of them are still working, but a lot of them aren't because they don't. They aren't shipping like they used to. We have different ways of carrying freight now.
[00:07:18] So he. I'm like, yeah, and we'll learn a lot of history. I love history.
[00:07:24] So I'm like, okay, I think you're right. Let's just keep going.
[00:07:29] So we get up there, and the very first one we stopped at is called Robert Manning Memorial Lighthouse. It's in Empire, Michigan. And it's actually the smallest lighthouse. You can't even go into it. It's just like a pillar standing tall all by itself. And Empire is just the cutest little town. And of course, the beach area is absolutely beautiful, very well maintained.
[00:07:58] It's. It was built in 1850, 1865. So that's actually later than most of the other ones were built in the 1850s.
[00:08:12] It's surrounded by the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
[00:08:18] And it was named after the schooner Empire. So that's the reason why they named it Empire.
[00:08:25] And it was really fun. It was fun to go there and just see that there actually are just small little lighthouses. I don't know. I always think of them being big.
[00:08:37] Maine had a lot of lighthouses, and so that's my experiences with lighthouses, really. I hadn't really gone until I started taking Craig to see the lighthouses in Michigan and in Maine. We had been to many lighthouses. Matter of fact, we lived on Cape Elizabeth, and we lived where there were two lighthouses.
[00:09:02] So that was great. And when we got married, we. We went on our honeymoon. Of course, we went camping. No shock there, but we went all the way up to northern Maine, and we actually went to West Quaddy Head.
[00:09:17] And that is an incredible place. If any of you ever get to Maine and you want to do something. West Quaddy head lighthouse and state park is phenomenal. We also went over to Campobello island, where Theodore Roosevelt had a summer home, and we camped on the beach there. And there was a lighthouse there. I don't know. Can't remember what the name of that one was, but that was incredible, too.
[00:09:45] So we did a lot of lighthouse viewing in Maine. Then you get back to Michigan, and it's a kind of a completely different thing. Like, I never one time saw just a single pillar lighthouse like the one in Empire.
[00:10:02] But the coastline in Maine is a lot more treacherous than the lakeshore in Michigan.
[00:10:10] So the next one we decided to go to, since we're in the sleeping bear dune area, is Point Betsy. Now, that's a big lighthouse, and it's got a big visitor center. So there's a big museum in there, and you can walk all around it. Of course, most of them let you actually walk right up to the light.
[00:10:30] Empire, you couldn't go in at all. But Point Betsy, you could go in up to the light, and you could see the shoreline.
[00:10:38] And they were selling things like Petoskey stones and all the usual tourist attraction kind of things.
[00:10:48] And you could actually walk along the beach there, too.
[00:10:53] So Craig wanted to go outside. Well, by now it's starting to rain. It's raining quite a bit. It's raining hard. It's sandy, dirty.
[00:11:05] I've got my American eagle like, canvas jacket on, and I'm not staying dry in that thing. But it did have a hood, but I didn't mind.
[00:11:19] We're just gonna go outside. It's not gonna be a problem.
[00:11:22] You know, maybe the water was rocky because it was raining. So I thought maybe it'll kick up some petoskey stone. So we just went outside and explored the whole area. It had been closed during COVID and had just recently reopened.
[00:11:42] So we were checking everything out and getting a lot of good information from that place. And it was. It was exciting.
[00:11:52] So the next lighthouse, of course, we drove by Ludington's lighthouse there, and that's right on the beach. We've been there a couple of times. You can go on the beach and then you can walk right out to the lighthouse. And there's no.
[00:12:08] That's still a working lighthouse. There's no history there because it's still working.
[00:12:15] And it's kind of like the one in Grand Haven, too. Grand Haven has a lighthouse, and you can walk right out the bridge to that lighthouse, but there's no museum or anything. Like that there's.
[00:12:30] So we were, we're in going towards Traverse City now and so we decided to stop at the Grand Traverse Lighthouse. And that's probably one of the most popular lighthouses in Northern Michigan.
[00:12:47] The lower Northern Michigan I should say, not upper Michigan. And it's beautiful. It is beautiful. It's like a big old fashioned house.
[00:12:59] It was built in the, in 1858 and it's, it's just fantastic. The shoreline is unbelievable there and it has like a little strip of land that you can walk way out on when the, when the tide is out. So you can actually walk way out in the water and not get wet and look all around. And it's fantastic. And the history of it, it's so well maintained. It's with a state campground and it's just, it's, it is really breathtaking.
[00:13:38] But still raining, raining, raining, raining. Now it's raining quite a bit. It's not just a mist anymore. At Point Betsy it was kind of just a mist.
[00:13:49] Now it's really raining and I'm, I'm miserable.
[00:13:53] I'm wet.
[00:13:55] My shoes are a muddy mess.
[00:13:58] I have curly hair. It's not really curly. I would say it's wavy, but when it gets wet it's frizzy. It's a frizzy mess.
[00:14:07] So my hair was a frizzy mess. I kept trying to keep the hood of the canvas jacket up, but it would flap back down.
[00:14:15] I wasn't paying too much attention to it because I'm like, oh, who cares? We'll go home, take a shower. We're definitely not camping. I had had this whole entire discuss my own mind without saying it verbally. Okay, it's nothing. We'll go home, I'll take a hot shower. I'll be fine.
[00:14:37] So we made, we get through Mission or Traverse City Lighthouse and Craig's heading towards Traverse City. I go, where, where are we going? What are we going to go home now? I mean, the weather's so bad. He goes, no.
[00:14:53] You know, you've talked about so many times going to Stella's restaurant. And I think we should try to go. I'm like, huh?
[00:15:04] No, you are not dragging me into Stella's restaurant. For all of you who don't know Stella's, Stella's was an old insane asylum and the building is still exists, but they broke up a lot of the, the rooms and everything. And like there's a whole shopping area in there and then there's this fantastic restaurant. I was lucky enough to go there with a bunch of my high school girlfriends when we had rented a house up in Traverse City for a long weekend and we all went to dinner there.
[00:15:49] The food is absolutely fantastic, but it's kind of a fancy restaurant. I mean, it's a high end restaurant.
[00:16:00] And here I am, my. I am like a drippy, muddy mess. I actually think I actually. I had mud on my face, okay, Because I was trying to clean my shoes off, and then I bring it up to my face and so now I have mud on my face, my hair sticking straight out my clothes. Are we.
[00:16:21] I go, we are not going to Stella's. No way in hell are you trying to drag me into Stella's. Number one and number two, they require a reservation.
[00:16:32] He goes, well, let me just call him. I'm thinking, oh, dear God, this is not happening. This cannot be happening.
[00:16:38] He calls Stella's and he says, do you have any openings available?
[00:16:45] And the lady says, you are in luck. Somebody just canceled and we have a table for 6:30. I'm thinking, no, no, no. I mean, the last time I went there with my friends, I was in a dress.
[00:17:03] Now I'm in a muddy mess and my hair is sticking straight up. Even if I brushed it, it wasn't going to matter. Trust me, I've lived with this hair all my life.
[00:17:16] He said, I'll take the reservation. I'm like, oh, my God, I'm going to have to murder you tonight.
[00:17:22] It's going to happen. He said, we're going to go. We're never going to get this opportunity again. Why did that person cancel? It was meant to be. We're going.
[00:17:34] So there was silence in the car for quite a while on the way to that restaurant. I kept trying to think of a way that I could get out of going to that restaurant. But his mind was made up because I had raved about it from the last time and I still talk about it periodically. I love the restaurant. I have nothing bad to say about it.
[00:17:56] So he's like, you know, they have a bathroom in there. You can go in and freshen up a little bit. It'll be fine.
[00:18:05] We're there for the food. We're not for there. They're going there for people to look at us. Believe me, there's so many people in there, they're not going to care what you look like. I go, no, they don't care what I look like. I care what I look like. I don't really care what other people think. I care how I feel. I feel like a slimy, muddy mess. That's been walking outdoors in the rain all day, stepping in mud puddles, digging up rocks on the beach.
[00:18:34] Even my fingernails are a mess. He says, you're going to be fine. Go in the bathroom and freshen up when we get there.
[00:18:42] So I'm like, whatever. It is what it is. Dawn. This will be one of those for the books. Just go along with them, get this over with. You'll eat a good meal. You're tired anyway.
[00:18:56] Just get it done and go home.
[00:18:58] So I'm like, okay.
[00:19:01] I'm resigned to the fact now that there's no talking him out of this, he's made up his mind. And actually, he's basically telling me I'm ridiculous. I don't feel that way, though.
[00:19:13] And for all you women out there, I hope you're supporting me during this conversation.
[00:19:18] So, anyhow, we get to Stella's, we park the car, we go in. Still raining. I've got my hood up. I get in there, and she sets us at her table. And I said, excuse me, I'm gonna go to the restroom. I'll be right back.
[00:19:34] Well, I get in the bathroom, and the first thing I do is go over to the mirror and look at myself. And I was completely horrified.
[00:19:42] I am not gonna lie. I'm like, oh, my God, I have mud on my face. My hair is sticking straight up. I've got mud on my jacket. My shoes are a filthy mess. I'm wet.
[00:19:59] Just let me get through this meal. God, please just let me get through this meal.
[00:20:05] So I wash my face, I wash my hands, try to get my fingernails kind of clean anyway.
[00:20:12] And there was nothing I could do about my hair. And the worst part is, I didn't even have a brush, a comb. I had nothing with me, which isn't unusual.
[00:20:23] I usually carry a purse, but hardly ever do I even have a comb or brush in there. I know this just goes with my crazy personality.
[00:20:33] I'm, like, trying to flip my head over and shake it out and kind of try to dry it out a little bit so I at least look like I'm a normal human being.
[00:20:45] And I make it out there.
[00:20:47] I sit back down, and he's just beaming. He's so proud of himself that he got this table at Stella's and we're finally going to get this delicious meal at Stella's. And he just thinks that I should be so happy. I look across the table at him and I go, really? I would like to throttle you one.
[00:21:10] If I could, I would punch you right now. I'm so angry at you for bringing me into this restaurant looking like this.
[00:21:21] I just don't get why you think it's okay.
[00:21:25] And he flashed me the biggest smile, and he looked at me, and he goes, it's so funny how you look at yourself, because right now, when I look at you across the table, I see a gorgeous Tina Turner smiling back at me.
[00:21:51] Obviously, you have lost your mind now.
[00:21:54] What are you talking about?
[00:21:57] He's like, you look just like Tina Turner. Your hair's all sticking up like Tina Turner, and you've got the same amount of energy that Tina. Tina Turner has. Believe me, this is a compliment. I love Tina Turner.
[00:22:11] At that moment in my life, I said, I guess I married the right person.
[00:22:17] Somebody who actually appreciates who I am, no matter how awful I look. He finds something positive to say.
[00:22:30] And with that, we ordered the special, we ordered the wine, we ordered dessert, and we had the most fabulous time at Stella's.
[00:22:44] We really had a good time seeing the lighthouses, learning the history, and we topped it off with a good meal.
[00:22:53] How much better could that.
[00:23:00] Thank you for listening to my podcast today.
[00:23:03] I hope you enjoyed it.
[00:23:09] You really can make lemonade out of lemons.
[00:23:16] Until the next time.
