ShareThisMichigan's reeling auto industry seems to get all the press, but there are riches to explore beyond the gloomy headlines in this tourist treasure trove: a land of history, a place of picturesque coastal towns and lighthouses, and museums that rival any in the world.
The state, for example, is dotted with forgotten landmarks left by Southern slaves as they fled toward freedom in the North. Southern Michigan housed important depots along the Underground Railroad as escapees sought liberation in Canada, which beckoned just across the Detroit River.
We can spotlight but a few of the places worth checking out in the Wolverine State.
There's the Art Deco city of Detroit with its multicolored Eastern Market; Battle Creek -- the city that cereal built; historic towns like Schoolcraft and St. Joseph, and small burgs where you can unearth rare antiques.
Kalamazoo is famous for more than Glenn Miller's "freckle-faced gal." It hosts one of the country's most innovative museums.
The Air Zoo offers most everything that ever defied gravity. It's both interactive and a magnet for kids. Here you can run a bombing mission over Germany in a B-17, or take a balloon ride, touch down on an aircraft carrier in flight simulators, get a 3-D look at the International Space Station and experience the pull of lunar gravity in the Lunar Leap.
On display are such aircraft as the Cobra helicopter and the SR-71 Blackbird spy plane, which was so ingeniously designed that it was never detected on radar.
Great restaurants in Kalamazoo include Zazio's (where you can watch chef John Korycki prepare your five-course meal), Bravo Restaurant and Cafe, and Fieldstone Grill. Kalamazoo also boasts a car museum, a nature center and four wineries.
Ten miles south of Kalamazoo is the tiny town of Schoolcraft, where the home of Dr. Nathan Thomas still welcomes visitors as it did in the mid-1840s when fugitive slaves made their way north via the Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad wasn't really a railroad and wasn't underground, but Thomas, a Quaker who fervently opposed slavery, provided aid to the escapees, as did other abolitionists who offered "safe" houses along the way.
Advance notice was virtually impossible, so the Thomases never knew when "guests" would arrive in the shelter for the night. Thomas and his family would feed, clothe and offer the fleeing slaves a place to sleep before they headed for the next "depot." An estimated 1,500 people passed through the Thomas confines.
East of Kalamazoo sits Battle Creek, home of three cereal companies -- Kellogg's, Ralston Purina and Post. It was here that John Harvey Kellogg founded his famous whole-body sanitarium and, with his brother, invented corn flakes.
You can visit the John Harvey Kellogg Discovery Center and see some of his "health" innovations, like the foot vibrator, the chamber of lights and the mechanical horse -- contrived to boost the flimsiest constitution.
Battle Creek hosts the largest balloon festival in the nation and has a water park, zoo and car museum. The Kimball House Museum displays artifacts from ex-slave and lecturer Sojourner Truth, who lived here the last 26 years of her life.
While in Battle Creek you might want to visit Arcadia Brewing Co., one of 70 breweries in the state. Specializing in Old World British-style ales, Arcadia imports malt from the U.K. and also serves delicious food.
West of Kalamazoo sits the resort town of St. Joseph, with a Georges Seurat shoreline and bluff overlooking the fine-grained stretch of beaches and the historic North Pier inner and outer lighthouse stations.
The North Pier lighthouse was one of the first erected in Michigan, built in 1832, but rebuilt several times and still used today to guide ships through the sometimes tumultuous waters of Lake Michigan.
You can amble along the brick streets, visiting small boutiques and art galleries, including the shop Form, which features the creative ceramic designs of Bret Bortner.
The town hosts several great festivals, including Blossomtime, a weeklong party celebrating the area orchards in May; "Antiques on the Bluff" on the first Sunday of the month from May to October; the Venetian Festival in July; and the Reindog Parade in December.
Trekking on to Monroe on Lake Erie, you'll find the site of a major battle in the War of 1812. Here, the Americans and the British fought for control of the Great Lakes region. We lost the battle but not the war. Visit the Fort River Raisin Battlefield with its memorabilia as well as the Monroe County Historical Museum with its Gen. George Armstrong Custer exhibit. Custer has been claimed by Monroe because he married a local girl.
It's a straight shot from Monroe to Detroit, a bustling city overlooked by most tourists.
Don't miss the Eastern Market. The five historic sheds are open all year with more than 125 vendors -- seven blocks of everything from cheese to antiques.
Butcher's Inn, once a brothel, is a great place for breakfast before you market. But you don't want to miss Roma Cafe, on the northern edge of the Market. This is the city's oldest restaurant serving authentic Italian food.
There are other fabulous places to eat in the area. Just 12 miles north of the city center is Beans & Cornbread, located in a strip mall in the suburb of Southfield. This is soul food to die for -- and you can tell that's a shared opinion by the lines that queue up at the door.
Detroit marked the end of the line in the United States for slaves seeking freedom in Canada. The First Congregational Church on Woodward once hid refugees before they made their way across the water to Windsor, Ontario. Today the church holds Underground Railroad flight-to-freedom tours where you become a player in the drama.
If you don't do anything else while you're here, you must visit The Henry Ford in nearby Dearborn. "The Henry Ford" sounds like a strange title, but it's one of the most fascinating attractions in the nation, nothing you can explore in one day.
It consists of the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village, as well as the Ford Rouge Factory Tour, an IMAX theater and the Benson Ford Research Center, which shelters more than 25 million rare documents.
All this was started by Ford himself, who made part of his life's work collecting items of Americana -- anything that displayed the Yankee innovative spirit. He stationed agents all over the United States to sniff out and ship back this memorabilia.
Greenfield's 90 acres include an exact replica of Thomas Edison's lab, sitting on New Jersey soil brought from the original site. There's the Wright Brothers' Cycle Shop, Robert Frost's home, George Washington Carver's cabin and 79 other historic structures.
The Henry Ford Museum houses the bus where Rosa Parks took a stand (bought from an online auction), the limousine that bore President John F. Kennedy when he was assassinated, Buckminster Fuller's revolutionary Dymaxion House and the chair in which President Abraham Lincoln sat when he was shot.
If there's time, take a trek to the Henry Ford Estate, an elegant 1915 home on the Rouge River where Ford built his own six-level powerhouse. It provided all the electrical needs of the estate and on one occasion powered 2,000 residents of West Dearborn.
For more information on Kalamazoo, go to www.discoverkalamazoo.com.
For more information on Battle Creek, go to www.battlecreekvisitors.org or call 800-397-2240.
For more information on The Henry Ford, go to www.TheHenryFord.org or call 313-982-6001.
General travel information on Michigan: www.michigan.org.
For more information on St. Joseph, go to www.sjtoday.org or call 269-985-1111.
The Air Zoo Web page is at www.airzoo.org.
The Fort River Raisin Battlefield Web site is at www.riverraisinbattlefield.org.
For more information about Detroit, call 800-DETROIT or visit www.visitdetroit.com. Eastern market, 313-833-9300 or www.easternmarket.org.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
