Summer Vacation in Michigan
July 6, 2008
While Michigan is not known as a summer resort destination, it turned out to be a great destination for our family reunion this summer. One of the best parts of our trip was our home base, my sister-in-law’s/brother-in-law’s place in Shelby Township. The house couldn’t have been a better fit for our group. There was enough room for all the adults to have their own bed rooms. The house couldn’t have been more beautiful or more clean. The basement made for a perfect retreat for the kids to play Rock-band and Halo on the XBox 360.
I mentioned in an earlier article that we spent a day in Frankenmuth, Michigan enjoying a little Christmas decor shopping and chicken dinners. After our fun filled day in Frankenmuth, we enjoyed a day at our home base celebrating my other Sister-in-laws birthday. We had a cook out with a center cut pork loin and a little Bocce Ball on the lawn.
Tuesday we piled into the Minivans and headed to the Thumb Area. After a nice little picnic at a roadside park near Port Austin, we drove down to Caseville to the Bella Vista Resort. We loved the beautiful views of Lake Huron, especially at sunset. We had our second night’s dinner at the Hershel’s Restaurant at the Bella Vista and we were all very pleased with our meals that included fish and chips and prime rib. I also had a first rate massage by their resident massage therapist. I thought she did a better deep tissue massage than I had on my last Celebrity cruise. They also had a very nice heated pool, which the kids loved.
On the down side, the resort had small motel rooms, saggy beds, and out dated decor. These resorts are only open a few months a year, so it really makes sense that they are not kept up as well a year round resorts. Over all we loved our stay at the resort, but would recommend it with the concession that what it lacks in amenities, it makes up in lake front ambiance.
We also enjoyed a little Thumb Area Mini Golf. In Caseville, we all played at the official Putt-Putt course. I like Putt-Putt courses because of the standardized hole play. The edges of all the holes are smooth metal, allowing for predictable banking. The other mini-golf course we played was Sandy Dunes Adventure Golf . This mini golf course was spectacularly landscaped, with some of the most beautiful ever greens I have ever seen. The course was a bit more challenging and inconsistent than the Putt-Putt course. The course had many more hazards and undulations than the earlier course. Plus with brick edging bank shots were highly unpredictable. We had a great time playing our two mini golf mini games.
Back in Shelby Township, we enjoyed a couple more nights at my sister-in-law’s house and with a bit of TV and some more video games in basement. We even set off some Target approved “Fire Works” on July 3rd.
Our flight home from Detroit was not too difficult except for the toddler who screamed during our entire flight from Detroit to Dallas. After a much quieter flight from Dallas to Tucson, we arrived home very well rested.
I’m In Love With Frankenmuth and Bronner’s
June 30, 2008
What a great day we had in Frankenmuth, Michigan. First, we visited the World’s Largest Christmas Market, Bronner’s! I have been bugging Mr. Papa to get an artificial tree for safety reasons for years. Our real trees are beautiful for about a week, and then no matter how careful I am to water the tree every day, the quickly become dangerously dry in the desert climate.
Bronners was the perfect place to seek out a new tree and all the decorations needed for it. The whole place is as big, if not bigger than a football field. They not only have every kind of novelty decoration you could think of, but lots of example trees decorated to give customers plenty of ideas for theme trees.
Mr. Papa looked around and found lots of decorated trees that he liked. The tree departments was full of lots of realistic pre-lit and un-lit artificial trees in sizes ranging from a few feet to over 14 feet. The trees seemed to be much better quality and more realistic than the ones I priced at Loews and Home Depot last year.
The lady in their tree department was very courteous and helped us to select this tree. Then we found a very nice lady in the decor department who helped us select all the decorations we needed for a theme tree. After checking out every themed tree display in the store, we decided to go with shades of gold. Our selections included many different sizes, shapes, textures and shades of oranaments in golds and brown. We hope we bought enough to fill the tree.
I almost got really panicked as we were adding up the total cost of ornaments, the sales lady hit a multiply key insted of an add and our preliminary price was about three times what I wanted to pay. We readded and I was much relieved at the lower price.
After our wonderful shopping trip to Bronners I celebrated the new tree while Mr. Papa mourned the loss of his hard earned money at Frankenmuth’s famous Bavarian Inn. Most of us had the “all you can eat” chicken dinner.
This wonderful meal includes lots of pieces of lightly battered fried chicken, cole slaw, noodles, soup, mashed potatoes, squash, cranberry sauce, and more!!!’ The Bavarian Inn and the Zehnders Restaurant across the street have been owned by the same family for over 50 years, both specializing in all you can eat chicken dinners.
The Bavarian Inn, however, features traditional Bavarian architecture and even has a German built Glockenspeil in the buildings tower.
The decor even featured a picture of one of our favorite tourist spots in Germany, Rottenburg. The food was fantastic and well worth the 90 minute drive to Frankenmuth. We are still full the next morning. This was my second visit to Frankenmuth,and I hope to return again to this quaint Bavarian village in the heart of Michigan.
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