Lighthouse Voyage - Part 7

[Tannerman]

Stopover in Grand Rapids

Having visited 5 lighthouses on the first day of our trip, it was about time to head to the hotel that Amy had secured via Priceline.com. It was situated in the southeast corner of Grand Rapids, MI, near the Gerald R. Ford International Airport. The 53-mile drive from Muskegon was a bit of backtracking for us, due to the fact that Priceline just didn't offer many affordable hotels in Michigan.


After a tiring day with beautiful weather, we pulled up to the Hilton Grand Rapids Airport and quickly checked in. Not really a grand hotel... in fact, in some ways it looked like a glorified Motel 6 (without Tom Bodett "leaving the light on for you").


The TV looked like it was from the 1970's (but it had a built in FM radio!) and we only got a couple channels. Of course one of those was ESPN, but wouldn't you know it... the only thing on was the World Series of Poker (how is that a sport?). Things felt old. This is not what I think of when I envision a Hilton. It's like the brand name had been diluted by a pretty lame franchise.


Now, when I was growing up, we hardly ever stayed in hotels... we were a camping family (though I remember staying at quite a few Exel Inns on a trip to Mt. Rushmore in 1982, but I digress...). In any case, it may just be me, but certain hotel brand names meant something.


For example, Holiday Inn seemed pretty cool and a nice place to stay to my kid eyes, especially with those awesome green signs. Today they don't even own the domain holidayinn.com. What happened there? (They are stuck with the infamous "I couldn't get the web address I wanted so I put a dash in there instead" problem: holiday-inn.com). Doesn't anyone care about service or quality upkeep anymore? It just seems like today's hotel chains are a shadow of what they used to represent in the past (such as the Hilton where we were staying). I'll stick to camping, unless of course it's at Phantom Ranch, in which case service and quality went out the window a long time ago. End of rant.


Continuing our tradition from previous adventures, Amy and I set out to find a place to eat dinner that was not a chain restaurant. Driving up and down the street in front of our hotel (where a zillion more boring options were available), we stumbled upon Big Buck Brewery & Steakhouse. It turns out that this is one of 3 locations for this Michigan-based microbrewery.


The interior was impressive, resembling a hunting lodge with all the wait staff dressed like National Park Service employees. We were eating quite late in the evening, so there was plenty of attention by the wait staff. Not only did this establishment feature their own microbrewed beers, but they also brewed 3 non-alcoholic beverages. After sampling two of them (the root beer and the cream soda)... wow! That's the best root beer I've ever had!


Amy ordered a tasty 6-ounce sirloin steak, while I went daring and tackled the Great White Buffalo Burger, which featured "a half-pound of lean fresh ground buffalo grilled to your liking. This burger is hearty, sweet and rich in flavor topped with cheese, lettuce, tomato and Bermuda onion served on a three-grain roll."


The last time I had buffalo was at the NRA Food Show at McCormick Place with my old Taylor food service superior, Jim Erickson (who incidentally is now the Director of Food Service at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL). Overall our experience was excellent; we'd highly recommend Big Buck to anyone.


After dinner, we had to run over to the local Meijer to get some Gatorade mix and Band-Aids (long story there, but we ended up getting some pretty cool VeggieTales ones!). As I was turning left into the parking lot, a guy almost plowed into the front end of the car by running a red light. A quick maneuver avoided the mess, but I had flashbacks of our last trip in the Smokies were a truck almost ran us off the road. Maybe I should just let Amy drive all the time; every time I take the wheel, weird stuff happens.


Speaking of weird stuff, it's time to talk about the state of Michigan. One good thing, one not so good thing. First off, kudos to the state of Michigan for being one of the most tourist-friendly in the Midwest, and especially for their care, promotion, and restoration of lighthouses. I'm especially impressed by the special Lighthouse Preservation license plate that the state issues to raise funds for this cause. If I lived in Michigan, I'd get one... no questions asked.


Now for the smackdown on the state... what the heck is a "Michigan Left"? It seems like there are no left-turns allowed on main streets in this state. Instead you have to go past an intersection and do a U-turn. This just baffled Amy and I, so when we returned we looked up the official explanation on this wacky road engineering tactic:

The Michigan Left-hand Turn

Often maligned, often misunderstood, the Michigan Left-hand Turn is an operation which causes much consternation among out-of-state drivers and nary a second thought from locals. Developed in Michigan in 1960, these turning set-ups exist across the entire state. The Michigan Left was developed to avoid the interlocking left-turn movements along divided highways. In this way, the only turning movements allowed at such an intersection are right-hand turns. Traffic lights can be placed at busier Michigan Left intersections if warranted. For the most heavily-used "crossovers," specialized traffic signals may be placed to ensure traffic does not back up on the highway waiting to turn left.

Although Michigan has been using the Michigan Left treatment for four decades now, other states have been slow to experiment with this type of traffic control. While some examples of the Michigan Left setup do exist around the country, they tend to be rare.

I got a kick out of the fact that [a.] this thing was invented in the '60's (probably by a guy smoking something) and [b.] other states don't use them (obviously, they see what a STUPID IDEA these are). If the concept is to avoid accidents, good luck. Seems more dangerous having you U-turn into traffic instead of having a dedicated lane. What in the world?


Finally it was back to the hotel to get some sleep and head out the next day. Of course, that didn't happen because of the insane rattling of the air conditioner in our room. You couldn't turn it off otherwise you'd sweat to death. If you left it on you were up all night. And you couldn't open a window. Even after I kicked the thing and took most of it apart, it kept making noise. Needless to say, we were VERY tired the next day.

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[Childs]

Ah, Michigan lefts. I hate them. I grew up in Michigan, and had never seen one, or at least I didn't know what they were called, until I moved to Detroit. They are everywhere here. It does keep traffic moving, but when you have to turn left, especially on a busy road with no light, they are a pain.

The Big Buck Steakhouse has a reataurant right down the road from me in Auburn Hills. I may have to check it out after your review.

[Wally]

I can't stand Michigan Lefts. They are crazy! It really makes sense to me that in order to turn left, you don't turn left at the street you want, but instead you have to go past it, do a U-turn and then try to get across x number of lanes of traffic before the intersection again in order to turn right.

On our most recent trip to Detroit, at one intersection, I wanted to turn left and instead, I had to turn right at the intersection and immediately cut across traffic and do a Michigan left to head the proper direction. Only in Michigan can one right and two lefts in the same intersection get you going in the same direction that one left could have accomplished. (By the way, did I mention that I had to sit at three different stop lights in that intersection just to make a left turn.)

[Childs]

Maybe you could redesign the Big Buck page. It could really use some help.

I almost got hit turning left with a no Michigan left hand turn. I waited at the traffic light for two full green cycles because I had no chance to turn, so I and decided to go when the traffic light turned yellow to stop wasting my gas from being idle and almost got hit. With a Michigan left, this would have been avoided since the flow of traffic would have been stopped with a red light and I would have been able to turn on my Green light without any worries.