Michigan’s wine industry is booming, and the impressive skills of Michigan’s winemakers are proven repeatedly at national and international wine competitions. Wines throughout Michigan are earning medals and stomping the competition. Under icy, windy, cloudy, steamy hot, and, rarely perfect conditions, Michigan winemakers harvest and then craft delicious wines reflective of our unique region.

As we are celebrating Michigan's 175th birthday all week, the state of Michigan will celebrate nearly 90 wineries in 2012! One of the best ways to discover Michigan wines is to attend a wine tasting tour. Lucky for you, two regional events are just around the corner AND Absolute Michigan has a pair of tickets to give away for each!

February 4-5 / Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association’s Taste the Passion

2010 Taste the Passion by KatSwinehart

Warm up with a two-mile snowshoe or cross-country trek in Silver Leaf’s vineyard, orchard and woodsy trail. Afterward, dive into Silver Leaf’s featured chocolate almond and cherry clusters paired with gold medal Chafia Cherry. With 14 wineries participating, there is a lot of territory to explore. We suggest touring the northern peninsula wineries on one day and the southern peninsula wineries on another day. Get all the details on the Taste the Passion page at lpwines.com. A few more delicious wine and food pairings follow to whet your appetite:

• Chateau Fontaine of Lake Leelanau: Greek-inspired chocolate chili dogs, topped with cheddar cheese paired with Big Paw Red.
• Gills Pier, just north of Leland: Mini chocolate/honey mousse cups with sea salt and cocoa nibs paired with Whitewater, a semi-sweet white wine made with Vignoles grapes.
• Verterra Winery of Leland: The Bluebird’s Vol au Vent baked French brie with Verterra jam (preserves made from wine grapes), plus Granny Smith matchstick apples paired with Verterra’s Pinot Gris.

February 18 / Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula’s Romancing the Riesling

Enjoy a showcased Riesling and food pairing at each winery. Enjoy ten percent off all Riesling purchases during the event. Order tickets by calling (231) 223-7355. More details at wineriesofoldmission.com. A delicious sampling to tempt you from Brys Estate Vineyard and Winery is a peach tart in a mini phyllo shell topped with whipped cream paired with 2010 Riesling!

Two Great Michigan Wine Books!

Food and wine events are a wonderful way to explore Michigan’s food-friendly wines, but another great way is through yet another offering in our Birthday Bash - a pair of books about the history of the wine industry in Michigan by Lorri & Sharon. Both books are available through their Delicious Michigan website.

• The History of Michigan Wines documents Michigan's dynamic 150-year wine history! Meet passionate winemakers starting with Joseph M. Sterling who ignites the state's first viable wine industry in the 1800s along Lake Erie and follow the growth and challenges of the wine industry up to the present day!
• From the Vine: Exploring Michigan Wineries is a 192 page, hard-cover book that celebrates Michigan wine country, wines and winemakers with intriguing behind-the-scene stories, beautiful photographs and interesting side features.

You still have time to wine through our Birthday Bash by joining our email list below (which also enters you for our regular giveaways of Michigan products, services and event tickets!

Absolute Michigan is committed to helping our readers get more out of Michigan. Sign up for regular giveaways. It's free, fun and all you have to do to be eligible is to be on our email list - sign up using the form below. We guarantee that we will not share your email address with anyone!

If your business is interested in participating, you can get all the information right here.

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The Lake in Winter
by Jerry Dennis

(January, Cathead Point, near the tip of Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula)

It changes every day, every hour. It is a thousand lakes, changing faces with every shift in wind and light - flurried by offshore wind, whitecapped in squalls, colored flannel gray or pearl-white or stormy black beneath the winter clouds, a dozen blues when the sky is blue.

There’s a contemporary Japanese poet who writes a diary on a slab of stone instead of paper, with water instead of ink. He writes a word, and a moment later it evaporates. This, he suggests, is the true record of a life.

We go to the shore in search of elemental things. Probably it is just coincidence that the elemental things we find there - sand, sun, wind, and waves - correspond exactly to the four elements of the ancient Greeks and Hindus: earth, fire, air, and water. More to the point is that we need elemental things to help us restore our primitive senses to working condition. We need periodically to look, listen, scent, taste, and feel our way through the world, if only for the relief of not having to think our way through. Everyone understands that eliminating superfluities can help us discover what is important in our lives.

That’s not an easy task. Time coats us in natural increase, accruing layers as if we were snowballs rolling down a hill. Jobs, families, friends, houses, cars, dogs, our health – just maintaining it all is full-time work. Add the bulging files of information, the gunnysacks of mistakes and the duffels of misjudgments and the barrow-loads of memories, habits, regrets, opinions, prejudices, principles, laws, and codes collected in a lifetime and you can see the problem. We carry as much as we can, and the rest we stack around us until all our routes to the outside are blocked. Even when we find our way out we’re wearing too many layers of tuxedoes and zoot suits and cardigans, Icelandic woolens, parkas, longjohns, thermal socks, etc. We’re strong but we grow weary of lugging that Collyer-brothers’ accumulation everywhere we go. We bend beneath the load, our backs about to break, groaning as we push our heaped-up grocery carts through the streets.

It’s too much. Now and then we need to strip down to the naked flame at our core. Most of what we carry is baggage anyway - just adornment and vanity, ballast and deadweight. It’s the crap the pioneers threw out along the Oregon Trail.

After lunch I walked to the crest of the dune and looked out at the lake. Even from that small elevation, maybe fifty feet, the water’s clarity was startling. From a boat, on a day like this, with the sun overhead, you can lean over the side and see boulders on the bottom thirty feet down. The pale shallows stepped into blue depths. The offshore sandbars were there, a hundred yards apart, each deeper than the one before, with bands of increasingly darker blue between them. Beyond the last bar a steep drop-off into very deep water turned the lake midnight blue.

Lake Michigan. My lake, I often think, because I grew up near it and because many in my family settled along its shores. So much water, in a body so large they say that the Netherlands could fit inside, with enough room left over for several New England states. It is the second largest of the Great Lakes in volume, and third, after Superior and Huron, in surface area. It is the only one of the five to be contained entirely within the United States.

Most of the 1,640 miles of shore is sandy. Some of that shore, especially around the southern end, through Indiana and Illinois, is lined with industry. Around the top of the lake in Wisconsin and Michigan are scattered limestone bluffs and rocky strands. But most of the rest is blond sand beaches that are among the loveliest in North America. Wind, waves, and ice have shoved that sand into the most extensive network of freshwater dunes on the planet. They reach their apogee about thirty miles south of Cathead Point at Sleeping Bear Dunes, the crowning feature of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but they extend nearly unbroken for 300 miles along the eastern and southern shores of the lake, from northern Michigan nearly to Chicago. A few scattered dunes are found also along the Wisconsin shore and at the top of the lake, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but they lack the dimensions of those that face the prevailing winds.

A friend who lives part of every year in the West once told me that Lake Michigan plays the same role in the Midwest that the mountains do in Montana. That’s true for all five lakes. Like the Rockies, you can see them from miles away, forming a backdrop that is also a felt presence, always there, looming in our lives. They are depositories of geological and historical power that shape the land and the culture to themselves. We orient to them and are drawn to them and take for granted that their presence and the weather they create will affect our travels and alter our daily plans.

The lakes have always been the most prominent shaper of the character or “spirit” of the Great Lakes region. The stronger the spirit of a place, the farther it resonates beyond its borders. Alaska, Texas, Vermont, and Maine all have it in abundance. So do large geographical regions such as Appalachia, the Canadian Maritimes, and the Cajun country of Louisiana. A mythological portrait of a place needs to be only approximately accurate to give outsiders an idea of what it is like, or enough of an idea, at least, to inspire them to take some interest in it. That might explain in part why people who have never visited the Everglades or the Arctic Wildlife Refuge are willing to write letters to congressmen and donate money to protect them.

The Great Lakes have not had that advantage. Their mythology is not clearly defined. It was once very clear, a living mythology, inhabited by people, wolf, moose, and bear, but the stories that passed around campfires for thousands of years were drowned out by European invaders wielding their own stories of Jesuit martyrs, French voyageurs, Paul Bunyans of the logging camps, mariners of the inland seas, and up-by-the-bootstraps giants of industry. Most of those stories have now, in turn, lost their power and have not been replaced. Enduring mythologies tend to accrue to dominate features of a landscape. Louisiana has swamps; New England, hardscrabble hills; Montana, big sky. But the Great Lakes are too varied. No representative image fits. The water and dunes and rocks and cities on the shore are lost in a haze of homogeneity. Surely that is why those who have never stood beside the big lakes find it so difficult to imagine them.

Excerpted from The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes, by Jerry Dennis. Used with permission of the author and The University of Michigan Press. Visit Jerry’s website at www.jerrydennis.net. Here's a cool trailer for the book that Jerry's son videographer Aaron Dennis made that you will enjoy as well!

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Higher Grounds Trading Co., was voted one of the top Michigan businesses to watch in 2010 and has been a big part of  getting the nonprofit On the Ground off the ground. On the Ground is involved in a variety of projects including the Chiapas Water Project, which brings clean drinking water to coffee growing regions in Mexico; the Run Across Ethiopia, which raises funds for Ethiopian education projects including the construction of schools in Ethiopian coffee-growing communities; and their latest endeavor - the Run Across Palestine. The Run is scheduled for February 2012 and will take place in olive growing centers of Palestine. Funds raised will support the purchasing and planting of thousands of olive trees and provide scholarships for the children of Palestinian olive farmers. Learn all about them and donate at the link above.

The projects of On the Ground share a common theme: supporting the farmers who supply fair-trade, gourmet goods by building infrastructure and capacity in their communities, and Higher Grounds is offering up some great gifts to celebrate the On the Ground\'s projects:

• Coffees for Change support the Chiapas Water Project, which was founded in 2005 after a group of local (Northern Michigan) residents visited Chiapas Mexico and witnessed the illness and poverty perpetuated by lack of access to potable water.
• Seth & May's "New Flower" CD was inspired and written as part of the The Run Across Ethiopia.  Seth and May  played in the schools, learned songs and dance moves from the children, learned Ethiopian scales and melodies from incredible ethio-jazz masters,  shared our music along the journey, sang for the runners, played for the people and ultimately wrote an entire album inspired by the experience.
• Fair Trade Olive Oil benefits Palestinian olive farmers and celebrates the Run Across Palestine.
• Finally, their Coffee Cards are made by the Michigan nonprofit Paperworks Studio which are produced by artists who have special needs and disadvantages.

All you need to do to enter is to be on our email list - sign up in the blue box above! Here's a cool behind the scenes video of the recording of New Flower that you might enjoy!

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Buckwheat Zydeco at the Beer Fest II by farlane,

The annual Traverse City Microbrew & Music Festival features over 50 breweries, a cider, mead and wine court, a new silent disco tent and a musical lineup including chart-topping folk rocker Martin Sexton, Grammy-nominated New Orleans brass brand Rebirth Brass Brand and Afro-Cuban funk favorites Euforquestra. It takes place August 26 & 27 at the Village at Grand Traverse Commons, and other musical guests include fiddle rockers Barrage, popular Michigan dance outfit Ella Riot (formerly My Dear Disco), musical “mad scientist” That 1 Guy, Celtic marchers Grand Traverse Pipes & Drums, West African drummers and more!

This year, the festival will kick off on Friday, August 26 from 5-10 p.m. with a “Pint Night” themed evening featuring a headlining performance by Martin Sexton as well as $3 pint specials from a variety of renowned craft breweries, the silent disco tent, and food and merchandise vending areas.

The second day of the festival on Saturday, August 27, will feature an expanded festival experience from 4-10 p.m. with over 50 breweries and 200+ flavors of beer, cider, mead and wine, live music from Rebirth Brass Band, Barrage, Euforquestra, Ella Riot, That 1 Guy, Grand Traverse Pipes and Drums and several more acts, plus $1 tasting tokens for 7-oz sample pours (a commemorative festival cup and 5 tokens are included with admission), a variety of local food vendors and brew-friendly pub grub, an MSU Extensions Educational Tent featuring workshops on beer-related topics, the festival’s popular Hop ‘N Brew tasting shack, the silent disco tent and special partner activities and events.

All in all, this is a fantastic celebration of Michigan's microbrew culture that you will certainly enjoy and our Absolute Michigan passes will let you enjoy it to the fullest. Check Porterhouse Productions for ticket information and check below to enter the giveaway and for a video!

To be eligible for a pair of passes for Friday AND Saturday night to the Traverse City Microbrew & Music Festival and to be entered in every one of the Festival Summer giveaways, just join our email list using the form below!

Here's the Rebirth Brass Band in New Orleans - see them in Michigan next Saturday! Also be sure to check out this cool video of the Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars at last year's festival!

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The Wineries of Old Mission Peninsula (OMP) and Porterhouse Productions present the second annual Paella In The Park, a summer music & culinary event in the heart of downtown Traverse City.

Traverse City’s bayside Clinch Park grounds will transform into a swingin’ festival! This year’s lineup features national headliner Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, an energetic and exciting band who have been getting audiences up and dancing for 20 years. Rolling Stone declared them the “leaders” of the swing revival are going back to their ska roots with a danceable and entertaining show. They're joined by Groupo Ayé, a 10-piece Cuban salsa band, and Hoots And Hellmouth, a mix of rockabilly and funk.

This 21+ event (no exceptions, please) will again pair the seven OMP wineries with local chefs. Guests will enjoy Spanish paellas from fresh ingredients cooked over an open fire, right on-site. Paella, a rice-based dish that boasts hundreds of variations using different ingredients, is one of Spain’s most popular food entrees. Festival attendees will have the opportunity to converse with local chefs about the art of making paella, as well as enjoy food and wine at each station.

Sign up for our email list below for a chance at 2 tickets and order your limited tickets at Porterhouse Productions.

To enter to win a pair of tickets to Paella in the Park and to be entered in every one of our Festival Summer giveaways, just join our email list using the form below!

Now here's the Cherry Poppin' Daddies playing one of their hits - Zoot Suit Riot. You can get many more in this YouTube playlist!

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We're gearing up for an exciting development in our Festival Summer giveaway, so we're going to keep it short & sweet today with this time-lapse video from photographer Ken Scott. It shows a collection of storms traveling across Lake Michigan, starting with one on the 2010 solstice.

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You can download the guide as a PDF or pick it up at farms, markets and other places that feature local food across Northwest Michigan. A highlight is their Spend 10 Local Dollars Campaign, which encourages people to make a pledge to spend $10 weekly on local food products. Taste the Local Difference project director Janice Benson says:

"The guide helps people find local food, and combining that with a commitment by families to spend at least $10 each week on local food will significantly boost our local economy. We have a lot of great produce throughout the summertime, but we also have meat, fish, eggs, dairy products, beverages, and much more that is available to us all year long."

DoF Asparagus by RichardDemingPhotography

You can get all the details and  make the pledge, search farm markets & businesses for all kinds of products, view tasty recipes and more at localdifference.org. Try some of these ways to make a difference in your community with $10 or more a week!

• Buying local meat, fish, eggs, and produce from your local grocer, restaurant, or farmer.
• Ordering a glass of local wine, cider, or other beverage that includes locally grown items at dinner.
• Ordering a menu item that includes locally grown items at a restaurant.
• Becoming a member of a CSA farm.
• Ordering food for office lunches and parties that includes locally grown items.
• Purchasing locally grown food products for holiday gifts and entertaining. (Jams, honeys, cheeses, dried cherry mix, salsas, etc.)
• Buying local cream for your daily coffees and local teas that include locally grown herbs and fruit.

We'll add one more - check out Absolute Michigan's Michigan Grown section and search for all kinds of great Michigan products that can help you help your neighbors!

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Sequence 7408-09
by StacyN - MichiganMoments

Hosted by the Flow for Water Coalition, the Great Lakes Water Studies Institute at Northwestern Michigan College and Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation, the conference will focus on learning about the abuses and threats facing the Great Lakes. The conference will also provide solutions to stop these threats and to protect the citizens, communities, local agriculture, and businesses who depend upon the waters of the Great Lakes Basin.

Friday night's kick-off will feature a presentation by Maude Barlow, internationally recognized water advocate and former Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations General Assembly. Ms. Barlow is the author of 16 books. Her address will offer a unique perspective on how each of us living within the Great Lakes Basin need to come together to protect the waters of the Great Lakes.

A screening of the award winning documentary "Tapped" (trailer below), an unflinching look at the plastic bottled water industry, will follow Ms. Barlow's presentation and the evening will conclude with an afterglow party in the "Dome" at the Park Place Hotel for networking, live music, and refreshments.

The conference continues on Saturday, May 7, at Milliken Auditorium and Scholar Hall on the campus of Northwestern Michigan College. Registration opens at 8:00 a.m. Welcome and introductions begin at 8:30 a.m.

Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food and Water Watch and one of the world's leading experts on water, energy, food and the environment, will speak at 9:00 a.m. Her address will be followed by breakout workshop sessions on a variety of water-related topics. The event will conclude with an expert roundtable discussion: Solutions for Saving the Waters of the Great Lakes Basin.

"We are incredibly excited to hold this conference here and to be able to have presentations from both Maude Barlow and Wenonah Hauter. They will provide a dynamic wake-up call to everyone interested in protecting our Great Lakes," said Traverse City attorney, Jim Olson, who also serves as Executive Director of the Flow for Water Coalition.

"We take our incredible natural beauty and abundance for granted, but there are very real threats facing the Great Lakes Basin." Olson continued, "If we don't protect these majestic waters now, the Great Lakes could be lost for our future generations. Our goal is to build deep citizen awareness and provide solutions to make sure that doesn't happen."

Tickets & more information are available at www.flowforwater.org or by calling  231-432-0103.

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I really enjoy the first two months of winter. The dropping temperatures are refreshing. There's the anticipation of the holidays and the over-indulgences that come with them. And I love the snow. The first, fat flakes of pretty white snow. What's not to love?

High Rollaways winter hike by Happyhiker4

But our recent spat of spring-like weather, though painfully short, has reminded me that I'm over winter. It has outstayed its welcome and we are smack dab in the middle of the long, claustrophobic and  cold doldrums when winter is just greedily clinging to its existence like some awful drunk who won't leave your party.  When the temperature recently hit 50 º and the sun came, and stayed, out, winter officially ended for me. My daydreams are now filled with trilliums, birdsong and shouldering a pack and hitting the trail. This is the time of year when guidebooks are bought and the kitchen table becomes an ops center, strewn with maps detailing the promise of upcoming adventures.

With these thoughts in mind, I headed over to Horizon Books in downtown Traverse City to talk hiking with two of Michigan's experts. John Heiam, president of the Grand Traverse Hiking Club (GTHC), and Dick Naperala, field trails coordinator with the GTHC. They both generously took time to talk to me about some great spring hikes, the North Country Trail and ways to get involved with the outdoors in the Grand Traverse Region. The  GTHC helps to oversee a 100-mile stretch of the North Country Trail, a 4,600-mile trail that stretches from New York to North Dakota and runs through some of America's most beautiful country.

Valley of the Giants by North Country Trail

John Heiam: Let's start with sections of the North Country Trail and close to Traverse City. One of my favorites is the north branch of the Boardman River. Starting at the N. Broomhead Road Trailhead, the southern trail takes you down right next to a trout stream and next to cedar trees that deer have browsed to about seven feet high. The trail then climbs and you get views down into the river valley. It's absolutely gorgeous and right in our backyard. Take the trail north to Sand Lakes Quiet Area to see the brilliant blue pit lakes. You can easily spend two hours, if not more, hiking here.

Another great place to hike in the Traverse City area is a place called the Valley of the Giants. This is a very steep-sided valley that has never been logged and is a patch of old growth forest. It was so steep nobody bothered to log it and it is very wet so it never burned in the wild fires that swept through Michigan in the late 1800's and 1900's. You'll find white and red pines and huge oak trees right next to a creek. The trailhead for this hike is either the Mayfield Road Trail Access or near Scheck's Place Campground.

High Rollaways by Happyhiker4

Dick Neperala: The Highbanks Rollway is one of the best places to hike in the state of Michigan. It is on the North Country Trail and can be accessed at Harvey Bridge over the Manistee River. Once you gain elevation, you can see for miles.

The Hodenpyl Dam and Pond area are some of the most popular places in Michigan to hike especially for backpackers. There is a 20 mile loop around Hodenpyl Pond that is perfect for a weekend trip. From the Hodenpyl Dam Parking area you can walk along the lake to the Northern Exposure Campground. And the trail that is right along the river is easy. It is flat and great for kids.

John and Dick shared some more of their knowledge for great outdoor spots in our area this spring.

Wildflowers: If you are looking for wildflowers, and those aforementioned trilliums, mid-April and May are generally the best times to hit the trail. And head to North and South Manitou Island for the most diverse and unique wildflowers in our region. Ferries depart to the island from the town of Leland on the Leelanau Peninsula. South Manitou is more scenic with a lighthouse, shipwrecks and dunes while North Manitou provides better opportunities for backpacking and multi-day trips.

Sleeping Bear Sandunes by Happyhiker4

Most overlooked hike: The Dune Climb and walk to Lake Michigan at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. John says that the hike is deceptively difficult and once you climb the main dune, you'll have a few more smaller ones to get up and down before you finish. He also says the wildflowers; lilies in particular, are spectacular here in the spring.

Why early spring is a great time to hike: No bugs! Both John and Dick say that this time of year is among their favorites for hitting the trail. And, the forests of the Sleeping Bear Dunes are carpeted with trilliums this time of year.

About the GTHC and the North Country Trail: The GTHC is a chapter of the North Country Trail. The club maintains a 100-mile stretch of trail, 35 to 40 of which run along the Manistee River, from south of Mesick to north of Kalkaska. People come from all over Michigan to hike one of the most beautiful sections of the NCT. John calls the 60- mile section from Red Bridge to Kalkaska the prettiest trail in Lower Michigan.  In addition to planned day hikes, the club also has ongoing work sessions on the trail including maintenance, bridge building and rerouting.

Visit  northcountrytrail.org/gtr/ for information on volunteering, local outfitters, membership, trail maps and contact details. The club is currently fundraising by selling “clean seats” through the club or at Backcountry North in Traverse City for $6 /$5 for club members. The seats are a paper-like material that you can put on the ground, wet grass, mud, anything to keep you dry when you need a rest in the outdoors. The seats are made from tough material that won't rip or deteriorate, definitely a great addition for your pack on day and multi-day hikes!

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Crowd for Jeffrey Ross by tcfilmfest

The Absolute Michigan team spent the weekend working on the 2nd annual Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival. The festival was a big success and once again festival co-founders Jeff Garlin & Michael Moore packed the house for comedians including Bob Saget, Patton Oswalt, Jeffrey Ross, Caroline Rhae, Ted Alexandro, Joe DeRosa, Flip Schultz, Sarah Tiana and Kyle Kinane.

Settle back with these videos to get up close to some of comedy's hottest names, check out the Comedy Fest slideshow on Flickr and don't miss the Comedy Fest blog for features on Comedy Central Roastmaster Jeffrey Ross, comedian Patton Oswalt and Michael Moore's Dancing with the Stars. (and tune in next week for a feature on the big comedy event coming to Grand Rapids in March!)

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Photographer Ken Scott has assembled a very cool time lapse of an evening at one of these, Jacob's Corn Maze near Traverse City. Click over to YouTube, select the 720p option, and then full screen for the best view! See more of Ken's work on YouTube!

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Special Giveaway Alert!
As a sponsor of the 2010 Traverse City Wine & Art Festival we have the inside scoop on TWO chances to win tickets to wine events in the Traverse City region!

TOMORROW (Thursday, August 12) the Leelanau Vintners will be sending out an email and one person on their list will win TWO tickets to the 2010 Traverse City Wine & Art Festival on August 21st. Get on their email list at lpwines.com for a chance to win!

AT THE TRAVERSE CITY WINE & ART FESTIVAL ON AUGUST 21st festival attendees will have a chance to win three times: 2 tickets to the 2010 Leelanau Harvest Stompede Wine Tour in September, 2 tickets to the Old Mission's Romancing the Riesling and 2 tickets to the 2011 Traverse City Wine & Art Festival PLUS 2 nights at Holiday in West Bay in Traverse City!!

The 2010 Traverse City Wine & Art Festival takes place on August 21, 2010 at the Village at Grand Traverse Commons.

The festival features 22 wineries from the Leelanau Peninsula, Old Mission and Traverse City along with food from Leelanau and Traverse City restaurants. The event was created by the Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association to showcase the wine, art, food & music of our region. In addition to great food and wine, 3 arts organizations: Art Center Traverse City, Crystal Lake Art Center and the Leelanau Community Cultural Center have teamed up with the festival to create gallery tents featuring the work of over 60 area artists for show and sale.

Add a fantastic slate of live entertainment headlined by Michigan blues legend Larry McCray, reknown folk performers May Erlewine and Seth Bernard, Song of the Lakes Trio featuring Sue Wood and Michigan blues phenom Greg Nagy, a 2010 Blues Music Award nominee in the category of 'Best New Artist Debut'. The event will also feature original performance dance from several dance companies and more happenings to delight the eye and ear!

Advance tickets are $20 each, four for $60 or $25 on the day of the event. They are available online at traversecitywinefestival.com, area wineries, Turtle Creek Casino in Acme and the Traverse City Convention & Visitors Bureau in Traverse City. Also cbe sure to consider some of the great packages offered by area hotels & resorts! Scroll down for a list of the wineries & restaurants in attendance and check out the video that Scott Allman produced on last year's festival.

Food & Wine

The photo is by Jesamin Califf - many more in her Traverse City Wine & Art Festival 2009 slideshow!

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We are taking the Dunegrass Festival back to its roots! In it's 18th year, we continue to remember our focus of showcasing the fine talent that we are so blessed to have right here in our home state of Michigan. Dunegrass has been a hub to the community for many years and will continue to be a place where families can come and enjoy a weekend full of music, laughter and joy.

Music, laughter and joy have been the heart and soul of Dunegrass and I know that many Michigan musicians are excited to see the focus swing back to our homegrown talent.

You can get the advance ticket price until Wednesday for this great festival that features camping, food & beverages, local arts and crafts and over 30 bands. Some highlighted acts include Big Sam's Funky Nation, Greensky Bluegrass, Jessica Lea Mayfield, Steppin' in it, The Macpodz, Rootstand, Joshua Davis & Fool Rooster, The Rachael Davis Band, Delilah DeWylde & the Lost Boys, Detour Bluegrass, Ralston Bowles and the Luke Winslow-King Trio.

Here's a great tune from one of the many Michigan bands on the bill - Bottle Dry from Greensky Bluegrass with special guest Andy Goessling of Railroad Earth on the sax:

Photo: Greg Brown Gets Down by farlane

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Over on our On Location blog we featured this photo from the Traverse City Film Festival. Every year for the Traverse City Film Festival they show free movies on the big screen. Still to come: Raising Arizona, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Mary Poppins!

Pamela Ann Photography (Pamela Bevelhymer) writes that she's a photographer in Traverse City, Michigan who would love to take your picture.

Here's her web site and you can check out her sets including Film Festival 2009, HDR, Cherries and Most Viewed (slideshow).

Dive into her Flickriver.

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In honor of Absolute Michigan's film fest theme this week, Linda has assembled an octoplex of Weird Michigan movie trivia:

1. The first Robocop movie, starring Peter Weller in 1987, was set in Detroit on the premise that a ruthless police-killer was on the loose there.

2. Otto Preminger's 1959 Oscar-winning film Anatomy of a Murder was based on a novel about a murder trial held in Big Bay in the early 1950s. The novel was written by the judge of the actual case.

3. Die Hard 2, or "Die Harder," the 1990 film starring Bruce Willis, filmed winter action scenes in Alpena and Sault Ste. Marie.

4. Lily Tomlin, comedienne and star of films like The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), was born in Detroit in 1939 on the day Germany invaded Poland.

5. Lunatics: A Love Story, a 1991 movie about a poet who seldom leaves his apartment in Los Angeles, was filmed in Pontiac and Pontiac Hills.

6. Wes Craven's Scream 4, scheduled for release in 2011, brings back the ghost-faced killer, was shot on locations in Ann Arbor and Detroit and features "Cougar" and "Friends" star Courteney Cox.

7. The 1980 time travel movie Somewhere in Time, starring Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve, was shot at the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island. The hotel is reputed to be haunted. Also, in parts of the film that are set in 1912, producers didn't bother to edit a modern water tower from the background.

8. Downtown and church scenes in the 1989 film about Santa's reindeer, Prancer, were shot in picturesque Three Oaks. The town's United Methodist church choir was tapped to sing Hark the Herald Angels Sing for the movie and their faces made the final cut but their actual voices did not. Also, the church's pastor wasn't old or bald enough to play himself in the movie but his gray robe was worn by the actor who portrayed him.

Because it's so tremendously awesome, we're including the trailer to the Michigan film classic Anatomy of a Murder. Probably one of the best trailers ever. Enjoy!

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• (7/29) TCFF Dailies for Wednesday from the Traverse City Film  Festival (video produced by Absolute Michigan for the TCFF!)
• (7/29) Free Movies Every Night at the Open  Space
• (7/27) Anatomy of a Murder Trailer (awesome!)
• (7/27) Weird Michigan: Michigan Movie Special Edition
• (7/25) Greening the Traverse City Film Festival
• (7/22) Film Forum Series @ Traverse City Film  Festival
• Complete OnLocation Archive for the Traverse City Film Festival

Untitled by Ken Scott

All next week Absolute Michigan will be on location at the Traverse City Film Festival in Traverse City, Michigan. The festival takes place Tuesday, July 27 through Sunday, August 1. Check their site for tickets and also the times of free panels and free movies on the BIG screen at the Open Space

We're a sponsor of the festival so we may have a little biased, but we have to say that this is one of the coolest weeks we get a chance to be a part of. In 2010, we're going to be working with a great group of folks including the University of Michigan Film School to produce daily online video - stay tuned at Absolute Michigan's On Location Blog!

Here's a great video produced by Scott Allman that will help get you in the mood.

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Seth Bernard by Patrick T Power

Driving Michigan is Absolute Michigan's new show that explores the state of Michigan and the people who are moving us towards the future. It's hosted by Seth Bernard, a musician with a passion for Michigan. The video was shot by Ken Lake of Mythic Michigan.

Our first episode was shot at The Village at Grand Traverse Commons in Traverse City with GTC developer Ray Minervini.

The photo we use of Seth was taken by Patrick T Power - be sure to check it out bigger!

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Pretty clouds distract me
as I drive by merebearlandon

Memorial Weekend is the launch of the summer travel season. AAA Michigan estimates that 1.1 million Michigan residents will travel on state roads this Memorial Day weekend, paying 11 1.2 cents less per gallon of gasoline as compared to last week (and maybe even less by the weekend).

They list the top 10 Michigan destinations as reported by their members - check the links to read about what there is to see and do from Absolute Michigan and feel welcome to post where you're going!

1. Traverse City
2. Mackinaw City
3. Petoskey
4. Frankenmuth
5. Munising
6. Sault Ste. Marie
7. Boyne Mountain
8. Saugatuck/Douglas
9. Dundee
10. Lansing

Speaking of summer travel, here's a classic video that we get sent all the time!

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Event dynamo Michael Moore has teamed up with comedian Jeff Garlin to launch the Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival. The inaugural comedy fest takes place this weekend (February 19-21, 2010) and features and impressive roster of established comedians including Roseanne Barr, John Waters, Whitney Cummings, JB Smoove, Mike Birbiglia along with some up-and-coming comedians, films and associated hoopla. View the schedule of comedians and special events & films and order tickets!

The venues that they use for the annual Traverse City Film Festival will be converted to have a nightclub feel and they'll even be doing free, late night shows in the basement of Horizon Books hosted by Jeff Garlin. They'll also be having a free, outdoor showing of the comedy classic Groundhog Day with special live features. All in all, it's shaping up to be a one-of-a-kind experience for Michigan comedy fans!

You can follow blog posts, #comedytc Twitter posts and other media on the TCFF Blog and on Absolute Michigan's Traverse City Comedy Arts Festival page.

Head over to Absolute Michigan's Traverse City pages to get lodging, dining and other visitor information.

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Belly Up by photoshoparama

Social media is changing the Michigan wine landscape. Michigan By the Bottle is teaming up with Black Star Farms for the state's first virtual wine tasting conducted through Twitter. Tweet & Taste Michigan will be held on March 8, 2010 at 8pm.

Michigan wine fans are invited to log onto their computers and participate as we taste through a flight of wines, selected by Black Star Farms winemaker Lee Lutes. Along with myself, featured participants include Lutes, Master Sommelier Claudia Tyagi (winegenie@Twitter), wine educator Bill Wilson (WineforNewbies.net), George Heritier and Kim Adams (Blogs.GangofPour.com), Mike Fifer (TheWineMonologues.com), Chris Ternes (thewineauxs.blogspot.com), and Joel Goldberg (MichWine.com).

We will be tasting 2008 Black Star Farms Arcturos Dry Riesling, 2007 Black Star Farms Arcturos Pinot Noir, and 2007 Black Star Farms Arcturos Barrel Aged Chardonnay. Participants can pick up the wines at their local wine shop or order online at BlackStarFarms.com. Black Star Farms is offering $.01 shipping between Feb. 23 - March 9 to business addresses to encourage participation.

During the event, participants will log onto Twitter and search using #ttmi, the Tweet & Taste Michigan hashtag. As the facilitators and winemaker taste through the wines, users can share impressions and ask questions, by adding the #ttmi hashtag to every tweet to ensure everyone participating sees it.

The event, which I will be expanding in future months to include other Michigan wineries, is designed to encourage wine lovers and newbies from throughout the state and beyond to sample a little of what Michigan's wine regions have to offer.

Full details of the event can be found on www.TweetAndTasteMichigan.com.

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You can learn more about the book and order online from Spirituality & Health Books. It's a beautiful book and you may find it easier to use the recipe as it appears in the book (612k pdf).

Classic French Onion Soup Gratinée

We've made hundreds of gallons of this soup and still can't get enough of it. Oddly, however, it's one of those dishes that too many cooks make incorrectly. We've seen recipes call for everything from soy sauce to Worchester sauce to balsamic vinegar. Others want the onions to cook until they all but fall apart. All this extra stuff makes a simple and satisfying dish way too complicated. It's really very easy to make and requires only a few ingredients, some patience and a hot oven.

1/3 pound butter
3 yellow onions, sliced with the grain of the onion then cut into 1-inch lengths
(This is to make it easier to eat the soup with a spoon. There is nothing worse than onion dribbling down your chin.)
1/2 handful flour
1 cup red wine
2 sprigs thyme
7 cups chicken stock
olive oil
8 slices of day-old baguette, sliced
to 1/2-inch thick
8 slices of cheese

The traditional cheese is a French cheese called Comte. You can also use Gruyere, Emmental or Swiss cheese. Some American-made cheeses that would also fit the bill are: Roth Kase's Grand Cru Gruyere or Upland's Pleasant Ridge out of Wisconsin. Here in Michigan, Grassfield's Edam. Don't use provolone or mozzarella as they're much too rich and get stringy. The Swiss/Gruyere style cheeses offer a bite that counters the oniony richness of the soup.

for the soup:

Put the butter into a 4-quart pan and melt over medium-low heat. Add the onions and season with salt and pepper. For the next 30 minutes, let the onions cook slowly. Slowly is the key word here. If you cook them too quickly, their natural sweetness won't come out.

Sometimes you'll see sugar called for in an onion soup recipe; this is because the recipe is asking you to cook the onions too quickly, thus missing out on the onions' natural sweetness, and even inviting a hint of bitterness. But, if cooked correctly-and by correctly we mean slow, patient cooking - then no sugar is needed. Mom would be proud.

Sweat the onions, making sure to stir frequently with a wooden spoon, especially after all the water has evaporated. The onions will not begin to color until all that liquid is gone, and you'll have to pay close attention so they don't burn to the bottom of the pan. Your attention will be rewarded though, once the onions start to turn a beautiful, golden brown.

The color of the onions is very important. Too little color (too white) and the flavor will not develop correctly; your soup will be characterless. Too much color (very brown) and the flavor will be too strong. Golden brown is the color you're looking for. Golden brown gives you a rich, mellow soup.

Once you have the right color, sprinkle in a half-handful of flour while stirring with the wooden spoon. Basically, what you're making is a roux, a classic French thickening agent. Only add enough flour to lightly coat the onions - you don't want to make wallpaper paste. Stir in the red wine, add the sprig of thyme and finally, the chicken stock. Turn up the heat to bring to a boil, then turn down to a simmer. Simmer for 30 minutes. Adjust the seasoning.

for the croutons:

In an 8-inch frying pan, pour enough olive oil to fill the bottom to a 1/4-inch. Turn the heat to medium-high. When the oil is hot (you can check this by dipping a corner of your sliced baguette in the oil to see if it fries) fry 4 pieces at a time until golden brown. Turn the slices over and fry on the other side until golden brown. Do this for all the bread. Drain the croutons on a paper towel.

to finish:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Ladle the soup into 4 8-ounce, ovenproof cups, leaving 1.4-inch at the top. Put two croutons on top of the soup.

You may need to get creative fitting these croutons in the bowl. Sometimes they are just too big and you'll need to break one up. The important thing is that the croutons cover the entire top of the soup. Don't break them up so small that you end up with crumbs.

Over the croutons, place 2 slices of cheese, making sure to crisscross them so there are 8 corners showing, not 4. Place the cups on a baking tray and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is nice and brown and bubbly. Serve the hot cups on napkin-covered plates. (The napkin keeps the cup from moving around on the plate.)

The best way to transfer the soup cups hot from the oven is to fold a towel into a long strip and use it like an oven mitt with each end for each hand. Sometimes the cheese will drip down during baking, sticking the bowl to the pan; a gentle twist of the cup will loosen it.

There's some controversy over what's actually "classic" in this recipe. For example, some say you have to use beef broth for the soup to truly be "classic." Some say the wine must be Port. There's no real consensus on the matter no matter how far back you go. These days, Joel Robochon uses chicken stock, and since he's one of the best chefs of the 20th century I am willing to bet it's okay. Personally, I like chicken stock because it doesn't overpower the soup, thus allowing us to better taste the onions.
-Eric Patterson

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This photo depicts apple pickers in the Old Mission Peninsula. It was taken in the early 1890s. (The caption on the front of the photo gives the year as “1894.” However, identifying information on the back gives the year as “1891.” The exact date, then, is uncertain.) Definitely click the photo for a larger view!

Michigan's Fruit Belt

Michigan's “fruit belt” strides the shore of Lake Michigan. The Lake itself plays a key role. It functions as a moderating body, preventing temperatures from getting too cold in the fall and too hot in the summer. It also provides the frequent rainfall that fruit farmers require. This climate combines with rich soil and regional topography to provide ideal fruit-growing conditions.

The Growth of an Industry

Michigan's fruit industry started to boom about the time of the Civil War. By then, Chicago's growing population had provided a ready market. Transportation improvements (notably the expansion of railroads) provided greater access to this and other population centers.

In Grand Traverse County (where the photo above was taken), the fruit industry grew as the lumber industry declined. In 1872, Grand Traverse County yielded 3,241 bushels of apples. Thirty years later, that number had increased to 276,000 bushels for a single year! Around the same time, Grand Traverse County had become Michigan's number one county for cherry production.

Some Current Numbers…

Michigan continues to be a leader in fruit production. In the year 2000, it ranked third nationwide in apple production. The state also ranks first in the production of blueberries and red tart cherries and fourth in the production of sweet cherries. Many other fruits, including peaches, plums, grapes and strawberries, grow abundantly here. For more information, click Michigan Agricultural Commodities to visit the Michigan Department of Agriculture's Commodities Site.

Also check out absolutemichigan.com/apples for some great links and recipes!

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Michigan Uncorked is a regular column by Lorri Hathaway and Sharon Kegerreis, writers who are passionate for Michigan and authors of award-winning From the Vine: Exploring Michigan Wineries. Learn all about Lorri & Sharon and their book at www.michiganvine.com.

Love Cabernet Franc? Head to Old Mission Peninsula. The top three honors for the first-ever Michigan Cabernet Franc Wine Challenge were exclusively awarded to wines grown from the region.

The winner of the competition and the coveted Harding's Cup was Brys Estate Vineyard & Winery's 2007 Artisan Series Cabernet Franc. Brys Estate also took the bronze third place medal for its 2007 Cabernet Franc. And, just down the road from Brys Estate, Two Lads Winery won the silver second place medal for its Reserved Cabernet Franc.

The Michigan Cabernet Franc Wine Challenge, held at the historic Park Club in downtown Kalamazoo in August, was the brainchild of Terry Stingley of Harding's Friendly Markets based in Kalamazoo. Twenty-two wines from 18 Michigan wineries and one wine from the Chinon region of the Loire Valley of France (all 2007 vintage), were evaluated by an esteemed panel of judges.

"It was a great opportunity to taste an exceptional array of well-made wines from a stunning Michigan vintage," said Master Sommelier Claudia Tyagi, who was one of the six judges for the competition. "It is so exciting to realize that we are on the ground floor of something huge for Michigan's future. It was not inappropriate to compare these wines to a classic French Chinon, but our beauties left the Chinon in the dust."

Photo credit: Patrick Brys

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The festival will feature beer from great Michigan breweries including Arbor, Arcadia, Bell's, Dark Horse, Founders, Jolly Pumpkin, Keweenaw, Michigan Brewing, New Holland, North Peak, Right Brain, Sergeants, Shorts and Tri-City. Also in attendance will be national breweries like Magic Hat, Red Hook and Sierra Nevada.

In addition to the great beer, there will be music from Buckwheat Zydeco, Clumsy Lovers, Caravan Of Thieves, Mike Moran + Levi Britton and others along with great grub, workshops and other associated fun including the Cherry Roubaix, a criterium bike race through the streets of Traverse City that starts at 12:30.

Absolute Michigan will definitely be going and we encourage you to join us! Tickets are $25 in advance ($30 at the door) and available online at porterhouseproductions.com.

The event is a celebration of craft brewing, a movement that is taking hold all over Michigan and the country. Here's a great video featuring a number of craft brewers talking about why they do what they do and what it means.

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About the Festival

The Traverse City Wine & Art Festival is being organized in order to create a landmark celebration of the wine, food and culture for the region. It will feature 22 wineries from the Leelanau and Old Mission Peninsulas along with a selection of Traverse City and Leelanau restaurants providing food & desserts. Art Center Traverse City will be coordinating a sampling of artists and arts organizations who will display and sell their work in booths ringing the tent. Music will be offered for the duration, headlined by Michigan's own Thom Jayne and the Nomads who play a truly unique blend of world and Celtic infused jazz. The music will be punctuated by original dance from the Michigan Dance Collective.

Saharan Caravan by Thom Jayne and the Nomads

"The Leelanau Peninsula Vintners Association is excited to be building a major wine festival that will showcase the amazing wines of our region against the beautiful backdrop of the Grand Traverse Commons. We feel that the blend of art, food and wine is a natural combination that highlights three things we do very well in Northwest Michigan," said festival chairperson Jaclyn Eikey. "With the addition of some really eclectic music and entertainment, I think it will be an experience like none other offered in our area. The proceeds from this year's party will help us build a festival that we feel will become one of the highlights of summer in the Traverse City area."

Tickets

Tickets are limited and can be purchased online for $20 per person and will be available for pickup on the day of the event. You can also pick them up at the following locations:

Bel Lago, Black Star Farms (All 3 locations), Bowers Harbor, Brys Estate, Chateau Chantal, Chateau de Leelanau, Chateau Fontaine, Chateau Grand Traverse, Cherry Republic Winery, Ciccone, Forty-Five North, Gill's Pier, Good Neighbor Organic, L. Mawby, Leelanau Wine Cellars, Left Foot Charley, Peninsula Cellars, Shady Lane Cellars, Silver Leaf, Tandem Ciders, Traverse City Convention , & Visitors Bureau, Turtle Creek, Two Lads, Willow Vineyard

Tickets purchased online will be available for pickup on the day of the event. They are nonrefundable but can be transferred to another name if you are unable to attend. YOU MUST BE 21+ to attend.

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Director Larry Charles, Producer/ Actor Jeff Garlin, festival co-founder Michael Moore, TCFF Director Deb Lake and others give their thoughts on Traverse City and the Traverse City Film Festival in this video by Scott Allman Video.

Absolute Michigan: On Location has much more coverage from the 2009 Traverse City Film Festival.

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mikesophia is one of tens of thousands of people taking in the 2009 Traverse City Film Festival. He snapped this shot of one of balloon artist Jason Hackenworth's fanciful sea creatures on the opening night of the festival and we're using it today on a brief article about how the festival is bringing inspiration to the lives of youths in our On Location: Traverse City Film Festival coverage.

The photo is part of Mike's Traverse City Film Festival set. His other sets include Birds and Nature (slideshow).

Check out Mike's Flickriver.

See an interview with Jason Hackenworth over on TED.

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Our next stop is the 2009 Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF) which takes place July 28 through August 2 in Traverse City, Michigan.

This is the 5th year, and the annual festival has grown to become one of the largest film festivals in the Midwest and one of the most respected in the country. Last year, there were over 80,000 admissions to nearly 100 screenings, a number of them U.S. or world premieres. A special emphasis is given to foreign films, American independents, documentaries, and films which have been overlooked but deserve the attention of a public starved to see a good movie.

The festival also features some excellent panels with filmmakers and other experts exploring documentary filmmaking, comedy, the new film mecca of the West Bank and Gaza and other subjects.

We'll pay special attention to the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council Meeting which takes place on Friday, July 31st. Council members will hold their regular meeting and then take questions from the audience regarding the booming Michigan film industry.

There's also the new TCFF Film School, parties and even free outdoor movies. Through it all, Absolute Michigan will be there and we invite you to share your comments and also to share your photos in the Traverse City Film Festival Group on Flickr.

We'll also be featuring content from Interlochen Public Radio and the Traverse City Film Festival blog.

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by Bill Herd

Camping is as American as apple pie—oops, I mean cherry pie. It's part of our pioneer heritage. Not too many generations back, we were all outdoor folks, hunters in the forest, shepherds on the hillsides, herders on the plains, farmer tilling the soil, fishing folk and sailors at sea. For many of us, being outdoors is part of our genetic makeup. When the weather turns fair we long to be out of the city and back in the countryside. A tent and a campfire are two of our favorite companions.

Except for recreational vehicle campers that require full hook ups, camping at Sleeping Bear Dunes has something for everyone, so you really can “have it your way.” From vehicle camping with modern restrooms and electric to backpacking on a remote wilderness island, you will find opportunities for the type of camping you seek for your next trip. Best of all, camping is inexpensive. A site with electric and a Lakeshore pass will cost just $150 for seven nights, a small fraction of what a modest cottage on an inland lake would cost for a week. In these tough economic times, camping may be just what we need.

I did not realize just how important camping might be this year until I read two articles in the same newspaper. The first article talked about the stress the current economic crisis is having on individuals and families. The article recommended that families think about alternative vacations, and have fun simply spending time together. The second article reported that a large numbers of families would not be taking a vacation this summer because of the economy. So, just when families need a vacation for their mental health, they will not be taking one. But a camping vacation to Sleeping Bear Dunes can provide an enjoyable, fun-filled vacation and still save a large amount of money, not to mention a number of activities that are available at little or no expense.

The Platte River Campground is the park's premier campground. Campers who have camped at many different National Parks often remark that is the nicest campground in the entire system. The campground has paved roads, which keeps dust from smothering you, your campsite and the nearby vegetation. Campsites are generous and spaced well apart and take full advantage of the terrain with abundant vegetationbetween sites. Campground staff keep the modern restrooms immaculate and “These are the cleanest restrooms I've ever seen” is often heard by Park staff. The ultimate luxury for a camper is a hot shower, which is available for a small fee. (They are a $1 for six minutes—let your teenagers use their own money for any additional time they feel they need) Some of the Platte River Campground sites have electric hook-ups and some can be reserved ahead. From the back of the campground there is a half-mile trail that leads to Lake Michigan and a nice sandy beach. One of the big advantages of the Platte River Campground is that poison ivy is not common and most years mosquitoes are few because of the well drained sandy soil, which are actually ancient dunes.

The campground also features 25 walk-in sites, which give campers a rare opportunity to get away from vehicles and traffic and get closer to nature with a short hike that's not farther than a city block. Once set up, life at your walk-in site takes on a relaxed pace and atmosphere. Parents of young children do not have to constantly watch to be sure the kids are not in the campground road. They can also enjoy themselves as the young ones amuse themselves in nature's playground. Campers are often reluctant to use these sites fearing the extra work required to carry their gear to the campsite. Usually, however, they are pleasantly surprised to find that the close-to-nature experience is worth the extra effort. Here is a hint: it is not necessary to carry all your gear to the campsite. Rangers suggest that campers store food in their vehicle at night, so just take the food you need for the next meal. Likewise, you will be returning to the parking area to use the rest rooms and showers so just leave your clean clothes and towels in the vehicle. I cannot think of any other place where you can camp away from traffic and still have easy access to modern restrooms and hot showers. You get the best of both worlds. If that's not enough, at the back of the restroom is a kitchen sink with hot water where you can wash dishes. I encourage you to consider the walk-in sites. However, full disclosure requires me to inform you that the walk-in sites were my idea when we were developing the design plans for the reconstruction of the campground.

The D.H. Day Campground on Lake Michigan near the Sleeping Bear Dunes provides traditional rustic campsites—no electric, no flush toilets, no showers. It has been a favorite campground for Michigan families for generations. Highlights of the campground are its simple, widely spaced campsites, airy pine and oak forest and its close proximity to the Lakeshore's main attractions. D.H. Day Campground is named for local lumber and shipping entrepreneur David Henry Day, who owned most of the adjacent forest, and donated 32 acres of land along the shore of Lake Michigan to the state for Michigan's first state park in 1920. You can visit his company town of Glen Haven, which is now a historic village, just a short walk from the campground. One disadvantage of this campground is the large amount of poison ivy. Just about every plant that is not a tree is poison ivy, so beware and stay on the campsite, paths and roads. Since the early part of the last century the National Park Service has provided high quality ranger programs in its campgrounds. Both campgrounds continue this National Park tradition with evening amphitheater programs or hikes.

For those who wish for a more adventurous camping experience, the Lakeshore has two hike-in campgrounds on the mainland and two on South Manitou Island. Hiking distance is about a mile to a mile and a half depending on the one you choose. On the mainland the White Pine Backcountry Campground is the most popular since its sites are near Lake Michigan. The six sites are in the pines just back of the dunes at the middle of Platte Plains, close to the lake but not so close that you will have sand in your sleeping bag and food. The Valley View Campground on the edge of the Port Oneida Historic District seldom gets used since its sites are not on a body of water. They are located in a sunny meadow surrounded by mature hardwood forest, and if you want to camp in solitude, this is your place. The hike-in campgrounds on South Manitou Island are the Bay and Weather Station; both are close to Lake Michigan. A normally overlooked hike-in campground is on North Manitou Island not far from the dock. Since most campers to the north island are backpackers who want to put some miles on their boots, you can usually have the campground to yourself. Set up camp and enjoy the beach, forest and historic village. If your family is not up to backpacking because of age, this may be the best place in the park. On one of our family camping trips to this campground, campers ranged in age from one year to 80. All campers on North Manitou need to be prepared to purify their drinking water, including those camped in the campground.

Backpackers who want to hike farther have two choices: Popple Campground on the north side of South Manitou and North Manitou Island. The Popple Campground is slightly over three miles from the dock. On North Manitou backpackers can select their own camping spot on the 15000 acre island, an opportunity not allowed on most other public lands. However, there are some important restrictions the ranger on North will tell you about when you register for a backcountry permit. Campers on either Manitou Island need to remember to take everything they need. There are no stores on the islands so if you forget batteries for your camera or insect repellant you will have to do without. On the other hand, the islands are about as safe as backcountry camping venue as you will fine anywhere. There are no dangerous animals, you can not get lost for too long before you find a known landmark, rangers are nearby if someone gets hurt or sick and, if needed, for emergency evacuation the Coast Guard helicopter is just a few minutes away in Traverse City.

For detailed information about camping fees, reservations and rules check the camping pages on the official Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore web site and also the camping fees & reservations page. Group sites are also available at both main campgrounds and on both islands.

Photos

• Platte River National Campground by rharlow
• Untitled by cyoas55
• Untitled by cyoas55
• Tent Crescent City by Arace

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Michigan Uncorked is a regular column by Lorri Hathaway and Sharon Kegerreis, writers who are passionate for Michigan and authors of award-winning From the Vine: Exploring Michigan Wineries. Learn all about Lorri & Sharon and their book at www.michiganvine.com.

Forty-five years ago, Bernie Rink planted grapes in northern Michigan. As a reflection of his own childhood on a vineyard in northern Ohio, Bernie believed the labor-intensive farming would instill good values in his five sons.

"Every time I sat next to my wife on the couch, I got another son," Bernie jokes. "After the fifth one, I knew I needed to do something to put them to bed tired at night."

At the time, wine grapes were not being commercially farmed in northern Michigan. Bernie tested 35 French-American hybrid varieties to determine which ones could survive the cold winter temperatures. Six varieties made the cut, and Bernie has kept things simple by handcrafting quality table wines from the same varieties ever since. The six include Bernie's favorite de Chaunac, as well as Vignoles, Seyval Blanc, Aurore Blanc, Vin Blanc and Soleil Blanc.

"Everybody should be able to afford to put decent wine on their dinner table each night,” states Bernie, who opened Boskydel Vineyards in 1976. Three price increases in almost 40 years has kept Bernie's wines under $10 a bottle.

Boskydel wines can only be found in the simple tasting room on Leelanau Peninsula overlooking Lake Leelanau. On your way, keep an eye out for the small sign hidden among the trees and the rusted mailbox at the bottom of the drive. Also, be sure to just take a friend or two as the self-proclaimed "Wine Nazi" does not encourage groups or crowds and allows only eight tasters at a time; and be prepared with cash or check, the only two forms of payment accepted at the tasting room.

On a sunny day, you may find Bernie sitting outside his entry door. Most likely, though, you'll find him pouring wines from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. every day amidst his piles of books and the haphazard collection of faded newspaper clippings, artwork and favorite sayings covering the four walls. A notable family treasure hanging on one wall is an 1847 grape picking basket brought from Germany on the Mosel River by Bernie's great grandfather, Martin Rink. One of our favorite posted sayings is, "I'm a prisoner in a wine cellar - don't shend help." (An intentional play on "send" of course!)

The result of Bernie's vision and hard work years ago has paid off five times over. Bernie is proud of his five sons and believes the values he instilled in them as young boys gave them the tools for their success today. Amazingly, a smart, fatherly decision in 1964 ignited northern Michigan's now booming wine industry. So, while you won't find gourmet cheese plates or fancy wine decor when you visit Boskydel, you will find one of northern Michigan's most respected winemakers.

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