Section hiked MRT 10-11OCT26. Gorgeous as always.

I know this post comes up from time to time, but I don't recall seeing one for a while. Has anyone noticed that Vernors Zero Sugar tastes different lately? It almost tastes like Barrett's Ginger Beer...it's just a little sweeter or something.

Today was beautiful

Hi everyone, michigan born and bred native here!

This is a bit of a strange ask once you know why Im asking.

I was reading up on the history of ramen, and it says that what makes a good ramen is showcasing what makes the area great, or special, and using fresh ingredients. So I had the idea of making a Michigan ramen showcasing what michigan is known for. I know were known for cherries, and Im already experimenting with some savory cherry recipes I found online to use as a toppings, but Im struggling to think of other things to add as topping that would compliment them, and also what type of broth to use. I want to really make it special, so any help would be appreciated!

In the spring of 1934 the Historic American Buildings Survey put unemployed architects to work measuring old buildings. Six of them did Gordon Hall in Dexter: Howard Simons drew the east elevation, Robert Deigert the plan, Frank Wright the half-inch elevation, and Ralph Vervalin, Philip McDonnell and Herbert Wenzell the rest. Seventeen sheets, dated April 28, 1934, in the Library of Congress, free to anyone.

The house is Greek Revival, built 1841 to 1843 for Judge Samuel Dexter, who founded the town; Calvin Fillmore designed it. The sheets give it in feet and inches: a 49 ft main block behind six fluted columns, each 21 ft 7 in tall; a kitchen wing running 48 ft to the north; split fieldstone under everything. The plan has two drawing rooms, a servants' hall and a scullery.

The four-storey tower at the left of the drawing is the part that no longer exists. Millisent Dexter added it in the 1870s. When Katharine Dexter McCormick, the Judge's granddaughter, bought the house back in 1939, her architect Emil Lorch spent eight years restoring it and took the tower down. The 1934 survey is the only measured record of it.

I'm an architect, and I'm making a game about drawing houses in elevation, the way these sheets are drawn. As a test I rebuilt Gordon Hall in it from the 1934 measurements, tower included. Top is the HABS elevation, middle is the house drawn in the game, bottom is the game's photograph of it. A few things don't match: the lookout's X-braced rail is plain posts in mine, the columns aren't fluted, and the stair window on the tower's south side is simplified. For the record, I wrote the game with AI coding tools; the drawings and the photograph are the game's own renderer working from the lines, not generated images.

McCormick gave the house to the University of Michigan in 1950 and it was faculty apartments for fifty years. The Dexter Area Historical Society bought it in 2006 and has been working on it since.

If anyone has been inside, or has photographs from before the tower came down, I'd like to see them.

Due to a shift in wind direction overnight, winds are now coming out of the north. As a result, heavy smoke from the Ridge Fire, which is burning north of the Dead River Basin about 10 miles northwest of Marquette, and the Craig Lake Fire burning north of Craig Lake State Park, may be present in Negaunee, Ishpeming, Marquette, Michigamme, the surrounding areas and points south. The presence of heavy smoke this morning is due to a shift in wind direction and is not a result of a significant increase in fire activity.

If you live, work, or are traveling in the area, be alert about the possibility of heavy smoke. Wildfire smoke may cause coughing, runny nose, or watery eyes. If you have any type of heart or lung disease, excessive wildfire smoke can be dangerous. You can reduce your exposure to wildfire smoke by planning activities indoors and limiting time outside when smoke is heavy.

My job takes me all over the state. I could be in T.C. one day and The D the next. I have to say that the folks in this place were all wonderful and kind. I just figured that the printer would have gotten it right, here of all places.

Edit: It seems that my reference to The Upper Peninsula is curious to some. I mistakenly assumed that the accent carried by the Finnish diaspora was a more widely known fact than it must be.
It is wholly and completely because of the accent why I said that. I thought the printer was doing a play on spelling for this matter. It seemed geographically out of place in that context.

I am a night owl through and through, but rose to the occasion this morning. No ragerts.

The Porkies have my heart.

Sunday breakfast for a few of the locals.

I just walk 5 minutes and I’m already in Ohio