Lake Michigan from east and west

The Canadian Bacon is a 3-week road trip in April – May 2015 around the Great Lakes starting and ending in Chicago.

While our stop in Chicago could be characterized as a short man staring up at high steel and glass structures, the time in western Michigan was radically different. That’s the perfect start for a 3 week tour of the flyover country of USA.

Food-wise we took a trip from deep dish pizza, that we ate twice in 24 hours, and massive eggs Benedict at Lou Mitchell’s in Chicago to the breakfast of champions home-made banana bread French toasts, muffuletta and quesadillas in west Michigan.  Best food out of all those? The homemade Muffuletta that was new to me is a better version of any subway sandwich with plenty of olives and deli meat.

I was underwhelmed by the deep dish pizza and have to say it doesn’t make the the top of my pizza crust list. Yes it’s like a pie crust but I was left the feeling that I would have enjoyed the special tomato sauce and sausages more from a lower dish crust.

Scenery-wise: I’ve seen Burj Khalifa in Dubai, currently the worlds tallest building but the density of sky reaching buildings in Chicago is what made it stunning. We decided to walk among the tall ones and visit the navy pier with the 8 hours we had before getting our road trip started.

Discovering the rural communities of west Michigan doesn’t happen on feet. You need a four-wheeler just to get to the backyard and the backyard is big. There’s even a pond construction, perfect for shooting skeet or time trialing around on the ATV known here as the “quad”. I somehow managed to blow the tire but according to reports that has already been fixed and I am good to go when we stop by there on our way back to Chicago.  A few towns, over the wind was howling and the scenery was like a set from a modernized western just waiting for a six shooter duel. A cold Monday in April seemed to have scared off the tourists for who Grand Haven was evidently built for. Submitting into evidence: miles long sandy beach at the lake and stores that are open only in the summer.

One thing these two completely different worlds share is the love for Lake Michigan. A lake like a sea but no sharks or salt as the locals say.

Next part of the Canadian Bacon adventure will be about my love affair with Detroit.