Oh Michigan My Michigan

"If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you!" If you prefer latin: Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice. This is Michigan's state motto, and it is so very true. Up here in the pinky, we are more spoiled than most. The Lake Michigan shoreline and surrounding lakes and rivers are amazing. It takes my breath away to live in such a beautiful place. Sunrise, sunsets, storms and blues skies, there is no place I would rather call my home. Even in the winter. 

Elizabeth Sheets special mitten cookies she does for Christmas

One of the fun parts about living in the lower peninsula is the ease of having a map at hand. That is, your hand is your map. People say, I live here, and point to the spot on their hand. That is why I called this blog Living in the Pinky, That is where I live. Right there!

#puremichigan #michiganchamberofcommerce©2016 Gregg Palazzolo —

The shape of Michigan and the surrounding great lakes is found just about everywhere!

http://quotesgram.com/great-lakes-no-salt-quotes/

I love the bumper stickers, t-shirts, and jewelry with Michigan on it. Michigan Roots, Michigan Rocks, the Great Lakes, Michigan, unsalted. Petoskey Stones with either Leland Blue lakes or agate.

The summer I worked at the Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore, we did some work at the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive cleaning out the picnic area where there were rose gardens and ponds the shape of the Great Lakes. This was a beautiful spot. It is in need of rescuing and the link will lead you to a group who is working on doing just that. Here is a little description from their site.

About the Great Lakes Picnic Garden

The GLPG was the first entrance station to Stocking's scenic road up and over the dunes. The national park was created in 1970, the road became part of the park in 1977 and in 1984 the park service moved the entrance to the road and built the observation platforms. The name was later changed to Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive in honor of Stocking.

In addition to purchasing admission to the drive at the entrance station in the GLPA, visitors could get out of their cars and eat their picnic lunch, find some shade to cool off in, fill their water jugs, or stretch their legs while walking around flowing pools of water that accurately represented all five Great Lakes. The water would flow down from Lake Superior via a miniature St. Mary's River into Lakes Huron and Michigan. There even was a foot bridge connecting "Detroit" to Windsor."

Blacktop paths led up, into, and around the "mitten" we know as Michigan, all the while surrounded by hundreds of different colored rose bushes. There was birch trees planted at strategic locations representing major Michigan cities. Visitors enjoyed the aroma and the beauty of all the roses while getting a mini-geography lesson! It was really a marvelously constructed and maintained American roadside attraction.

https://sites.google.com/site/savetheglpa/home

This park is worth saving. 

Photo by Sarah Edwards

The charm and beauty of Michigan needs saving as well: Our towns struggle with changes in business and economy. The focus on tourism, a main income source in my area as well as others, drives division between the locals and our visitors. A balance is needed and new ideas to help grow instead of stagnate. It is worth working hard to save our beautiful state.

 There is no place like Michigan.