MICHIGAN TRAVEL TIPS
FROM
THE HOLOGLOBE PRESS
(The 57th Edition)by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisherwww.hologlobepress.com
RULES OF USE
The reports and stories contained on this Web page have been put together with information taken from "The Victor Swanson Fabulous Files of Places to See in Michigan and Wisconsin" and with information obtained from operators and staffers of tourist attractions and from press releases, Web sites, and other sources. The reports and stories are provided as a public service by Victor Swanson and The Hologlobe Press. Almost all persons and entities, such as staffers of radio stations, may freely use the materials; neither AAA Michigan nor any employee of AAA Michigan may use, distribute, download, transmit, copy, or duplicate any of the material presented on this page in any way or through any means.
- - - Travel Thoughts for Everyone - - -
Special announcement: Before I give you the material that makes up this edition of Michigan Travel Tips, I announce that I have updated the document entitled Political Lessons for the Individual Woman and the Individual Man in the United States of America and the document entitled THOUGHTS AND PIECES OF LOGIC for the Individual Woman and the Individual Man. Both documents have, for instance, quotations made by politicians, such as Barack Obama, and, overall, the documents show why Barack Obama is bad for the individual in the United States of America, dislikes the United States of America, one part of which is Michigan, and has beliefs based in Marxism, communism, and socialism. You should see Barack Obama is a depressing man and an angry man and does not known how or does not want to lift up the spirits of individuals.
The reasons that I publish Michigan Travel Tips are many. One reason is to give me writing practice--to write well, you must work at it and work at it and work at it. Another reason is to promote tourism in Michigan.
Recently, I have had to change the presentation of Michigan Travel Tips, making each more complex and making each less normal in style, because of economic matters in the country and in Michigan, and I report that many of the problems have been caused by federal-government laws, which at least some people deny or are unaware of and are not getting reported by, for example, many of the main news entities of such television broadcast networks as CBS-TV and NBC-TV (to see evidence of how network-television-broadcast news units have failed the American pubic and betrayed the American public in the last year at least, you should see T.H.A.T. #55, which can be reached hitting this link: T.H.A.T. #55).
Here, you have another nonstandard Michigan Travel Tips, and it is not a simple piece, and if you lack enough stamina to get through it, you are in trouble, since you will be an easy target for destruction by communists and socialists--they will destroy you, your individualism, your life.To start, I must report that I believe--the belief gained through research of articles and such--the "global warming" idea or the "global climate change" idea, the latter of which is a new name for the former name, is nonsense, and I know the pressure to be "green," which has gone out of control, is hurting tourism in Michigan--from Detroit to Copper Harbor-- for no good reason. Certainly, you have heard Michael Moore (the filmmaker) and Al Gore, both of whom I call "idiots," are pushing the "green" idea, and I note that neither is a scientist or a thinker. To date, there are at least 31,072 American scientists (a number that includes 9,021 with Ph.D. credentials) who have signed a petition of the "Global Warming Petition Project" that notes:
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.I thought I would take this opportunity to give a bit of iinformation about the type of people that a person traveling in Michigan might come across. Really, in Michigan, it is possible to come across all types of people. For example, if you are in the Hubbard Lake area of Alcona County in the Lower Peninsula, you could come across Amish people, such as an Amish man riding in a horse-drawn cart along M-65, and you might stop in at an Amish-run store and buy bread, or you could come across a family from Japan that is vacationing in Michigan. I have to admit there are good people and bad people in Michigan, but I cannot really report what a bad person looks like because the looks of a person may not tell the story of what is inside the person.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases in causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
I now pass along information about a type of person that I think is bad, and I make note of the person since the person can get others hurt while not caring. In the United States of America, unions exist for some workers so that the unions can negotiate for wages and benefits on behalf of the members, and most workers in the country are not represented by a union of some type, and because of federal law, workers may elect to create or become members of a union or may elect to dissolve a union or become disassociated with a union, and the process to do either involves elections in which there are secret ballots--workers vote and how a particular worker votes is secret (or no one really knows for what a particular worker votes). It is good that secret ballots exist because, for one, workers, after taking part in an election, cannot be harassed for voting in a particular way, such as by those who are corrupt and wish to enslave individuals and make the individuals do things their way. There are those that want to erase from law the rule about secret ballots in relation to union elections, and such a person is a dangerous person, because the person cares not for the safety of others--for those who might be harmed, such as by thugs. Consider this: A young woman who weighs only about one-hundred-ten pounds and is only about five-feet-four-inches tall can be easily intimidated by thugs--such as several guys who are six-feet tall and weigh two-hundred-ten pounds--into voting a given way and can be harassed for having voted a certain way, and the young woman would probably find working where she works unpleasant every day, fearing for her safety, and she would not look forward to going to work every day, though she would have to to make money and pay bills.
The ways in which to harass and intimidate are numerous, and I only note a few here. A person can be beaten. A person can be simply shoved regularly or slapped regularly. A person can have things belonging to the person stolen. A person can have a vehicle wrecked or marred. A person can have personal items in the workplace ruined. A person could be touched inappropriately.
Have you thought about what could happen to a person or have you thought how such bad time could happen to someone you know? If you are a man who is married, would you want your wife to be put in such a situation? If you are a man who has a sister, who is small, would you want her to be afraid to go to work, fearing she would be targeted by persons who are bigger than she is? If you are young a woman who has a younger sister, do you want your sister to bring her fears to you and show her tears to you after having been attacked. If you are a young woman who has a brother, would you want to worry he might be forced to quit his job because he did not vote in a certain way?
Of course, while traveling in Michigan, you may not know which person might be a person who would want non-secret ballots used in relation to unions, but, then again, you may find a person who actually says that the person wants such a system for union elections--maybe reported in news stories--and when you discover such a person, your mind should immediately think--the person cares little of other persons and is willing to let other persons be put in unnecessary harmful situations, and you should see the person is a dangerous person, even if that person is a president of the United States of America.Generally speaking, there are three main types of vehicles that can be used today to travel in Michigan--the regular gasoline vehicle, the regular diesel vehicle, and the hybrid-type vehicle (which, for one, can be a vehicle that has a power train that involves a gasoline engine (with a fuel tank) and at least one electric motor (with a battery unit), and, for fun, I have this section with general knowledge about the hybrid vehicle, since it is the newest type of vehicle, it having shown up only about six years ago (I disregard the electric vehicle as a viable vehicle, and information about the electric vehicle exists in the previous edition of Michigan Travel Tips, which can be reached by hitting this link: Travel #56). You should know the main parts of a regular gasoline vehicle or a regular diesel vehicle are a fuel tank, an engine, and either a transmission (which is for a rear-wheel-drive vehicle) or a transaxel (which is for front-wheel-drive vehicle). The main parts of a hybrid-type vehicle can be a fuel tank, an engine (such as a V6-type engine), a battery unit (not the regular simple 12-volt-type battery that exists in a regular gasoline vehicle or a regular diesel vehicle but a large capacity unit, such as a lithium-ion setup), a generator, an electric-motor system (maybe made up of three motors, as has been done with the Lexus RX400h, which was put in the marketplace a few years ago), a transmission (such as a "continuously variable transmission" or "CVT"), an electronic control unit (used to electronically manage the power-train system), and a power split device, and such a vehicle can have the transmission connected to the engine and the motor system (which is tied to the generator, which is also used to charge the battery system) or have the engine connected to a generator (which is also used to charge the battery system) that is connected to a motor system that is connected to the transmission.
Hybrids have been around in the U.S. since the 1990s, and the number of models have been increasing slowly since then, and almost always the models have been "hybrid" versions of regular models. It was in late-1999 that Honda introduced the model of hybrid known as the Insight (which was only available as a hybrid), and Toyota put the Prius on the market in mid-2000. Some of the other hybrid vehicles that showed up in the next eight years or so were the 2003 Honda Civic in hybrid form, the SUV known as the Ford Escape Hybrid (in the fall of 2004), the SUV known as Lexus RX400h (in 2005), the Ford Accord Hybrid (in 2005), the SUV known as the Toyota Highlander (in 2005), the Mercury Mariner Hybrid (in 2006), the Nissan Altima Hybrid (in 2007), the Saturn VUE (in 2007), and the Toyota Camry (in 2007).
To make this section, I decided to look at Consumer Reports magazine for information about what hybrids were available in the marketplace from roughly early 2004 to 2008, and most of my work involved looking at the April editions of Consumer Reports for 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007 (for many decades, the April edition of the magazine has been an annual car guide). Of the 220 models of cars reviewed for 2004, only three were hybrids; of the 222 models of cars reviewed for 2005, only seven were hybrids; of the 228 models of cars reviewed for 2006, only seven were hybrids; and, of the 250 models of cars reviewed for 2007, only nine were hybrids. Keep in mind: Mostly the hybrids listed were hybrid versions of regular versions offered; for example, the Mercury Mariner was offered in non-hybrid versions and in a hybrid version. From the information provided in this paragraph, a person can deduce, generally speaking, fewer than four percent of the models offered in the period were hybrids (using the data related to Consumer Reports).
Through what research that I have done in relation to hybrids over the last several years, I have come up with conclusions and concerns related to hybrids. Between about 2000 and 2008, a hybrid model of a vehicle has been more expensive to buy than a regular model of the same type of vehicle has been; I note that, using the April editions of Consumer Reports that I have listed, the suggested retail price was often $3,000, $4,000, $5,000 more for a hybrid. During the period--for the first few years at least--Consumer Reports noted that the hybrids could be noisy on the highway and have a slow takeoff. Hybrids versions of models can get better gas mileage than regular versions of models can, but I shall not report the differences here (often the amount of difference was not much). What I will note is that hybrids have more main parts than regular vehicles do, and I am used to the idea that the more parts a thing has, the more parts that can break down over time and the more money over time that has to be spent to replace parts, and the more parts that a thing has, the greater amount that has to be spent to repair or replace things after an accident occurs and the more money that has to be spent on insurance (to cover the more parts that might have to be replaced), and, right from the start, the more parts a thing has to have when it is made, the more money that has to be spent to make the parts and the more people have to be involved in maing the parts. (Since the late 1970s, vehicles have been getting more and more secondary parts and systems, one of the more recent systems of which can informally be called the "electronic stability control" system (or "ESC" system), and when an accident occurs, more things can get damaged, even if not directly impacted, with the cars of today than the cars of the 1970s.)You should have noticed I have not talked about trucks, such as pickup trucks, that have to be built to move materials and such (a lot of mass) over distances that can be many hundreds of miles, and I wonder how hybrids might perform as trucks.
In the end, I see more money will have to be spent to have hybrids, and I wonder what the real gain will by going from regular vehicles to hybrid vehicles (it seems more like "shifting" energy from one process to another), but, at least, hybrids can travel long distances and are viable as long-distance vehicles, unlike electric cars.
Note: On Friday, December 19, 2008, a big snow storm hit the southeastern region of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and many places ended up with at least five or six or seven inches of snow, and, on that day, I had to travel across town on snow-covered roads, and a trip that usually would take about a half hour took one hour, and I was glad I was not in an electric vehicle--since it might run out of power before I would have gotten home again.
THE ELECTRIC VEHICLE IS A DEAD ISSUE.
By the way, license fees were raised in Michigan on Thursday, December 11, 2008, so get ready for your bill. When you travel in Michigan, some of the roads that you could use are called Interstate Highways or Interstate Freeways, and some of those routes are I-75, I-94, and I-96, and here is a bit of history about such routes. During the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt days of the country--the 1930s and 1940s--the road system of the country was, I shall say, "naive," compared with what it is today. It was through a federal highway act of 1944 that authorized an Interstate Highway System, and because states did not rush to spend money to build highways related to the Interstate Highway System, the federal government enacted another federal act in 1956, and the act made more federal money available for the construction of the Interstate Highway System. Generally speaking, the push to build the Michigan part of the Interstate Highway System took place in the 1960s and 1970s (it was not till 1973 that I-75 was completed in the state), and, in essence, by the 1980s, the Michigan portion of the Interstate Highway System was complete (in the 1980s, construction crews finished I-696 and I-69).
Enjoy your safe traveling in Michigan.
Your travel tip of Michigan in this edition of Michigan Travel Tips is:
The Hubbard Lake area of Alcona County, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.
- - - Public Service Copy for Broadcasters (four pieces) - - -
Number One:
In the deep wintertime, not much is going on at the lighthouses
around Michigan, and, in fact, they are shut down. If you were
to go to one that you can walk to, you will probably find it
surrounded by snow, and maybe you would find tracks of animals
in the snow, such as deer tracks, mice tracks, or squirrel tracks.
If you could get to the Copper Harbor Lighthouse, which is at
Copper Harbor of the Upper Peninsula and near Fort Wilkins,
you would find you could not get inside the lighthouse to see any
exhibits--maybe those about lighthouses lights and ship wrecks.
There is good news. If you could get to the Copper Harbor
Lighthouse, there are hiking trails there. Okay! Stop! Forget the
snow! Think about flowers. Think about green grass. Think about
seeing the Copper Harbor Lighthouse this summer, and learn how
it was used in the 1800s and early 1900s--till 1919. And take
children, and enjoy your safe traveling in Michigan.
###
Number Two:
Okay! Let us take a break here. Look at your right palm.
For a moment, pretend it is covered with snow--it is wintertime,
you know. Now, blow the snow away, and let the grass and trees
grow green. Find Otsego Lake, which is in Otsego County of the
Lower Peninsula. Think about the sun shining down. At the west
side of Otsego Lake is Otsego Lake County Park, and it is a place
where you could go this summer with the family. This county park
has several dozen campsites, so you might think about actually staying
at the park overnight. During a day there, you could go swimming
or go boating. There are courts for basketball and volleyball. By the
way, one indication that you are at Otsego Lake County Park is
wood sculptures of bears created by a man named Jimmy Burtis,
who is a chainsaw artist. Of course, you cannot see those bears on
your palm. So think about going to Otsego Lake County Park, and
enjoy your safe traveling.
###
Number Three:
In the middle of winter, a person's mind can drift into thinking
about things to see in Michigan in the upcoming summer, and,
for a few moments, I am going to mention a few places that might
come to mind. Portland is a place in Ionia County, and, at Portland
is The Riverland, which is a hiking-trail system, and The Riverland
should not be confused with RiverWalk, which is at Detroit. At Flint,
there is a museum that focuses on the history of Flint and the automobile
history of Flint, and that museum is the Alfred P. Sloan Museum. Near
Lake Michigan is where you will find Hart, which is where DeGraaf
Nature Center is located. The Grice House is a museum at Harbor
Beach of Huron County, and it is one of those museums that is only
open for regular visits in the summer. And if you get to Paris, you will
find the Haymarsh State Game Area. And those are things to see in
Michigan, and when you go, enjoy your safe traveling.
###
Number Four:
A good time to plan a trip with the family is the wintertime,
because everyone in the family can work on schedules to
go--of course, children usually just go when the parents can
take them. This summer, one place that a family could think
about going to is the Nichols Arboretum, which is a part of the
campus of the University of Michigan--the university at Ann
Arbor. The name for the arboretum was created in 1923.
A trip to the arboretum could be to spend at least a few hours
walking the over one-hundred acres. You could arrive at the
Washington Heights entrance, where you will find Burnham House,
which was moved to the location in 1998 and is home to the James
D. Reader Jr. Urban Environmental Education Center. Since it is
wintertime, it is time to make plans about when you can see the
Nichols Arboretum this summer at Ann Arbor. When you do go,
make sure the safety belts are set properly, and enjoy your safe
traveling.
###
- - - Contact Information - - -
The Hologlobe Press
Postal Box 20551
Ferndale, Michigan 48220-0551
The United States of Americacopyright c. 2009
File date: 10 January 2009To see the next edition of Michigan Travel Tips,
click on: Travel #58.
To see the previous edition of Michigan Travel Tips,
click on: Travel #56.
To see the catalog page for Michigan Travel Tips,
click on: Travel.
To go to the main page of The Hologlobe Press,
click on: www.hologlobepress.com.
For further reading, you should see THOUGHTS
AND PIECES OF LOGIC for the individual
woman and the individual man, which can be
reached by hitting this link: Logic.
For further reading, you should see THOUGHTS
AND STATEMENTS ABOUT THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA for the individual
woman and the individual man, which can be
reached by hitting this link: Thoughts.
For further reading, you should see Political Lessons
for the Individual Woman and the Individual
Man in the United States of America, which can
be reached by hitting this link: Lessons.
###