I’m a semi-regular bus rider—gone through a couple of bus punch-cards in the past six months or so traveling between Cedar and Traverse City on the BATA. There are lots of things I like about the bus, like being able to chat with friends on the way to work, or being able to just zone out in the seat in the early darkness, since I don’t have to drive. But the other day I discovered a new thing to like about the bus. This good thing has to do with the part of busing that involves walking to the bu…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on October 14, 2009 at 8:39am —
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A Sunday ago I volunteered to help with the
TART Trails Leelanau Harvest Tour, which is a recreational bicycle ride that attracts about 1,000 people every year. They get to pedal some of America’s most sublime bike terrain during the crisp, perfect-temperatured days of September. I had the important job of standing at an intersection where the long-distance riders went one way and the shorter-distance riders went another w…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on September 29, 2009 at 8:30am —
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Back in July I met Lucian Gizel in Harbor Springs during one of the
Outfitter of Harbor Springs Saturday kayak symposiums. Gizel is a Michigan guru of fishing from kayaks, and he was there promoting his favorite pastime.
Well, I had the opportunity to meet up with Gizel again on another Saturday recently when he was camped out on Sleeping Bear Bay for an
annual salmon fishing get-together that…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on September 21, 2009 at 8:54am —
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Labor Day can kind of seem like summer’s Sunday, a day when technically you don’t have to work, but the idea of work and school and the amping up of every possible thing is on everybody’s mind, no matter how hard you try to enjoy the moments of the day. Fortunately, Labor Day 2009 made enjoying the moment as easy as possible, with forever blue skies and a temperature that ranged between almost perfect and perfect.
I have to admit that I did middle-aged man sorts of things for much of the day. I…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on September 8, 2009 at 9:18am —
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Have to say I’m so proud of the Northern spirit after seeing the big turnout at the Traverse City Microbrew and Music Festival Saturday evening.
The day couldn’t have been worse for an August outdoor event. Rain began sometime early in the a.m. and came down hard and steady all day. Sure, occasionally there was some brief reprieve, but that only seemed to give the storm time to gather more water from somewhere, somehow. Truly, the day was one of the rainiest I’ve seen in years, and the sky neve…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on August 31, 2009 at 8:30am —
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Over the past few years, we’ve seen a small but very positive and promising trend gathering some momentum here in Northern Michigan: the growing popularity of the house concert. As the name implies, house concerts are simply concerts that people hold at their private homes.
This is on my mind because yesterday evening I had the pleasure of sitting on a gorgeous hilltop under a clear sky while listening to music by The Jems, a singer-songwriter duo. The female lead, Emily Lively, grew up in Leel…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on August 24, 2009 at 5:13pm —
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I caught up with Sam Porter of
Porterhouse Productions and asked him to fill us in on the Traverse City Microbrew and Music Festival that he has planned for Saturday, August 29 at the Grand Traverse Commons.
Where’d the idea co… Continue
Posted by Jeff Smith on August 16, 2009 at 12:57pm —
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Saturday I made my way across the Mackinac Bridge to Hessel for the 32nd annual Les Cheneaux Islands Antique Wooden Boat Show. Our state brims with summer festivals, but the boat show in Hessel is without doubt one of the finest and so worthy of a visit.
For starters, the setting in…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on August 9, 2009 at 10:12am —
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I had the good fortune last week of hearing Dr. Charles Ballard, a Michigan State University economist, give a presentation about Michigan’s economic transformation. Ballard has taught and performed economic research at MSU since the 1980’s and is the author of a recent book titled,
Michigan’s Economic Future.
Like any economist looking at Michigan’s current situation, Ballard had his share of troubling statistics. One of…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on July 27, 2009 at 10:00am —
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Last Saturday I had the pleasure of occupying a sunny perch along the Harbor Springs waterfront at a kayak demonstration day sponsored by
The Outfitter of Harbor Springs. No surprise there were a multitude of kayaks in a multitu…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on July 17, 2009 at 8:00am —
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Gray and gusty, just how the Windspire vertical wind turbine likes it.
This is the fourth installment in a series of blogs about the entrepreneurial mettle that Manistee is relying on to move forward in Michigan’s changing economy.
Sometimes, when a company has to w…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on July 10, 2009 at 12:00pm —
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Harold Cronk, a partner in Manistee's new 10 West Studios
This is the third installment in a series of blogs about the entrepreneurial mettle that Manistee is relying on to move forward in Michigan’s changing economy.
Anyone looking for evidence that Michigan’s film…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on July 8, 2009 at 9:30am —
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Moving Spirit wine shop and art gallery
This is the second installment in a series of blogs about the entrepreneurial mettle that Manistee is relying on to move forward in Michigan’s changing economy.
There is a phenomenon that historic preservationists talk about,…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on July 6, 2009 at 9:30am —
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This is the first installment in a series of blogs about the entrepreneurial mettle that Manistee is relying on to move forward in Michigan’s changing economy.
As Michigan continues the fight to right itself economically and scrambles to find models to follow and examples that inspire, our business and government leaders should take a look at a few things happening in Manistee County. I recently had the good fortune of taking a day to check out some of the success stories there, thanks t…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on July 3, 2009 at 9:00am —
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Saturday I headed to the Manistee County Fairgrounds in Onekama, about an hour and a half south of Traverse City, to check out the Michigan Energy Fair 2009, organized by the
Great Lakes Renewable Energy Association.
The fair, in its fourth year, i…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on June 28, 2009 at 9:00am —
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Dining Room, Fuller's North Branch Outing Club
A few days ago I drove to a tiny Northern outpost called Lovells, about 15 miles northeast of Grayling, to gather information for an article (August, Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine) about the Au Sable River’s role in the fou…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on June 22, 2009 at 5:27pm —
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When visitors think of the crew that takes care of
Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, they naturally picture the rangers patrolling the beach or the maintenance people tending the campgrounds. But there’s another group behind the scenes that donates hundreds of hours a year to ensuring that the park looks beautiful and stays natural. The group is called
The Friends of Sleeping Bear Dunes—150 members st…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on June 20, 2009 at 8:30am —
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Yesterday afternoon I was at a gathering about Michigan’s energy options and happened to run into Don Coe, a partner in Black Star Farms, the vineyard and B&B about 15 minutes north of Traverse City, on Leelanau Peninsula. Coe often describes himself as a farmer, which is true, since Black Star Farms grows grapes and orchard fruit, but the title doesn’t fully encompass his experience. Coe also worked in the upper echelons of a major distiller and ran their government relations operation prio…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on June 9, 2009 at 12:26pm —
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Saturday afternoon I accepted an invitation from Graham Kelly to check out his new hops farm about 20 minutes north of Traverse City on Old Mission Peninsula. Kelly was throwing a party to celebrate his second year of hops production and the planting of a new field of the trell…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on June 7, 2009 at 8:00am —
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I had the occasion to hear Eric Baker, CEO of Wolverine Power, speak recently about the company's plans to build a coal-fired power plant in Rogers City, on the Lake Huron shore. Given the debate over global warming today, it's no surprise that the plant is controversial--adamantly opposed by most in the environmental community because of its CO2 emissions; supported by people in the power industry who feel Michigan will need the plain reliability that coal brings to the state's electrical grid…
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Posted by Jeff Smith on May 29, 2009 at 7:30am —
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