Larry & Marilyn's Lighthouse Hunt Up the Lake Michigan shore, July 17-24, 1999

Hello from Kalamazoo! We are Larry and Marilyn Asher. Larry runs a press at a printing plant, I process loans at a bank, and in 1993, for our twenty-fifth anniversary, we finally took the trip to Maine we had talked about since we were newlyweds. We came home with ten lighthouses, a sunburn, and a hobby. This summer's trip was the big one: eleven lighthouses in eight days, north along the Michigan side of Lake Michigan from the Grand Haven pier to the Mackinac Bridge. That makes 47 on our list.

Larry does the planning, with the road atlas and our lighthouse guidebook, and I take the pictures and write things down. What I tell you about the lights is from the signs and the guidebook. If I'm not sure of something, like how tall a tower is, I've left it out, because you can always tell when somebody's guessing. Click a little picture to see it bigger.

Saturday, July 17, 1999 · Grand Haven and Muskegon

1. Grand Haven South Pier. Two red lights on one long pier, a tall round tower partway out and a squat one at the end, joined by the old elevated catwalk. We left Kalamazoo after lunch and got there at suppertime with a west wind blowing, and the waves were coming up over the pier, so we stayed on the beach. Larry says this is the best picture of the trip. I took it.

2. Muskegon South Pierhead. A red tower at the end of the south pier, at the channel into Muskegon Lake. Still windy, so we admired it from the beach and went to find supper.

Sunday, July 18, 1999 · Whitehall and Silver Lake

	3. White River Light Station. This one is a museum, with the keeper's house full of ship models, pictures and things from the old days, and the best part: you can climb the iron spiral stairs to the top. That's me on the way up, smiling for the camera and trying not to look down. The gentleman at the desk answered every one of Larry's questions, which is saying something.
	And the view from up top: the beach, Lake Michigan all the way to the sky, and the channel between the two piers where White Lake runs out into the big lake. Worth every step. I counted them going up and lost count coming down.

4. Little Sable Point. A tall tower of plain red brick, not painted, standing right out in the dunes south of Silver Lake. In the late afternoon light the brick was the color of a flowerpot. One of my favorites, and the camera battery chose that moment to die. Larry bought a new one in Hart. There is no picture. There is a lesson.

Monday, July 19, 1999 · Ludington

5. Ludington North Breakwater. A white tower shaped like a pyramid at the end of a long breakwater. We walked out to it in the morning and watched the car ferry to Wisconsin come in past it, blowing its horn, which made my whole day before nine o'clock.

6. Big Sable Point. In Ludington State Park, at the end of a sandy road through the dunes, about two miles each way on foot. Bring water and a hat. And there it is, white with a broad black band around the middle, standing out over the dunes with the lake behind it. Coming over the last rise and seeing it is something I won't forget. We didn't go up this one: my knees had done White River the day before, and the walk back was waiting.

Tuesday, July 20, 1999 · Frankfort

7. Frankfort North Breakwater. A white square tower at the end of the breakwater. Quick stop, nice picture, too much like the last one to put up here.

8. Point Betsie. The one on all the postcards: a white tower joined to the white keeper's house with the red roof, right down on the beach, with a sloped concrete apron in front to keep the waves off. A tour bus had just let out when we got there, as you can see. We waited them out on a log and had our sandwiches, and by one o'clock we had the beach nearly to ourselves.

Wednesday, July 21, 1999 · Sleeping Bear Dunes

No new lights today, a day off for the dunes. At an overlook on the scenic drive, the sand drops straight down to the lake, hundreds of feet. Larry went out to the edge and threw up his arms like he'd climbed Everest. Then he went a little way down the face to see how far it was, and it took him twenty minutes to come back up. The signs warn you about that. Now he believes them.

Thursday, July 22, 1999 · Northport

9. Grand Traverse Lighthouse. At the very tip of the Leelanau Peninsula, in the state park. It's a white house with the light on the roof, and inside it's a museum set up the way it was when the keepers' families lived there, right down to the dishes. I could have moved in.

Friday, July 23, 1999 · Charlevoix and Mackinaw City

10. Charlevoix South Pier. A red tower at the end of the south pier, where the channel runs from Lake Michigan into town. We sat and watched the drawbridge go up for the sailboats and ate fudge, which is what you do in Charlevoix.

11. Old Mackinac Point. Cream-colored brick with a round tower, like a little castle, right beside the bridge. We could only walk around the outside, but that was fine. Number forty-seven!

And to finish: the Mackinac Bridge at sunset, from the shore at Mackinaw City. We sat on the rocks with everybody else in town and watched the sun go down behind it. Not a lighthouse, and Larry says it doesn't count. He's right, but it's going on the page anyway.

Saturday, July 24, 1999 · Home

Down US-131 and home to Kalamazoo by supper, with 9 rolls of film to drop off at the drugstore, a bag of cherries from a stand outside Traverse City, and our 47th light. 1,140 miles on the car, by Larry's notebook.

A light counts when we've stood where we could see it plain. Climbing is extra credit.

Trips: Maine for our 25th (1993), the U.P. along Lake Superior (1994), the Outer Banks (1995), Lake Huron's shore (1996), Door County (1997), Lake Erie in Ohio (1998), and this summer. The odd ones in between are Saturday drives. South Haven is an hour from our door.

1. Go early or late. The noon sun makes a white tower look flat as a sheet of paper. The best light is the first two hours and the last two.
2. Walk back. Get the whole tower in, and some of what's around it. A lighthouse without its water is just a tower.
3. Keep the horizon level. Lake Michigan is not tilted. (Some of our 1993 pictures say otherwise.)
4. Put a person in for scale. That would be me. —M.
5. Pier lights look best from the beach beside the pier, not from out on the pier, where all you get is the back of the tower and a lot of concrete.
6. Don't bother with the flash on a lighthouse. It reaches about ten feet.
7. Bring two more rolls than you think. Film is cheaper than driving back.
8. Buy the postcard too. The fellow who took it had better weather.

• South Manitou Island. The ferry from Leland didn't run the day we tried, on account of the wind. Next time.
• Mission Point, out on Old Mission Peninsula. We ran out of day. It was that or supper, and Larry chose supper.
• Little Traverse, at Harbor Point. It's on private property, and you can't go in. We waved from across the bay.

Next summer, if the creek don't rise: Lake Superior's Minnesota shore. Larry already has the map out.

Fellow lighthouse lovers since August 1999:


Have you been to one we haven't? Tell us about it!
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Last updated September 18, 1999