MyNorth.com has some tips for agate-hunting on Lake Superior:

Claim to fame: Lake Superior agates are the oldest agates on earth, formed 1.2 billion years ago. The next oldest are the Montana moss agates, a mere 370 million years old.

The most prized: Highly contrasting red and white bands (called candy stripers), eye-like patterns (eye agates) and hologramlike appearance (shadow agates).

Hunting grounds: Comb any pebbly beach on the south and west shores of Lake Superior, but the beaches near Grand Marais are famed for their agates.

What to look for: A pitted or peeled texture. A glossy, waxy appearance on chipped surfaces. Rust- and yellow-hued iron oxide staining. Translucence produced by their quartz content, causing a glow easily observed on sunny days, or when the rock is backlit with a flashlight.

When to look: Best hunting is right after a storm with churning waves.

More here…

http://www.mynorth.com/My-North/August-2008/Beach-Comb-for-Superior-Agates/

Note: The image above is from the State of Minnesota’s web site.

I’m not quite sure that most of the nation realizes how great the beaches are along the Great Lakes coast.  Thousands of miles of sand beach offer a sun and fun for millions of midwesterners.  Of course, these freshwater beaches are different in character than those found along the salty ocean shores.  A writer at the New  York Times published a comparison between these distant cousins of the water-meets-land world:

My 50 years have been equally divided between lake and ocean. Like anyone who grew up near a body of water bigger than a wading pool, I came early to the idea that beaches shape the summer. But precisely how beaches define those languid days depends upon the particular stretch of sand or rocky shore that is most familiar.

I grew up spending my summers at a family cottage on the vast freshwater sea of Lake Ontario, and for the first half of my life imagined that there could be little difference, save salinity, between it and the Atlantic. Ontario’s waters are so deep I have witnessed storm-driven waves become towers. The lake is so wide that little was visible on the horizon but the very tallest buildings of downtown Toronto — and those were distant blocks on land 35 miles away. Surely, I used to think, this lake was a match for any ocean.

But then I moved to coastal New England, and the moment I first walked on the windswept ocean beach, I discovered how mistaken my assumptions had been.

http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/travel/escapes/15rituals.html?ref=escapes

Today’s “Escapes” section of the New York Times includes a road trip along the Midwest’s important ancient settlements.  One does not have to visit North Africa or Stonehenge to find settlements that age in the thousands of years.  A half-day’s drive will do.  Excerpts and link:

THE earthworks left behind by the long-vanished civilizations of the Midwest are harder to spot than the pueblos and kivas of Arizona and New Mexico. For a long time many of them were hidden in plain sight or dismissed as little more than heaps of soil. But the more today’s archaeologists learn about the Midwestern mounds, the more intriguing is the picture that emerges from 1,000 or more years ago: a city with thousands of people just a few miles from present-day St. Louis, a 1,348-foot earthen serpent that points to the summer solstice, artifacts made of materials that could only have arrived over lengthy trade routes. The mound builders lived over a wide area. But on a road trip of a few days in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, you can get a sampling of their work — and, along the way, find some modern-day diversions. Related: Article and printable Map pdf.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/14/travel/escapes/20080814_MILEPOSTS_FEATURE.html#

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At one time, SE Michigan’s Waterloo and Pinckney State Recreation Areas were both National Park Service demonstration areas.  The Great Depression and poor, sandy soils had driven most farmers from the area.  The National Park Service began amassing land in the area and putting unemployed men to work building camps, restoring forests and creating trails.

Hikers often come across some of these old structures at various locations in Waterloo and Pinckney.  Many have been allowed to fall into ruin.

NASCAR driver Ryan Newman, however, is working to help restore the Mill Lake Camp.  Ann Arbor News excerpts and link:

The camp, located in the 20,000-acre Waterloo Recreation Area, was originally developed by the National Park Service as part of a federal work relief initiative in the 1930s. Completed in 1936, the camp eventually fell into disrepair and is closed.

The Ryan Newman Foundation, Racing For Wildlife, the Conservation Fund, Michigan United Conservation Clubs and Michigan International Speedway have joined forces to raise $1.5 million to restore the camp and coordinate its use with nearby Cedar Lake camp, according to information provided by the groups. Last year, the Ryan Newman Foundation contributed $500,000 to the project.

“I enjoy the area and it’s a good way to raise awareness of conservation efforts,” Newman said.

The 30-year-old driver from South Bend, Ind., said he hopes the 16 cabins at the camp will be functional by next year and that families can stay.

http://blog.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/08/nascar_driver_ryan_newman_help.html

Tom Treece’s most recent Monroe Evening News column relates his experiences visiting Ohio’s Marblehead/Catawba Island/Put-in-Bay area.  Excerpts and link:

We recently took the hour and a half drive to Ohio’s Catawba Island and enjoyed this beautiful, glistening jewel on Lake Erie. A virtual unknown historic gem is the well manicured and documented prisoner’s graveyard where brave Confederate soldiers from the Civil War lie sleeping.

It’s also home to the historic Perry’s Monument, one of the tallest free-standing structures in the entire Midwest. The long elevator ride to the top is worth the wait as the view is spectacular and on a clear day you can see Monroe.

Full article:

http://www.monroenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080811/TREECELOCCOL/197665838/-1/COLUMNISTS

The closest American national park to Monroe is Cleveland’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  Using the Ohio Turnpike, a visitor from Monroe can reach the park’s boundaries in two hours.  That places it just a bit more distant than Canada’s Point Pelee National Park near Leamington, Ontario.

One of the neatest aspects of the CVNP is the fact that both an old towpath trail and a short line railroad traverse the entire length of the park.  This makes it possible to bike one way on the trail and return via train to one’s parking area.  A hostel is located halfway, making an overnight weekend bike or hike possible.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that $2 train rides for bikers have boosted this kind of trip dramatically during the current tourist season.  Excerpts and link:

Railroad officials started the “Bike Aboard” program last summer, which allows cyclists to bike the Towpath Trail in one direction and ride the train in the other for $2. The fare is a drastic reduction from the usual $15 boarding fee ($10 for kids) for traveling anywhere along the length the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

It has tripled bike-and-train use this summer.

The National Park Service began funding alternative transportation programs in 1998, but is increasing its emphasis as public awareness increases about the connection between the burning of fossil fuels and global warming.

The Park Service is now expected to spend $78 million a year through 2020 to develop ways to reduce automobile traffic in the nation’s parks.

In other parks around the country, that emphasis has meant adding natural-gas fired buses or other mass-transit vehicles to bring visitors in and out of areas like Zion National Park in Utah or Acadia National Park in Maine.

But Cuyahoga Valley National Park — which covers 33,000 acres from Akron to Cleveland — is trying to better take advantage of the railroad and Towpath that literally run right down its middle.

Full article:

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2008/08/cuyahoga_valley_scenic_railroa.html

The Toledo Blade continues its review of good near-in travel destinations with a visit to NE Indiana’s Pokagon State Park.  The park is a bit too developed for my tastes, but it’s not a bad park, especially when winter turns away the crowds.  Excerpts and link:

Named for the two 19th century leaders of the Potawatomi tribe, Leopold Pokagon and his son, Simon, the state park has lake shores, wooded hills, wetlands, and open meadows on more than 1,200 acres.

The park offers a wide array of year-round outdoor sports possibilities, as well as lodging ranging from primitive campground sites to cabin suites at Potawatomi Inn Resort & Conference Center.

Swimming, fishing, boating, hiking, biking, tubing, and horseback riding reign in summer. Winter brings cross-country skiing, sledding, ice skating, and tobogganing on a quarter-mile refrigerated track.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080811/NEWS17/808110339/-1/RSS08

Eric Sharp at the Detroit Free Press has an overview of seven family-friendly destinations in Michigan:  Beaver Island, Lime Island, the Porcupine Mountains, Charlevoix, Pinckney, Jackson and Wyandotte.  Excerpts and link:

A few years ago a good friend and I started a project to camp at every state park.

On our way to add a couple of state parks in the Upper Peninsula, we stopped at a county rest area to use the bathroom.

After, we sat for a few minutes surrounded by mature oaks and maples and watched the Lake Superior surf crash onto a beautiful beach.

My friend looked around and said, “In Michigan this is just a rest area. In most parts of the country it would be a pretty good state park.”

He was absolutely right. Michigan offers not just fantastic outdoors resources but almost unlimited access to them.

Read the full article here:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080810/CELEBRATE/808100350/1025/rss05

Note: The image above comes from NASA

CaptainLance at the online forum/blog toledotalk has an interesting post on a bike ride he took between Point Place and Downtown Toledo.  The route is interesting because it has potential to be a part of a long-distance bike/hike route between Detroit and Toledo.  Both cities have burgeoning trail networks and recent efforts to reconstruct the I-275 Bikeway and create the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge make this route much more practical than in the past.

http://toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/tt.pl/article/21010/Bike_Paths_in_Toledo

The Associated Press has a story relating to the movement of black bears into Michigan’s southern Lower Peninsula.  Excerpts and link:

Black bear populations are either increasing or moving in some Midwestern states, raising the chances of confrontations with humans in unexpected places — like Terry Cook’s front yard in rural Jackson County.

About 90 percent of Michigan’s estimated 15,000 to 19,000 black bears are thought to live in the state’s Upper Peninsula, at least 250 miles north of Cook’s home in the southern Lower Peninsula.

Rarely has that location been in Battle Creek — about 40 miles from the Indiana border. So police were shocked to find a bear standing in the middle of a northside neighborhood street about 2 a.m. one morning this spring. The bear scrambled between houses and climbed backyard fences while officers shot at him. The bear was hit by a patrol car and scrambled up a pine tree by an elementary school, where police shot and killed him.

In the Lansing area in 2005, a bear was seen in a Wal-Mart parking lot north of the state’s capital city, another in a residential neighborhood just west of town.

http://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080806/NEWS01/308060019/1002/rss