Pure Michigan

With our new refrigerator installed in the RV we finally got on the Ohio Turnpike section of Interstate 80. We decided to take this toll road because the surface is in much better shape...at least until we reached the MIchigan state line. Oh my...their highways make Ohio look pretty good! We bypassed Ann Arbor and proceeded to Jackson, Michigan to mooch dock on Alan and Pat Willis' 2 acre property. They have 30 A electrical that I used while we visited.

We provided some beautiful Ribeye steaks from Costco that we needed to eat. Alan did the barbecuing on his back deck and we finished the evening with a trip to "The Parlour" in town for an ice cream sundae.

On Wednesday, May 14 we made plans to drive to Battle Creek, Michigan for lunch at Clara's on the River. And after lunch it was going to be off to the MOO-ville Creamery in Nashville Michigan. But first, I needed to spend the morning working on some needed improvements following our refrigerator upgrade. Three new projects were created for me after the installation of our new appliance. They are the following:

1) We gave up the bottom drawer under the old absorption refrigerator, so I had to construct some additional storage shelves in the pantry to make up for the lost storage space.

2) We now had a unfinished space above the new refrigerator. I wanted to use the removed bottom drawer cabinet face and materials I saved to create a more finished look above the refrigerator similar to the narrow flat storage cabinet above our microwave.

3) And finally, this was the most ambitious of the "honey do's" on the list; resize the cabinet doors under the kitchen sink of the island that faced the new freezer drawer. We discovered that they would not allow the kitchen slide to retract into the trailer without touching. So I needed remove the doors from the island cabinet, resize them to fit inside the cabinet opening face and replace the hinge hardware to accommodate the modification.

I worked on the first item while we were in East Harbor, Ohio before we got the new refrigerator, so that was already completed. Item two was completed at the Willis' property on Wednesday morning by noon. I had to cut down the cabinet face of the drawer to match.

Our afternoon trip to Battle Creek took about an hour driving time. Battle Creek is famous for being the "Cereal City" due to its strong association with the cereal industry and the invention of Kellogg's Corn Flakes.

Our destination in Battle Creek was Clara's on the River which is located in the old Michigan Central Railroad Depot. The Depot was built in 1888 to support the growing transportation needs of Battle Creek and the U.S. Army training center at Fort Custer. It was heavily used by soldiers departing for overseas duty in World War I and World War II.

A walk through Clara’s on the River is a walk through the history of Battle Creek. The two signed Bradley Hubbard brass lanterns hanging in the foyer were part of the Depot’s original decor. In the foyer you will also find a glass display case, which holds many of the first cereal boxes ever printed in Battle Creek.

After lunch it was off to MOO-ville a short drive north of Battle Creek. Alan told us that we had to visit this very unique place on earth and I'm glad we had a chance to experience it.

MOO-ville Creamery is family owned and operated. "We milk 200 cows with robots in Nashville, Michigan. We believe in producing high quality Milk and process it as little as possible. We bottle our own milk, make ouf own ice cream, cheese, and butter, all under the MOO-ville logo. We welcome you to visit us where you can see how our Holsteins are cared for. We DO NOT use growth hormones."

This creamery produces a milk product called "Cream line". It is described like this:

Cream line milk is simply milk that is allowed to be milk. Like the milk found on most store shelves, cream line milk is pasteurized. We do not, however, homogenize our milk. Homogenization is, in short, the process by which the cream (or fat content) in the milk is permanently mixed into the body of the milk, eliminating the separation - or cream line - that is characteristic of fresh-from-the-farm milk. The process of homogenization uses very high pressure to break down the fat molecules into particles so small that they can be dissolved into the rest of the milk. They lose buoyancy and thus, the cream never rises to the top of homogenized milk. We believe that homogenization diminishes the flavor and decreases many of the health benefits of milk.

Studies have shown that when fat molecules are forcibly broken up by mechanical means, an enzyme called Xanthine Oxidase is released and allowed to penetrate the intestinal wall. Once it gets through the intestinal wall, Xanthine Oxidase gets into the bloodstream and is capable of creating scar damage to the heart and arteries, which may in turn cause the body to release cholesterol into the blood as a means of protecting the scarred areas with fatty tissue. This can lead to Arteriosclerosis. When un-homogenized milk is consumed, Xanthine Oxidase is normally excreted from the body without much absorption. Our milk is also free of controversial growth hormones including rBST*, and is free of animal byproducts. Cows were meant to eat plants not animals, thus the food they eat here contains no animal byproducts.

We ended our self-guided tour of the milking barn with a purchase of their signature ice cream. I also purchased some of the A2A2 whole milk to try out. Both items purchased were yummy!

It was great to spend more time getting to know Alan and Pat, seeing their home and touring around the area where they live in Michigan. We will definitely be back to visit again. Thanks for the hospitality and we'll see you again next year at our RVICS project in Texas!