The Roadside Table

Find the Michigan Historical Marker depicted in the photo below. Use the text on the marker to decipher the clues and find the letterbox.

Clues…

6-10 15-2 2-21 13-9 2-2 4-2 12-18 11-26 16-10 11-2 10-19 7-5 2-10 1-7 5-23 14-8 10-11 15-10 7-1 5-18 3-19 12-12

14-1 4-14 4-12 13-24 3-5 9-19 12-9 6-3 13-15 16-1 14-12 6-24 13-1 4-6 16-6 8-20 11-1 15-23 10-16 15-7 4-26 16-5 2-27 8-4 3-17

15-21 6-5 3-24 7-4 2-18 7-11 1-16 12-11 16-4 4-9 7-22 5-5 15-13 9-7 5-20 14-15 6-2 14-13 11-7

1-12 4-14 4-13 13-4 4-8 8-22 12-23 9-9 6-7 11-6 3-25 10-5 13-2 7-10 2-14 9-14 8-3 14-27 5-1 4-18 6-26 14-2 5-12 3-14 5-13 14-7 3-7 12-5

Welcome to Michigan!

 
This letterbox was placed as a part of the I-94 Traffic Crawl letterbox series. This series was started to populate the I-94 corridor between Billings, MT and Port Huron, MI with letterboxes suitable for travelers. For more information and a complete listing of the boxes in this series or if you are interested in planting a box, join us at the Freewayletterboxing Yahoo! Group.

My Letterboxes in this Series…

• Welcome to Michigan!
• Miles From Our Home
• Flyin’ Down the Highway

Getting There…

This box is planted at the Michigan Welcome Center rest area located just inside the Michigan border along eastbound I-94. The nation’s first Highway Travel Information center opened on May 4, 1935, on US-12 at New Buffalo, not far from here. Other states followed Michigan’s lead, and by 1985 there were 251 travel information centers across the nation. The New Buffalo center was built by the Michigan State Highway Department, now the Michigan Department of Transportation, to welcome motorists entering the state via US-12. It was relocated at this site with its more modern building, on April 6, 1972, after the I-94 Freeway was completed.

Clues…

Six white poles to greet you
    As many to your right as left
A clump of stumps 25 ahead
    As 75 degrees you sight.

Great Day of Fire

Background Notes…

Most people are familiar with the legend of how Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over a lantern in the barn and started the entire town of Chicago on fire in October, 1871. Upwards of 300 people lost their lives and the city of Chicago, an important industrial and commerce center, was paralyzed.

But what not everyone knows is that equally catastrophic fires took place in Peshtigo, WI and throughout the state of Michigan on the same day. The most significant fires in Michigan were located in Port Huron on the eastern side of the state and Holland and Manistee on the Lake Michigan shoreline, with several lesser fires erupting in forested areas throughout the mid-section of the state.

While Mrs. O ‘Leary’s cow has for years been the scapegoat for the Chicago fire, there are no colorful tales as to how the fires in these other areas were started. Although the entire region was suffering from a severe dry spell that autumn, it is coincidental for so many large-scale fires to have broken out literally within hours of each other, for the most part without plausible explanation. One theory suggest that a meteor shower rained down burning astroids in a “V” shaped pattern, the cortex being Port Huron, MI, and then fanning out toward Chicago, IL and Peshtigo, WI. This theory actually makes a lot of sense and there are several eyewitness accounts in both MI and WI which claim to have seen fire coming from the sky.

The name for this letterbox is taken from both the reference commonly made to that day — the “Day of Fire” and from the popular song title, “Great Balls of Fire.”

To find the box, you must locate the marker shown in this photo, and then follow the clues provided below.

Clues…

You will find the trailhead due east from 140. 8/2=4. At 4, head the opposite direction from the cross. At the next numbered intersection, turn the way where you see a two-track crossing up ahead. When you come to the Eagle’s resting place, begin watching the right side of the trail for a glimpse of a water tower in the distance — if only this had been around in 1871! A faint trail runs through the clearing toward a fence row. Pace along the posts to the SE corner. At 35 degrees find the Great Day of Fire letterbox in a hollow stump.

Case of the Missing Salmon

A pacific salmon is missing from the Platte River Fish Hatchery in Beulah. Detective B. Stealthy is on the case and is gathering bits and pieces of evidence, most of which he has scribbled helter-skelter on odd scraps of paper. Piecing together the detective’s notes will help you to solve the crime and put you on the trail of the missing salmon.

Background Notes…

1. Five area cats (Lucy, Mr. Bigglesworth, Sebastian, Phoebe and Mozart) were seen in the vicinity of the Fish Hatchery around the time of the heist, but only one was actually at the scene of the crime.
2. The five cats, each a different breed (Persian, Siamese, Angora, Tabby and Himalayan), each wear a tag with a different ID number on it (127, 268, 382, 417 and 503).
3. Each cat fled to a different area trail (Beulah Village Park, Platte River State Forest - Honor, Betsie Valley Trail - Beulah Trailhead, Betsie Valley Trail - Mollineaux Rd. Trailhead and Railroad Point Natural Area) when they learned their name was on the suspect list — one cat had the salmon with him/her.
4. Inspection at the scene of the crime turned up a cat’s ID tag; the detective found it an odd coincidence that the number on the tag was the same number that had been assigned to the missing salmon.

Collected Facts…

1. Lucy is the Persian cat.
2. Mr. Bigglesworth, who is not the Himalayan, wears number “503″ on his tag.
3. Phoebe, who is not the Tabby or the Himalayan, wears number “127″ on her tag.
4. The cat who wears number “268″ did not flee to either the Village Park or Railroad Point.
5. Mozart’s tag is not numbered “417″ or “382″.
6. The cat who escaped to Platte River was not the Himalayan.
7. Phoebe is not the cat who fled to Railroad Point.
8. The Tabby cat ran off to the Beulah Trailhead.
9. Sebastian is not the Angora.
10. The cat who fled to Platte River, who was not Lucy, wears a tag numbered “382″.

Finding the Letterbox…

Once you have pieced together the information and completed the additional research to deduce which trail the guilty cat headed to, make your way there and use the following clues to find the spot where he hid the salmon:

Follow the trail straight ahead from the main parking area. You will come upon a large inscribed memorial stone. From this rock, walk at 150 degrees to the edge of the trees. Due East, find the salmon hidden under bark in the center of a triple trunk cherry tree.

Daughter of the Moon

(Hiawatha Series #3)

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water.
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.
There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha.

– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Song of Hiawatha, Hiawatha’s Childhood

This is an ongoing series of letterboxes themed around Longfellow’s poem, The Song of Hiawatha. The boxes will be placed at various locations in or near the Hiawatha National Forest in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Named after Longfellow’s poem, The Song of Hiawatha, the Hiawatha National Forest is located in the central and eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The forest encompasses approximately 880,000 acres, and receives over 1.5 million recreational visits per year. The forest affords visitors access to white sand, scenic beaches and relatively undeveloped shorelines along three of America’s inland seas — Lakes Superior, Michigan, and Huron. From scenic and historic lighthouses to Great Lakes islands, from spectacular shorelines to the Midwest’s finest winter playland, the Hiawatha National Forest brings to life a myriad of fascinating and exciting natural, historical, and unique recreational opportunities.

Letterboxes in this Series…

• Song of Hiawatha
• Gitche Gumee
• Daughter of the Moon
• Nahma, King of Fishes

Getting There…

One of our favorite places for an awesome view of Lake Superior is from a roadside rest area just outside of the city of Munising. Along this stretch of highway, sunlit Lake Superior waves lap at sandy beaches and the wind blows the sand into drifts along the shoreline. Heading west out of Munising along the Lake Superior shoreline, you will find this Michigan Historic marker at a roadside rest area.

Clues…

From the marker, walk East along the drive. Follow the trail that leads into the woods six posts past the overlook, to a sandy clearing. At 100 degrees a faint path leads to the place where concrete supports recall a bridge across the creek. You should be able to cross even though the bridge is no longer there. Standing at the edge of the cement support on the opposite side of the creek, 320 degrees points to a fallen birch tree which holds the letterbox.