Friday On to Frankenmuth

Beautiful sunrise this morning from our hotel room. We hit the road at about 8:30. Sunny but a lot colder this morning! We headed south on I-75, then Rt 127 to the town of Clare and a most interesting pit stop. Fifteen years ago, the nine cops on the Clare Police Department pooled their resources to "save" the local bakery/donut shop. They now operate this very cool enterprise called "Cops and Donuts", here and three other locations in the state. The "Chief" came on board and told the history then invited us in for donuts and coffee.

From Clare, we turned south on Rt 10, past Midland, Saginaw and into Frankenmuth. (Saginaw area looked a little sad).

As we came near Frankenmuth, we noticed the beautiful homes, with their huge green grass lawns, all along the road into town. We came into this Bavarian themed town, past hotels and restaurants all with this German theme, flowers everywhere. (Sam thought it a little "creepy").  We arrived at the Bavarian Inn Lodge ( will check in later) and were greeted by our "step on" guide, a friendly fellow dressed in Lederhosen. He gave a tour of his little town, ending at the impressive St. Lorenz Lutheran Church. He led us into the church to learn the history and see the beautiful stained glass windows.

After our tour we went to the Mother of All Christmas Shops. Bronners' Christmas Wonderland is thousands of square feet of Christmas stuff. Clearly "over the top"! After nearly two hours, we met back at our coach for the short ride back to the hotel where we checked into our rooms. The place is huge - 350 rooms and German themed restaurants galore. (Each room is named for a famous Frankenmuth family - we got Trump!) After a brief rest, we had dinner in a seperate dining room featuring baked chicken, mashed potatoes etc, served family style. It was delicious!

Tomorrow we head toward Detroit where we'll spend the afternoon at the Ford Museum.