It's been awhile so we decided to take a little road trip up around Marshall Michigan. After miles of corn fields, narrow roads and dodging the potholes in the road we spotted what a first looked like an old abandon airfield. As we got closer we saw a chopper taking off so I pulled in to take a look around. There was one lady in the office that ran the whole place, I talked with her for about 20 minutes an got an hours worth of history about the place.
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| Right out of a WW II Movie |
Mr Brooks donated the property to the city of Marshall with the provision that it always be used as an air field, it was about this time that city of Marshall was changing over from brick paved streets to cement. Mr Brooks said that he would take all the old bricks and stock piled them on the property, then he contacted someone in the Federal government and had a small CCC camp built and the CCC used the paving bricks to build the three buildings for the air field. The main hanger and a smaller out building still remain.
The Airfield is used by some glider pilots (NOTE: they also built some of the gliders here that were used during the D-Day invasion) and a bunch of those crazy people that jump out of a perfectly good airplane. She said the it really gets busy on the weekends because of people flying into eat at Schuler's restaurant. When I was just a wee lad my folks would make a once a year trek from our home in Detroit, about a three hours drive back then, to Marshall so that we could eat at Schuler's. The reason I remember this is that back then I had to wear a suit and tie to enter the restaurant at least with my parents I did. Today the restaurant is divided into the main dining room where the old ways still exist, and the Pub room where it is casual for lunch and dinner.
Any how, after leaving the air field we drove into Marshall and figured we would give the Pub section a try for lunch. We both went with the Grilled Triple Cheese sandwich with tomato and spinach, a bowl of Tomato Basil soup with homemade potato chips ($10). WOW, when she brought our order the sandwiches were over hanging the plate, a large bowl of soup and so many chips, that were great, that we had to get a to go box to take over half of them home. If you're ever near here you can't go wrong stopping for lunch. (115 S Eagle St, Marshall MI 269-781-0600 Just south of Michigan Ave)
The lady at Brooks Filed also mentioned the Southern Exposure Herb Garden just north of town, so we thought that we might try walking off a little of our lunch there.
Another good choice, the gardens is basically used for weddings and other such parties, the property contains a 1835 farm house and numerous out buildings, all restored to original condition and surrounded by beautiful gardens filled with small walking paths. While walking around the paths we stumbled onto one of the owners, Curtis spent 34 years in the Air Force and calls this place his 2nd life. While chatting we mentioned that we travel Full time and he had a bunch of questions about that, then he explained that, that was what he had planned for his 3rd life.
Pictures from Southern Exposure
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| One of the buildings where the parties are held |
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| Iron bench in the shrubs |
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| 1953 Chevy |
This place is really beautiful but hard to capture in Pictures
After that it was back to base camp to watch our Tigers beat Cleveland and move into FIRST PLACE.
