Part 2 of U.S. 12 places of interest in Michigan

This is the continuation of some of the many places of interest along U.S. 12 in Michigan. Enjoy! See part one, here. White Pigeon Bup's Drive-In - The drive-in restaurant is still alive and well along U.S. 12. Bup's has excellent home made root beer. You can have a frosty mug of it while you are there and/or buy it by the gallon for $3. Yum!

Coldwater The Capri Drive-In - One of America's Top 10 drive-in theaters. Great prices and specials all summer long.

Northwoods Coffee Co. - In addition to their excellent coffee, Northwoods Coffee Co. has excellent food and lodge decor. Their website leaves a lot to be desired though.

Clinton The Clinton Inn - Officially opened for business on Thanksgiving Day in 1901. They are open for lunch and dinner as well as Sunday Brunch.

Saline An abundant number of Antique stores, Art Galleries, and Coffee Shops proliferate this little town. I like to refer to it as "Little Ann Arbor" due to its proximity to Ann Arbor and the fact that with all of the development between Saline and Ann Arbor you can not really tell when you leave one town and enter the other.

Well, that is as far as I am going with this review of places of interest along U.S. 12 in Michigan. Once you leave Saline, the quaintness of the "old Chicago Road" disappears into strip malls and fields of concrete. There are numerous other stops to make along U.S. 12 and I would like to list them sometime in the future.

Great places to stop on U.S. 12 in Michigan

The huge U.S. 12 yard sale is this weekend all across southern Michigan. There are a lot of neat places to stop along the way any time of the year. The following is an informal list of some of my favorite U.S. 12 stops as well as some I have not yet visited. We will start at the western end of U.S. 12 in Michigan and work our way east.

New Buffalo Redamak's - "The hamburger that made New Buffalo, MI famous." I have not yet stopped in and tasted this famous burger, but it is on my list. I love their website. They have some great oldies music playing while you are looking around the site. Note: Redamak's only accepts cash, no cards or checks.

The Bean Counter - Great little coffee shop right on U.S. 12. As a recovering accountant I can appreciate the name (come on you know people always refer to accountants as bean counters).

Three Oaks Historic Drier's Meat Market - In business since just after the Civil War ended, Drier's Meat Market is a National Historic Site. They still throw sawdust on the floor and their ring bologna is as famous as it is tasty.

Featherbone Factory - Once home to a thriving women's garment factory, the Featherbone Factory is now home to Kinner Enterprises. They sell rustic home furnishings and hundreds of garden stepping stones and statues.

Okay, that is it for part one. I am posting the second half of this U.S. 12 adventure separately. I just kept coming up with more places to stop and the post was getting longer than I wanted it to be.

Documentary on the History of U.S. 12

"From Moccasins to Main Street" is a new documentary about the history of U.S. 12 that is premiering this Friday, July 14, at Sturges-Young Auditorium at 7 p.m. The film is produced by Mike Mort and Lee Fraim and features many actors from the Sturgis area. Tickets for the premiere are $10 with the proceeds going to the Sturgis Historical Society and the St. Joseph County Historical Society. Organizers would prefer if you made reservations.

The documentary takes viewers through the different stages the route has seen over the years. What began as an Indian trail and ended up as U.S. 12 makes for some interesting history. Before I-94 came into existence in 1962 the current highway known as U.S. 12 was at that time known as U.S. 112.

Read more about "From Moccasins to Main Street" at the Sturgis Journal.