The Mac Wood’s Dune Rides were started by Mac Woods in 1930, as a way to entertain guests staying at his lodge. Soon, neighbors and visitors alike were encouraging him to make it a business.  Mac Wood’s Dune Rides have been providing safe, fun-filled, educational dune rides to the public ever since. Today, they are one of Michigan’s leading tourist attractions, with thousands of visitors experiencing the dune rides each year.

“Friendliest club in Western Lake Erie.”
“You won’t believe how much fun it is!”
“Grew up going here… this is a big part of my family.”

These are just a few of the Monroe Boat Club’s glowing reviews on social media. Although its founders could hardly have imagined this type of success in 1945, they would surely find it in keeping with the club’s first bylaw–the “promotion, protection and encouragement of boating for pleasure and sport, with emphasis on good fellowship among its members.”

Windmill Island Gardens is a 36-acre park filled with gardens, canals, dikes, and picnic areas, located in Holland, Michigan. The focal point of the Gardens is the De Zwaan Windmill; this 250-year-old windmill stands 125 feet tall, and is the only authentic, functioning Dutch windmill in the United States. This year, the Windmill Island Gardens is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary, with a variety of events and special edition merchandise.

The history of Dairy Queen® began with a unique soft serve recipe whose popularity created an industry. John Fremont McCullough and his son Bradley created the unique soft serve recipe in 1938 and convinced family friend Sheb Noble to try it out in his ice cream shop. The first day, he dished out more than 1,600 servings of the dairy delight, and they knew they had a hit.  Two years later, the first Dairy Queen® opened in Joliet, Illinois on June 22, 1940. Sadly, the original restaurant closed in the 1950’s but by then Dairy Queen’s popularity was exploding, franchising was becoming popular, and there were already well over 1,500 locations nationwide.

True dog lovers regard their pets as family members–and Karry Barolo from Traverse City, Michigan is among these ranks. She felt guilty leaving her two dogs — Daisy, a Lab-Chow mix, and Oscar, a Beagle mix — when she went to work every day. “Dogs have such a pure love for their owners. And I was missing out on that relationship,” said Karry. So in 2004 she quit her corporate job to work full time alongside her dogs  at the business she and her husband Chris had started in their spare time: D.O.G. Bakery.