I wanted to tour the Amway plant early so that I could have all day to get to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. I had a big breakfast at the local diner and drove towards Ada.
Amway is the stereotypical American success story. Thirty years before, two Michiganers, Jay van Andel and Rich de Vos, started off selling their Liquid Organic Cleaner, purportedly based on coconut oil, from a old service station. Business boomed and they made other home cleaning products. In 1988 it was a corporation which employed most of the town of Ada. By Fortune 500 standards, Amway was small fry, with a turnover of less than a billion. But they acted very optimistic. My reason for wanting to see the factory was because my brother had been an Amway distributor. Before I came to the US, he told me to look for his and my sister-in-law's names on the list of direct distributors in Ada, Michigan. It feels strange to have one's name on some board of honour in some faraway land one may never visit. Amway works on the pyramid distribution scheme. Their marketing strategy harnesses the religious fervour of their distributors. I joked that my brother was my father's son, because my father used to preach the gospel, and my brother preached the Amway gospel.
I arrived in time for the 9:00 am tour. Apparently the first tour of the day is not very popular and I was the only person on it. My guide, Mr. Plastic, works in public relations. He goes out of his way to greet everybody we meet in the corridors, a superficial show of camaraderie. Politicians and salesmen have to develop this habit I suppose. I can't find my brother's and sister-in-law's names on the board. I guess they must have fallen short on the quotas. So much for fickle fame. At least my father thought he was working for a more permanent reward.
Mr. Plastic is relieved to have me off his hands when the tour is over. I wandered over to the display room to look at the displays. In a photograph of a production line a sign read Use your own brains, this machine has none.
Holland is 30 miles west of Grand Rapids on the shore of Lake Michigan. The area was settled by immigrants from the Low Countries in 1847. Zeeland is the next village. In May they have a tulip festival. The Amway founders may have come from here. I drove through the town but except for the name and the tourist trap Windmill Island, this could have been any other small Michigan town. This area marked the westward extent of my US drive. I headed north towards Canada. I thought the area around Muskegon might be more scenic but this was just another dump.
The Mackinac Bridge links the mitten shaped part of Michigan with the Upper Peninsula. When Michigan attained statehood, the Upper Peninsula was consolation for lands given away to Ohio in a boundary dispute in 1837. Now it is valuable because it is rich in minerals. The bridge is 5 miles long, including the ramps and was built between 1954 and 1958. As I crossed the channel, to my left was Lake Michigan and to my right was Lake Huron.
Sault Ste. Marie names both the US and the Canadian sides of the border crossing. I put in a full tank of petrol first. However expensive Michigan petrol was, I knew in Canada it would be between 1.5x to 2x that. Of course, it is the Americans who are spoiled and Canadian prices are closer to what the rest of the world pays. Many Canadian cars were lined up at the pumps. At the supermarket I noticed lots of shoppers. Are food prices too lower on the US side?
The International bridge is much shorter than the Mackinac Bridge and only spans US and Canadian locks and a narrow strait between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. There are guided tours for the Soo locks, but I was not keen to sightsee shipping locks.
The customs officers on the Canadian side were very suspicious of a New York car this far away from NY. It seemed strange that I should choose to cross into Canada here and not at Niagara Falls or south of Montreal. They searched my belongings thoroughly, convinced they had a smuggler on their hands. They were disappointed to find nothing. The officer asked me why I was so nervous. How to explain to him that the aura of suspicion was enough to unnerve me?
I drove away from the customs office feeling that I was being watched. The tourist office was just opposite so I drove in. Actually I really did want some brochures and maps so it wasn't just for appearances. But they were closed this late in the afternoon, so I went in search of the hostel. I must have been the most law-abiding driver in Sault Ste. Marie that day. I dutifully stopped before making right turns, didn't try to beat any amber lights and all that. But after a while I realized how silly the whole thing was and had to laugh. I suppose it was inevitable, the search, knowing how the tiny minds of the custom officers worked. Why should I feel like a fugitive when I had broken no law?
The hostel was quite easy to find but finding a place to park required a couple of rounds on one way streets. A group of Germans were also staying at the hostel. They were on a cross-continent trip. They said they were waiting for some members to catch up. Perhaps they were cross-country cycling.
Amway is the stereotypical American success story. Thirty years before, two Michiganers, Jay van Andel and Rich de Vos, started off selling their Liquid Organic Cleaner, purportedly based on coconut oil, from a old service station. Business boomed and they made other home cleaning products. In 1988 it was a corporation which employed most of the town of Ada. By Fortune 500 standards, Amway was small fry, with a turnover of less than a billion. But they acted very optimistic. My reason for wanting to see the factory was because my brother had been an Amway distributor. Before I came to the US, he told me to look for his and my sister-in-law's names on the list of direct distributors in Ada, Michigan. It feels strange to have one's name on some board of honour in some faraway land one may never visit. Amway works on the pyramid distribution scheme. Their marketing strategy harnesses the religious fervour of their distributors. I joked that my brother was my father's son, because my father used to preach the gospel, and my brother preached the Amway gospel.
I arrived in time for the 9:00 am tour. Apparently the first tour of the day is not very popular and I was the only person on it. My guide, Mr. Plastic, works in public relations. He goes out of his way to greet everybody we meet in the corridors, a superficial show of camaraderie. Politicians and salesmen have to develop this habit I suppose. I can't find my brother's and sister-in-law's names on the board. I guess they must have fallen short on the quotas. So much for fickle fame. At least my father thought he was working for a more permanent reward.
Mr. Plastic is relieved to have me off his hands when the tour is over. I wandered over to the display room to look at the displays. In a photograph of a production line a sign read Use your own brains, this machine has none.
Holland is 30 miles west of Grand Rapids on the shore of Lake Michigan. The area was settled by immigrants from the Low Countries in 1847. Zeeland is the next village. In May they have a tulip festival. The Amway founders may have come from here. I drove through the town but except for the name and the tourist trap Windmill Island, this could have been any other small Michigan town. This area marked the westward extent of my US drive. I headed north towards Canada. I thought the area around Muskegon might be more scenic but this was just another dump.
The Mackinac Bridge links the mitten shaped part of Michigan with the Upper Peninsula. When Michigan attained statehood, the Upper Peninsula was consolation for lands given away to Ohio in a boundary dispute in 1837. Now it is valuable because it is rich in minerals. The bridge is 5 miles long, including the ramps and was built between 1954 and 1958. As I crossed the channel, to my left was Lake Michigan and to my right was Lake Huron.
Sault Ste. Marie names both the US and the Canadian sides of the border crossing. I put in a full tank of petrol first. However expensive Michigan petrol was, I knew in Canada it would be between 1.5x to 2x that. Of course, it is the Americans who are spoiled and Canadian prices are closer to what the rest of the world pays. Many Canadian cars were lined up at the pumps. At the supermarket I noticed lots of shoppers. Are food prices too lower on the US side?
The International bridge is much shorter than the Mackinac Bridge and only spans US and Canadian locks and a narrow strait between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. There are guided tours for the Soo locks, but I was not keen to sightsee shipping locks.
The customs officers on the Canadian side were very suspicious of a New York car this far away from NY. It seemed strange that I should choose to cross into Canada here and not at Niagara Falls or south of Montreal. They searched my belongings thoroughly, convinced they had a smuggler on their hands. They were disappointed to find nothing. The officer asked me why I was so nervous. How to explain to him that the aura of suspicion was enough to unnerve me?
I drove away from the customs office feeling that I was being watched. The tourist office was just opposite so I drove in. Actually I really did want some brochures and maps so it wasn't just for appearances. But they were closed this late in the afternoon, so I went in search of the hostel. I must have been the most law-abiding driver in Sault Ste. Marie that day. I dutifully stopped before making right turns, didn't try to beat any amber lights and all that. But after a while I realized how silly the whole thing was and had to laugh. I suppose it was inevitable, the search, knowing how the tiny minds of the custom officers worked. Why should I feel like a fugitive when I had broken no law?
The hostel was quite easy to find but finding a place to park required a couple of rounds on one way streets. A group of Germans were also staying at the hostel. They were on a cross-continent trip. They said they were waiting for some members to catch up. Perhaps they were cross-country cycling.
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