- Hi, and welcome to "Destination Michigan."

This half hour get ready to relax and have some fun as we take you on a trip across our beloved mitten state.

Here's what's coming up.

In Caledonia, how one couple is spreading comfort and joy by making a difference in children's lives with lavender.

They say cheese gets better with age.

One shop in Pinconning would know.

It's been open for nearly 90 years.

We'll take you there.

From board games to Brews, we aren't sorry about our visit to Homebrew Tabletop Game Lounge in Grand Ledge, and can't wait to take you there with us.

With its gorgeous landscape and waterfalls, UP is never far from our minds.

We try to uncover the source of so much beauty.

Those stories next on "Destination Michigan" - [Narrator] Support for "Destination Michigan" is provided by the CMU Bookstore, t-shirts, sweatshirts, hats, maroon and gold memories, and an official outfitter of Adidas apparel at the Central Michigan University owned and operated CMU Bookstore.

Online shopping seven days a week at cmubookstore.com, on campus at the University Center, and Game Day locations at Kelly Short Stadium and the John G Kulhavi Event Center.

(upbeat music begins) - Hi and welcome from beautiful downtown Mount Pleasant.

It is a great fall day here, and we are back with another edition of "Destination Michigan."

So could we ask for anything more?

Why yes, we can.

Let's get to it.

The benefits of lavender have been well documented for centuries.

The flower is probably best known for its calming properties.

Well near Caledonia, one couple uses the power of this plant to spread cheer and comfort to those who visit their farm and to kids across the country.

(gentle music begins) - And we thought, well, someday when we leave the busyness of running back and forth to New York City, and DC, and Grand Rapids, we're going to create a lavender farm, and slow down a little bit, and enjoy nature.

- [Stefanie] Around 2016, Vickie Bennett and her husband Vic traded in traffic and skyscrapers for a cornfield and tractors.

- [Vickie] We thought this would be a great place to put a home, put the lavender field.

Took the corn off, started planting our first lavender plants in 2017.

Started an online store in 2018.

- [Stefanie] But their love for lavender was about to flourish in unexpected ways.

- [Vickie] And around that time we were introduced to a little boy, two years old, very traumatized little guy from the foster care system.

And it just so happened to be that we were creating our very first plush little bunnies, and they were filled with Michigan cherry pits and lavender, and the little guy, we gave one to him, thinking perhaps this could help him.

Lavender helps to calm down adults as well as children.

And he wasn't sleeping well.

So we gave it to his mama to give to him.

And the next day our daughter came and said, "Mom, this was a game changer for him.

He slept for the first time for us and he's not as fussy anymore.

This is a huge thing for him."

And we didn't have a name for this little critter yet, so we called it, after him, we named it Xander Bunny.

- [Stefanie] That first little stuffed bunny named Xander quickly took on a life of its own with the Xander Friends collection.

- And we also thought, well, if this could help him so much, perhaps it could help other children in foster care.

So we decided that we would donate one to a child in foster care for every one we sold.

And since that time, we've kept our promise, and it's been nearly 90,000 have gone into the foster care system.

- [Stefanie] The Xander Bunny and friends are stuffed with lavender grown here on the farm.

In fact, from cookies to lotion, soap to syrup, everything you buy here is made with it.

- [Vickie] They're made, and they're made right on site.

So we're one of those lavender farms that not only grows it, harvests it, dries it, but then also creates all the products with it.

- [Stefanie] In the summer months, visitors can traverse through the rows and rows of lavender, smell it, cut it, and even take it home with them.

It's a beautiful property with plenty of seating areas to just sit, relax, and take it all in.

The gift shop is filled with various lavender products, including of course the Xander friends.

For Vickie, raising awareness for kids in the foster care system and helping them is extremely close to her heart.

- For the bunny, it's the ears, the dog, it's the ears.

Something for little ones to carry it around with.

So the little heart on the bottom of the foot signifies that the little children are loved and not alone.

- [Stefanie] Vic and Vickie have made it their mission to provide Xander friends to foster kids across Michigan and the country.

They've established connections with agencies to figure out how many are needed and where.

When customers purchase one Xander Friend, another is automatically donated to a child in foster care.

- So for us, it's been amazing to be able to tell them the story over and over again about Xander and how that is our mission of our company.

And then of course they do just enjoy the property in general.

We love the development of it, we love the creation.

In fact, that's probably our weakness as well is we don't know when to stop creating.

There are so many fun things out there, and as soon as we go away on vacation to give ourselves a moment, it's not about chilling out, it's about what else can we do?

- During the winter months, the shop is still open, but make sure to check their website for days and times.

Now our next story takes us to a capital of Michigan, but not the capital.

It's the cheese capital.

Adam goes to Pinconning to visit Wilson's Cheese Shoppe who have been serving up their version of a Colby cheese for 85 years.

- [Adam] I love cheese, so why not head to Michigan's original cheese shoppe?

- Well, Wilson's Cheese Shoppe is 85 years old.

We're Michigan's original cheese shoppe.

We're the oldest cheese shoppe in Michigan.

We specialize in cheese and all the things that are cheese adjacent.

Anything that you can put on your charcuterie board, we're gonna try to have for you.

- [Adam] Ryan and his family own and operate the business they took over in 2014, and they haven't stopped producing the cheese that made them famous.

- [Ryan] Pinconning cheese is a special formulation of a Colby cheese.

I like to tell people, if you get a Colby cheese somewhere else, it's gonna be kind of like our medium mild.

So we'll have our mild cheese that is our squeaky cheese, so it'll squeak in your teeth.

Very mild.

It's a fresh cheese, so everybody seems to like that.

But the other thing that makes Pinconning cheese special is the fact that you can age it out.

So we have a sharp that's one year, extra sharp that's three years old, super sharp that's six years old, all the way up to a 15-year-old cheese.

And that really has a bite to it, and that's something that's really special to it.

At any given time we have 50 to 60,000 pounds of cheese just here aging.

So we get all kinds of different varieties within that.

- [Adam] Now the story of their signature cheese involves a father and his daughter, Inez, who was ahead of her time when it came to marketing.

- [Ryan] Dan Horn, he was a transplant from Wisconsin to Pinconning.

There was a ton of dairy farms in the Pinconning area.

They were looking for something to do with their milk.

So cheese was kind of the thing.

He made a formula of cheese, the Pinconning cheese recipe that didn't require as much refrigeration as a lot of other ones.

So instead of necessarily a refrigerator, it was more like cellar was good enough for Pinconning cheese, which made it special.

And that was 1915.

A few years later, 1939, Inez Wilson and her husband, Lawrence, decided they wanted to get into the cheese business and sell cheese.

So they built a store next to the factory and kind of built from there.

When you talk about her being a marketing guru, she was the one who really pushed for Pinconning to be the cheese capital of Michigan.

So she really did have that.

She did a lot of different advertising downstate, 'cause she knew where everybody was coming from.

- [Adam] She's also responsible for the now iconic mascots of their business, the giant mouse.

One sits on top of the store and the other has been parade stable for decades, and now a roadside attraction, as was her plan.

Families stopped to get their photos by the giant mouse and then head inside to check out the cheese.

- [Ryan] We have a 20 foot case of just cheese.

So in there you're gonna have imported cheeses, flavored cheeses, whether it's cheddar, or processed cheeses, 20 plus flavors of cheese curds.

And then we have flavored string cheeses, whips, which is just like a skinny string cheese.

We have different variations of aged cheese, whether it's a Canadian cheddar, we have one that's seven and a 10 year Canadian cheddar.

We have our Pinconning cheese that goes to a 15.

And then we also have a 16 year cheddar that's out there.

So we have all kinds of different just variations of cheese, and definitely into the hundreds on that, 80 plus cheese spreads with some seasonal rotations in there.

So it's always fun to check back, see what we have, whether it's a pumpkin and caramel apple in the fall, we do a key lime pie and a lemon meringue in the summer, peppermint bark in the winter.

So just different variations in there that I think people have fun seeing what we have there too.

- [Adam] With all the options, it can be hard to pick what cheese to take home.

That's why they offer samples.

- [Ryan] You want to know what you're getting before you buy half pound.

So we do those samples.

Squeaky cheese, we have the squeaky cheese connoisseurs.

Those are the people who've been coming here for 40 years.

Is it squeaky today?

I'm gonna let you try it.

Being able to do that, 'cause it, and cheese is kind of an interesting animal on the making end of it, because it can be, you can do everything the same, but you have different, it's live enzymes and things like that that are working together that create kind of a little bit of a different product if you're doing that all natural stuff.

So I want people to try it.

I want you, hey, is this this what you want?

So there's that and then there's just, what's new?

And the fact that we do have that rotating cast of cheese, getting somebody to try something new.

Take those, do the samples.

- [Adam] Ryan values the tradition they have of being a family oriented business, and the whole team at Wilson's appreciates the role they play as a destination on the trip up north.

- We have these families that come through and they'll tell you, "Oh, I've been here 40 years."

Or you'll have an older gentleman come in and like, "Yeah, I've been coming here 60 years, and then that's my daughter, and then that's her kids."

And I've had up to four generations out there taking a picture by the mouse.

It's really cool to be a part of that, 'cause that's their stop on the way to like the cabin or the cottage, and being a part of that is something I kind of, it's an important part of that ritual going north for a lot of people.

So it's something that we like to stay tied to tradition with that.

- Now if cheese isn't your thing, Wilson's also has a wide selection of spices, and jams, and spreads, and if you have a sweet tooth, they're also home to an amazing candy room filled with those nostalgic treats that will take you straight back to your childhood.

We don't think you'll need a "Clue" to our next story, and you won't need to take a "Risk" to enjoy it.

At Homebrew Tabletop Game Lounge, they've got a "Monopoly" on fun, and we've got your "Ticket to Ride" to Grand Ledge where board games take center stage.

- So my wife and I have been lifelong gamers, and we've attended a number of gaming conventions around the Midwest, and we were coming back from one.

And of course, you know, the energy and the excitement when you're leaving a con, you got all this fun stuff you did, all of it, you just lean into it for the entire time you were there.

And so we're kind of blue sky mining talking about, "Well, what if we won the lottery or what if we did this?"

And we realized about an hour into the drive that we were no longer talking about it as the theoretical, like if all went perfect, we said, "Oh yeah, I would open up."

At that point it was a game cafe concept.

And looked across the car and said, "You would?"

"Yeah, I would."

And so we realized we were no longer in the abstract, we were now in the possibility.

And so that's where it started.

- [Chris] Possibility turned into reality on the banks of the Grand River in Grand Ledge.

A passion for gaming and community are two of the vital ingredients in this homebrew concoction.

And there are different ways you can play.

- You can bring games, or you could rent games from our library of about 550 games.

So if you've really got a game that you all love to play, that you just want to continue here, or have a space that no one has to clean the house or choose the snacks, they can come in here and then they play the games as well, all for the classic fee.

But then they have access to over 500 games if they're doing our premium fee, which means games that come out all the way back to 5,000 years ago to five days ago so that folks can go and play Go or they can play the game that just came off Kickstarter yesterday.

- [Chris] Order yourself a cool beverage or snag a salty snack, and enjoy a warm and welcoming gaming environment.

- [Jeff] When we were working on creating Homebrew, one of the things we really wanted to be was sort of a place that everyone could feel comfortable coming into.

Obviously, like I said, my wife and I are gamers.

But when we take a look at it, we wanted you to be comfortable, if you hadn't played anything but "Yahtzee" when you were a kid, to come in, have a comfortable place to relax with friends, and maybe pull a game out.

One of the most popular games that gets played more often than any of the others is "Guess Who," the old two person game where you're just flipping up and trying to decide which character they've got selected.

It's always fun to watch folks who just kind of smile, I mean many of them adults, that just go, and they grab that, they have the nostalgia, and they go sit down and play.

- [Chris] There are new releases to choose from, classic games to revisit, and once a week there's a group of gamers who roll the dice and take a chance on learning a game as a group.

- So every Wednesday afternoon we hold what we call "Old Dogs, New Games."

All of them are retirees or veterans who come in.

Some have been gaming all their life, some are actually new to gaming, or have returned to gaming after all of their adulthood.

Now they're back to playing things they enjoy.

So we bring out a new game, one many of them may not have ever played before.

So we learn the rules and we kind of just kick the tires and see how it goes.

Sometimes it's a new game that they find that gets into the repertoire of the games they wanna play when they come in on different day.

Other times you're like, oh there's, that one's just not a good fit.

But overall it's a chance for folks to gather, and keep their brains active, and learn, and have a group of people that they can laugh and tell the same bad jokes with every Wednesday.

- I played games since I was a kid.

Through the Navy, obviously played a lot of card games while we were at sea.

Got into it a little bit deeper than I thought I would get.

There's a million different games out there.

Got my wife and my son involved.

Then he started the gaming for "Old Dogs, New Tricks" during the week.

So we started showing up here during the week on a weekday.

I met other retired folk and veterans, and we got our own little group that plays on Wednesday, and we had a lot of fun - [Chris] At Homebrew, there's an easy way to let folks know the status of your game.

Maybe you're looking for additional players, or you're interested in having people learn about the game you're playing.

- For us, in wanting to create that community and create that space where people felt like they could actually interact.

You don't have to know all the people here to actually have a chance to maybe talk with them, play with them.

The Meeples became sort of the shorthand.

So the green maple means you're looking for additional players.

You can put that out.

It also takes the onus off of us Midwesterners.

We don't have to feel rude.

We can actually walk up, because they have a sign saying that they're open to talking and we can ask if we can play.

The yellow Meeples allow folks to go and say, look, we're started, but we loved the idea of someone else knowing the game that we love so much.

We're more than willing to teach you, because we want you to be here next time, 'cause it's more fun with more players.

So the yellow Meeple says, we'll teach you, but we probably can't involve you in the game.

And the red actually kind of takes a look at the other part of our community as gamers, where some of us, our social cues need to be a little bit more enhanced.

So this one allows us to realize, oh, they don't want to hear about our way of how we played that game and just put the red Meeple out.

- [Chris] Whether it's checkers, chess, D&D, or Connect Four, you're sure to find a good game, a good group, and a good time.

- It feels amazing.

It really does, because we want to be that place that, whether you're a person who knows every one of the latest games that are out there, or haven't played anything since you and your siblings played "Chutes and Ladders," that you feel comfortable coming in.

And we want folks to realize that this isn't a perfect place.

This is just the perfect place for them to get together and meet other folks.

- Jeff says that Homebrew Tabletop Games Lounge has also become a meetup spot for friends and family who may live in different parts of the state, but have a passion for gaming together.

Now, when the "Destination Michigan" team gets together to brainstorm places we should visit, many ideas come to mind, but rarely do they start with a simple question.

The question that Adam asked is, "Why does the Upper Peninsula have so many waterfalls?"

So naturally he grabbed his camera and headed back to the UP.

(upbeat music begins) - There's something for everyone in the upper peninsula.

If you are looking to enjoy the outdoors, if you are looking to check out all the lighthouses, if you like Great lakes, inland lakes, rivers, if you like to hike long trails, short trails, I just think the UP is a great place to visit.

- [Adam] I couldn't agree more.

Heading out to explore the natural beauty of the UP is a great way to awake the adventurous spirit, especially the waterfalls.

- [Adonia] I am kind of a waterfall girl.

I like to just get out and be in the nature and do a little hiking in and out of different waterfalls.

And since we have over 300, I have lots of choices.

- [Adam] Over 300 waterfalls, that sparks my curiosity.

Why is the upper peninsula of Michigan such a prime location for these natural wonders?

So I paid a visit to our friend, professor Larry Lemke, at Central Michigan University.

- Waterfalls are wonderful, they're a natural thing.

They're really useful for aerating the water, because as the the water cascades over the top of the waterfall, it mixes with the air and picks up oxygen.

That's really good for feeding fish and other aquatic life, but it's also part of the natural process of landscape evolution.

Erosion is a natural thing.

To understand why there are so many waterfalls in the UP, we really have to understand three things.

The first is that the state of Michigan was formed by glaciers.

And the second is, as those glaciers moved across the northern part of the state, they eroded, and picked up sediment, and brought it down to the lower peninsula and dumped it here.

If you could take a giant bulldozer and scrape off all of those surface sediments, then you'd get to the bedrock.

The difference between the lower peninsula and the upper peninsula is, in the lower peninsula, we're living on hundreds of feet of sand and gravel that the glaciers left behind.

In the UP, the bedrock is exposed, and that's why we have the opportunity to find so many waterfalls up there.

The third thing that you need to understand is that the geology, the rock types that are exposed in the upper peninsula are of the type that are conducive to making waterfalls.

Because in the eastern part, at least, most of those rocks are sedimentary, which means they're relatively soft, and they can be eroded away and form those little cliffs and ledges that make the waterfalls so attractive to us.

- [Adam] As I visited with Professor Lemke, my knowledge of waterfalls grew.

So did my desire to go on another adventure, to explore more of the wonders of the UP.

But as he pointed out, waterfalls are constantly changing.

So maybe a revisit, and this time in a different season.

- [Adonia] If you've seen Bon Falls in the summer, it is majestic and beautiful.

Winter, it's beautiful and white, and has that winter wonderland look to it, although those walkways are cleared.

So it still makes it easy for people to get in and out.

There's actually two ways to access Bon Falls.

The last time I went there, I chose to take the upper route.

There's a small trail that takes you along the river, very scenic with tiny drops.

For me that was a great place to take pictures.

There's just the backdrop of the trees covered in snow and the crunchiness under your boots, or if you're wearing snow shoes, makes that a very easy trek to get to where the top of the falls are.

From there, there's steps that take you down.

Once you get down to the bottom, you've got 360 degree views of just an amazing, beautiful winter scene.

(gentle music continues) - [Adam] I consider myself lucky.

I get to visit waterfalls as part of "Destination Michigan," and I know each one offers up a new adventure and experience.

I have visited Tahquamenon at sunrise.

I had the upper falls all to myself.

I ended that day splashing around in the lower falls with my son.

That'll be a day I won't soon forget.

I have explored waterfalls in all the seasons.

The hike in the snow along the Black River to Gorge Falls was a challenge, but seeing the water flow through the snow and ice was worth it.

Visiting Canyon Falls on a beautiful autumn day, just as the leaves are starting to change, hiking the trail, soaking in the last few hours of the warm sun was a perfect afternoon.

And at the end of the trail, the Grand Canyon of Michigan, the nickname the Waterfall has earned.

Trust me when I say I know firsthand the joy that an adventure through the UP can bring.

- [Adonia] It's almost like a reset to go out and explore all the things that there are to see and do.

Getting on a hiking trail, and walking through, and hearing the trees and smelling the woods.

It's just, it's unique, it's different.

Our visitor experience is improving all the time, yet we are mindful to respect that we have a great nature area and don't want to take away too much of that, 'cause that's, I think, the best thing about the upper peninsula.

(upbeat music continues) - Now, if you at home have the desire to go explore the UP in search of waterfalls, I encourage you to head to the UP Travel and Recreation website.

There they have a page dedicated to almost every waterfall with directions and details to help you plan your trip.

Well, that wraps up this edition of "Destination Michigan."

Hopefully you found yourself inspired by the amazing people and the beauty of our state.

We'll see you again next time, and thanks for watching.

(upbeat music begins) (upbeat music fades)