Michigan is not known for its spectacular scenic drives. There is nothing to compare to the road to Hana on Maui, or even the Blue Ridge Parkway in Appalachia.
This is both an accident of geography and political design.
Michigan is on the eastern edge of the plains. Much of the southern third of the state was once prairie: mostly flat or slightly rolling vistas with little to create visual interest beyond a barn or an errant combine. East of US 23 and north of Midland, the land is more hilly and wooded, up to the edge of the flood plains of Macomb County, kettles and kames resulting from the last ice age. Throughout the state, clear cutting in the 19th century took a bite out of the scenery. I think all of the Thumb and down along Lake St. Clair was under water recently. They seem even more flat than the prairies farther west.
The political design was the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which predates the US Constitution. Among other things, the ordinance required the region now composed of Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin to be surveyed. The result was a one mile grid system covering the entire region. The system worked great until the surveyors ran into inconvenient features like rivers and lakes, especially the Great Lakes. That’s where it gets interesting, especially in western Oakland County and in northwest Lower Michigan, between the bridge and Manistee.
The residue is our mile roads. The north-south roads are gridded the same way, minus the naming consistency.
Of course, there was always someone who came along to fiddle with that orderly structure. After the great fire in 1805, Augustus Woodward overlaid a radial system emanating from the riverfront, Grand Circus and Campus Martius. Ford Road, Fort, Grand River, Gratiot, Jefferson and Woodward cut their own slashing boulevards across the state, irrespective of the grid. And of course, the river imposed its own agenda.
Another confounding factor is Michigan’s preference for dirt. I’ve never seen so many gravel roads in so civilized a place. How could someone living in a multi-million dollar home prefer dirt?
I can’t imagine.
It’s no wonder that Detroit Iron from the golden automotive age go great in straight lines, but get confused at the first turn. That’s all auto engineers knew.
If you want curvy roads, they’re around, but you have to look where lakes and rivers interfere with the grid, and where civilization has encroached with paving machines. Most of these conditions are found in western Oakland County and up near Traverse City.
Elsewhere, the roads are so straight a steering wheel may be optional.
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