Michigan plays Notre Dame on Saturday in football.

If you're driving to South Bend for the game — or need an excuse to not go to the game — here are some places you might stop along the way. They are organized by county, by exit number on I-94, or by mile marker on any other line or road I can find, roughly east to west.

Detroit Metro Airport or Ann Arbor Municipal Airport

If you don't know how to drive to South Bend, you could fly. Head east of town to Detroit Metro Airport and book a flight from DTW to SBN, South Bend Indiana Regional Airport. Fares vary widely, and if you wanted to book these tickets for a reasonable fare for this weekend you should have done it by now; I saw fares as low as $1,200+ for flights for this weekend, whereas next month not on a game day weekend, the flights were more in the $300 range.

If you have the means, you can fly a private plane from ARB to SBN. Flightaware tracks such flights, but doesn't show anyone on its radar doing that right now.

Link: South Bend Airport, SBN
Link: Flightaware: KSBN airport information and live KSBN airport traffic
Link: Flightaware, flights from KSBN to KARB.

Albion, Michigan: M-99, Exit 124

Heading west on I-94, the nearest town with a leafy college in its midst is Albion, the home of Albion College. There's an Amtrak stop there. You have entered the 517 area code.

Link: Albion College.
Link: Albion Library
Link: The Albion student newspaper, the Albion Pleiad, went all online in 2009.

Marshall, Michigan: Old US-27, Exit 112

A traffic circle marks the center of Marshall at the old intersection of US-12 and US-27.
Enbridge Energy Partners LP spilled a million gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River when its pipeline 6B burst earlier this year. Stop at Schuler's, a classic roadhouse restaurant, and check out the action as cleanup continues.

Link: Schuler's Restaurant and Pub
Link: EPA response to oil spill
Link: Michigan Messenger coverage of the spill includes photos of partial cleanup efforts by Enbridge contractors, with allegations of an organized coverup effort to sprinkle clean dirt on top of oil-soaked dirt.

Battle Creek, Michigan: Exit 100

In Battle Creek, stop at the Binder Park Zoo and feed the giraffes. Battle Creek is the home of Kellogg's, so it would be a good stop for some breakfast cereal.

Link: Binder Park Zoo

Kalamazoo, Michigan: Exit 80

Kalamazoo is the home of Kalamazoo College (aka K College). The corner of Cork and Sprinkle is as good a place as any for a place to stop and stretch your legs, and the inspiration for a 1960s psychedelia record by the relatively obscure Chicago band Aorta. Pick up some beer, which you will consume after you have stopped driving for the day, from Bell's Brewery.

Link: Aorta: Sprinkle Road to Cork Street
Link: Bell's Beer
Link: Kalamazoo College

Exit 30, US-31 south.

If you are not dawdling, you'll head south at exit 30. You're in Michiana now, a designation for a seven county area that straddles the Michigan-Indiana border and includes Berrien and Cass Counties in Michigan and Elkhart, La Porte, Marshall, St. Joseph, and Starke Counties in Indiana.

Link: MACOG, Michiana Area Council of Governments

The road not travelled: US-12

US-12 goes from Saline west and south toward Lake Michigan. You can look at antiques in Allen, and I'm sure there are lots more places to enjoy along the way. I don't know that route well enough to tell its story until it is near the Lake Michigan shoreline, where it goes by the name of the Red Arrow Highway for part of its old route.

Link: Michigan Highways, a comprehensive history of highway development in the state of Michigan maintained by webmaster Chris Bessert, has a detailed history of US-12 in all of its various routings.

I'd rather be riding the rails: Amtrak

For Amtrak to South Bend, stop at Niles and take local transportation from there.

Link: Amtrak.com

Edward Vielmetti knows where to pick blueberries in Michiana, and recommends the New Buffalo Railroad Museum at Exit 1 in Michigan. Reach him by telephone at 734-330-2465 or send email to edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com .