So the missus and I celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary last week. We decided to take friday off work and take a three day road trip, just the 2 of us.
The destination was the pictured rocks national shoreline in the upper peninsula. The plan was to leave thursday night and get as far into michigan as we could get before stopping for the night. Then continue to the park on friday morning, returning on sunday.
we made it as far as greyling michigan before stopping around 1:00 am. we had both worked that day and didnt want to go much further with out any rest. Greyling is about 2/3 of the way to the Macinaw bridge that connects to the U.P.
Day one, friday
We woke up around 8:00 and continued our trek north. We stopped a couple places to get out and look around. I absolutely HAD to stop a few miles south of macinaw when I spotted an "elk crossing" sign on the highway. The next rest area was only a few miles further up the road and I insisted we stop for a while, hoping to see an elk. We didnt but it turns out we were in the primary range for the michigan herd.
After we crossed the bridge into the U.P. we turned west and began the long drive across the peninsula east to west. That area is an absolute widerness. Most of it is the Hiawatha national forest. If you come to a town it usually consists of a couple houses, a service station, a small carryout store and maybe a bar.
It took a while but we eventually reached our destination. Munising, Michigan. on the southern edge of lake superior. The rock formations here are incredible. The lake has erroded away at the shoreline and created some awsome spires, holes, tunnels, and cliffs in the sandstone. You can take a boat tour of the shoreline, but being on a tight budget we decided to hike along some of it instead.
We spent a few hours there before continuing west to Marquette. The home of the northern michigan university and the biggest town in the area. We had to go there because my wife still had her paycheck to deposit and according to Garmin, there was a branch of our bank in the neighborhood. Garmin screwed us. We followed the directions and when we heard "arriving at destination on left" we looked over to see a scruffy lookin guy, standing in front of what appeared to be a crackhouse. WTF! Garmin!
We found a cheap motel for the night, The Cedar motor Inn, in marquette. Which I would actually recommend to anybody traveling that direction. Inexpensive, yet very clean. With a nice pool, sauna and hot tub. We went ahead and enjoyed the rest of our afternoon though. We visited "presque Isle" which is a state park just to the north of Marquette. Very cool place will have to post the pictures we got from sunset point in the sunsets thread. We still needed to deposit her check though, and after some digging, we found that the closest branch was 100 miles away in St. Germaine Wisconsin.
This is where the road trip kinda goes "off road".
The destination was the pictured rocks national shoreline in the upper peninsula. The plan was to leave thursday night and get as far into michigan as we could get before stopping for the night. Then continue to the park on friday morning, returning on sunday.
we made it as far as greyling michigan before stopping around 1:00 am. we had both worked that day and didnt want to go much further with out any rest. Greyling is about 2/3 of the way to the Macinaw bridge that connects to the U.P.
Day one, friday
We woke up around 8:00 and continued our trek north. We stopped a couple places to get out and look around. I absolutely HAD to stop a few miles south of macinaw when I spotted an "elk crossing" sign on the highway. The next rest area was only a few miles further up the road and I insisted we stop for a while, hoping to see an elk. We didnt but it turns out we were in the primary range for the michigan herd.
After we crossed the bridge into the U.P. we turned west and began the long drive across the peninsula east to west. That area is an absolute widerness. Most of it is the Hiawatha national forest. If you come to a town it usually consists of a couple houses, a service station, a small carryout store and maybe a bar.
It took a while but we eventually reached our destination. Munising, Michigan. on the southern edge of lake superior. The rock formations here are incredible. The lake has erroded away at the shoreline and created some awsome spires, holes, tunnels, and cliffs in the sandstone. You can take a boat tour of the shoreline, but being on a tight budget we decided to hike along some of it instead.
We spent a few hours there before continuing west to Marquette. The home of the northern michigan university and the biggest town in the area. We had to go there because my wife still had her paycheck to deposit and according to Garmin, there was a branch of our bank in the neighborhood. Garmin screwed us. We followed the directions and when we heard "arriving at destination on left" we looked over to see a scruffy lookin guy, standing in front of what appeared to be a crackhouse. WTF! Garmin!
We found a cheap motel for the night, The Cedar motor Inn, in marquette. Which I would actually recommend to anybody traveling that direction. Inexpensive, yet very clean. With a nice pool, sauna and hot tub. We went ahead and enjoyed the rest of our afternoon though. We visited "presque Isle" which is a state park just to the north of Marquette. Very cool place will have to post the pictures we got from sunset point in the sunsets thread. We still needed to deposit her check though, and after some digging, we found that the closest branch was 100 miles away in St. Germaine Wisconsin.
This is where the road trip kinda goes "off road".
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