Blogs, random thoughts, travel
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Soo Locks and soo much more
Sault Ste. Marie (Sault is pronounced like the girl’s name Sue) is a Michigan city built on the Canadian border. We were very familiar with the name because for years our television news weatherman back home always used it as a point of reference when giving national temperatures. Every weathercast we could count on knowing the high or low in Sault Ste. Marie. It came as quite a surprise during our trip that most of our friends had no clue where it was! -
Mackinac or Mackinaw
Still early in the morning, we pulled in to a Welcome Center in Mackinaw City. The woman behind the counter was super friendly. She loaded us down with all sorts of brochures which made me wonder if they get a commission based on how many pounds of tourist brochures they push out the door. -
Pure Michigan
As we pulled up to the Sleeping Bear entrance booth, a ranger slid her window open and greeted us with “We were expecting you today!”. What a warm welcome! -
More Michigan
We knew we needed some “touristy” information on Michigan so we made it a priority to find a welcome center for some maps and brochures. After a Google search, the first one we were led to showed no signs of ever existing. The next closest one was physically there, but judging by the plants we could see through the windows, had been closed for several weeks. -
Indiana Wants Me
The title "Indiana Wants Me" has little to do with the blog. It's just a song by Dean Taylor from 1970 that I once knew the lyrics to and it fit the state we were driving through. -
Great Lakes Trip
Rather than incorporate our last big trip into a book, I have decided to share it in a series of blogs. (Translation: There hasn’t been much happening around here and I’ve run out of things to write about!).
Throughout last year we had been making small trips in Wanda—rarely more than three or four nights on the road and mostly within the Carolinas. We were craving a longer adventure and decided upon a trip to the Great Lakes.
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Wolves!
Anytime we can mix wildlife with our travels is a win-win in my opinion. On our trip to Lake Superior this past fall we had great sightings of bison, beavers, and bald eagles. But breaking with alliteration, one of the most memorable was WOLVES!
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I'm a Worrier
Camped somewhere in the forests of Wisconsin I worried that the banjo-playing young man with a large chained dog, whose camp we used for a U-turn, would walk through the woods and find us while we slept. I’m not sure if I was concerned what harm he might do to us or if he would just play his banjo all night. -
Border Crossings
Eventually a woman leaned out of a window and waved me forward. I asked if I did something wrong at the scanner but she ignored my question. I handed her our passports showing we were US citizens. She still asked where we were going and did we have a reservation for tonight? (I’m thinking: ‘I’m an American, does it really matter where I’m going?’ but of course did my best to come up with the name of a state park we were going to camp in that night.) Then she asked ‘was this a camper with a bed and was anyone sleeping in the back?’ I replied it was just the two of us. I was not about to let her know there was a passenger with Chihuahua Mexican-heritage, without a passport, snoring on the floorboard between our seats! Annie may have lived on the streets for a while, but she could not have survived serving time in a border holding cell at this point in her privileged life. -
Veterans Making Rookie Mistakes
Our plan was to walk the shoreline to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse. An online map I consulted offered a confusing trail, that looked like a road, that began in a campground somewhere behind us. No, we were still going with our idea to walk the shoreline. I grabbed a light backpack to carry the Nikon camera. We debated going barefoot since it was going to be a walk on the sand but ultimately we each grabbed some waterproof shoes and tossed them in the backpack. -
Travel Notes
While driving through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, we were treated on three or four occasions to pairs of white swans living in small lakes or beaver ponds, but one time we did a double take when we saw a flock of pink plastic flamingoes on a pond in the middle of nowhere!
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A Drive-Thru Experience to Remember
On our recent trip to the Great Lakes, we entered into Culver Country. Culver’s is a Wisconsin-based frozen-custard-and-more fast-food franchise founded in 1984. They do have stores in twenty-six states but this was our first time to visit one. (We also visited our first White Castle’s franchise on this trip but Jenni said we should never mention that again.)
