Travel Notes

Sometimes when Jenni and I travel, little things strike us as funny or unusual.  Sometimes it is because we are sleep deprived and road weary. We’ve learned over several trips that we can’t always rely on our memories to be able to make note of these events in a journal when we park for the night so we have resorted to keeping ‘travel notes’ on our phones.  Here is a sampling from our trip to the Great Lakes:

Signs we don’t see in the South:

• Seasonal Road
• Home of Girls Division B Skiing State Champions
• Speed Table Ahead  (it was a speed hump)
• Snowmobiles This Lane  (on Main Street)         

Signs we might see in the South:

•  Deer Skull Boiling $10  (hand painted sign, of course)
•  Mini Mall:  Dentist and Taxidermy

 Favorite Store Name:  Objects to Crave

Please note that it is a requirement to read all road signs with a Southern Redneck accent.  It enhances the humorous aspect of the signage. Trust me. Try it.

We found that Michigan did not like to repeat the highway speed limit.  If you missed the sign leaving one town, you may not see another for hours.  On the other hand, the state spent their entire sign budget on “Pass With Care/No Passing” signs as they tended to post one of these every time the yellow stripes changed.

Favorite vanity plates:

•  N2MTNS
•  HIONLFE

If you see an oncoming vehicle with only one headlight, it’s a ProMaster Van.  Guaranteed.

If there was a war on poison ivy, Indiana lost.

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!

Twice we passed a sad sight where some guinea fowl had been killed by the highway traffic and the survivors were standing around their dead in mourning.

Winning the category for 'what the heck was that?' was a yard right on Hwy 61 north of Duluth, MN near Grand Portage, MN.  The first time we came upon it, I could not comprehend what I was seeing.  So on our return the next day I was prepared and pulled over so we could absorb it more fully.  It was probably 100 yards of driftwood, rocks, gnomes, mirrors, ceramic animals, etc.  What was hard to comprehend, quickly turned into what we considered an art installation!

Favorite quote of the trip, again spoken with a redneck accent, goes to Jenni while traveling a very remote portion of Michigan:

“We are in God’s country now, where they don’t let the devil’s internet shine down.”