Day 7: Superior, Wisconsin, to Manistique, Michigan

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We aren't quite finished writing up the posts for this day. Please check back tomorrow for updates!

Woods, woods and more woods.
The trees in northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are a beautiful mix of deciduous and conifer trees. Nothing as tall and grand as the trees in the Pacific Northwest, but beautiful nonetheless. Autumn is near in this part of the country. We saw fall colors in the woods along the highway. The scene below is typical of what we saw on this day.



Rivers, pond, wetlands and lakes, GREAT LAKES. (Superior & Michigan)
When Steve & I were planning this trip and looking at maps, it occurred to us that we could see all five Great Lakes. We vowed to dip our hands and/or feet into each lake. On this day, we felt the surprisingly clear waters of Lake Superior at Ashland, Wisconsin, and Lake Michigan at Escanaba, Michigan.


Getting all your ducks (or geese) in a row... (Lake Superior)


Steve on the shore of Lake Michigan in Escanaba

Wildlife Sighting
Juvenile eagle sitting in the treetop between Superior and Ashland (it was picking its nose and telling fart jokes)

More sign foibles
We're driving on U.S. 2 and we see a billboard with a photograph of four young children and the words:
Teach Me To Walk Straight
Alcohol and Drug Free

Then, no kidding, not more than 50 yards beyond the sign, on the same side of the highway, was a store selling liquor and tobacco!!

This was immediately followed by Deb singing 'Um chigawa um um chigawa Cheerleaders on drugs!' You see now why we love each other so much? These are lyrics to an 'Uncle Bonsai' song...

BRR Sled Dog Rides
Something about that name makes it very unappealing...

Ah yes, only 2 dances down the highway.

Home of the NIMRODS? REALLY? What genius came up with that mascot? Why even bother going to any away games. You're just asking to be laughed off the field.

Deb quote:
'I'm getting all my Great Lakes mixed up.'

Steve's usual panic:
Ok, so I"m a little bit of an airhead at times. Just outside of town, I panic because I can't find my cellphone. Deb pulls off the road, and I jump out of the car and find my phone in my pants pocket. Embarrassment central. BUT, it did give us a great opportunity to take pics of the farm across the street.

TP in the U.P.

Here's a new twist on repairing roads and laying down center lines, etc. Some of us may have seen new paving projects where the workers lay down temporary white and yellow lines made of some sort of removable rubber sticky material. Sometimes you may have even seen one peeling away from the road. As Deb and I were riding through some construction today, it appeared as if there was a similar substance being laid down on the road to seal the cracks in the pavement from the rough winter weather. It seemed far flimsier, though, than the stuff I had seen before, and much of it was fluttering in the wind. It just didn't seem to be doing a very good job of whatever it was supposed to be doing. At one point a piece flew up from the road and got stuck on our antenna. When we next came to a stop, I peeled it away. It was TOILET PAPER! I swear to God, it even had perforations in the paper. We can't figure out just what the process was: Elmer's glue in the cracks and then sealing it with TP? Was this some sort of sick (and extensive) fraternity prank, complete with official construction vehicles and workers? If anyone has any enlightening facts on this ineffective means of road repair, we are waiting to hear from you.
Dinosaur t-shirt
Saw a great t-shirt on a guy in Nordine's General Store in Watersmeet. It had a small dinosaur on it, sad-faced, saying 'All my friends are dead.'


Great town names


UPtoberfest
The folks who live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, or the UP, are so clever! This is their version of Oktoberfest.

Guerrilla art?
Don't you just love find art in the most unusual places? We were driving up U.S. 2, north of Escanaba, Michigan, near a town called Gladstone, when Steve told me to look to my right. We were going kind of fast and he wasn't sure what he saw and he wanted me to see it, too. There was a metal container, like the kind used to ship goods, sitting in a field by the road. But what was it doing there and what was that on top of the container? Oh. My. It was a giant metal fly! I asked Steve to pull off the road so I could take a picture. He did and backed up down the shoulder of the highway. (Don't worry, there wasn't any traffic!) Upon closer inspection, it was a giant bird nest and the giant fly on top of the container, all made out of old metal parts. We love it!





Manistique
What a beautiful town on the shore of Lake Michigan! We found a wonderful hotel, Peninsula Pointe, and highly recommend it.

AND, they had a Big Boy. Eden.

I hadn't been to a Big Boy since I was a teen in Albuquerque. I didn't think they still existed. How fun to discover I was wrong and to eat a Big Boy Classic Deluxe Cheeseburger Combo after all these years!