Upper Peninsula!

Barnie helps to navigate us over the Mackinac Bridge on our way to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

We finally made it to our destination, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. We crossed the Mackinac Bridge for our first time, then drove along the north Lake Michigan shore on US 2 before turning north to the shore of Lake Superior. It wasn’t a long trip, but it was eventful.

The drive over the Mackinac Straits and along Lake Michigan would have been absolutely beautiful, if it hadn’t been overcast and raining. It was still interesting, but we feel we really missed out on an incredible drive. We were very surprised by how much traffic there was on US 2. We figured being in the UP, we wouldn’t see much traffic. We were wrong, for the about 40 mile drive along the lakeshore, there was a constant stream of cars, one after the other, on the two lane highway.

The real excitement came when I used our defroster for the first time. Something happened (user error) that made the windshield foggier, not clearer. As we were trying to figure it out it got worse. Soon, the windshield looked like a bathroom mirror during a shower. I literally couldn’t see anything out the window. I slowed way down (remember, lots of traffic) and used the rumble strips on the white lines to guide us as we slowed to a near stop. At this time, LeeAnn was using Kleenex to wipe a keyhole view for me as we inched along until we saw somewhere to pull over. All this took place over a matter of seconds, but it was still more exciting than we would wish. Stopped, we got ourselves straight and carried on.

After that, it was a quite pleasant trip. In the town of Newberry, we stopped at a grocery store and an ACE hardware to pick up a few things, then made our way to the park about three minutes before they closed for the day. Victory!

Even with the challenges, it was a really nice travel day.