Today we headed out as a twosome instead of a threesome. It was a chilly morning, 57 degrees when I got up about 7:30, but it warmed up nicely and was sunny all day -- which seems like a rare treat up here. We were on the road by 9:00, and drove through St. Ignace looking for fuel but we didn't find a good station, so we just headed on out of town west on Highway 2. We found fuel along the way for $2.699, a little less than the last few tanks we have bought.
Joe had looked up some sights along this route, and the first one, which we missed, was a picnic area that had a tunnel under the highway to walk down to Lake Michigan. But his second highlight was a snowmobile museum, and we found that. It was in Naubinway, the Northernmost point of Lake Michigan, referred to as "Top of the Lake."
The snowmobile museum was small but had a nice display of snowmobiles as well as gear, some motors, and a bicycle snowmobile.
The snowmobiles covered a wide range of years, and manufacturers.
Mazie has on her bucket list "to drive a snowmobile," so she was very interested in this museum. On the wall was a beautiful quilted piece with pictures transferred onto the material. I know Dorothy knows how to do this, but this one, in purple, was really pretty. Mazie thought she might be able to do something like this with some of her Niagara Falls pictures, although she is not a quilter. The pictures on this quilt piece are from a group of snowmobilers at Mackinac Island, in front of the Grand Hotel. The museum hosts were telling us about this ride, which they were on, and about the "Ice Bridge" the locals make by drilling holes in the ice and "planting" their Christmas trees after Christmas to mark the trail. They said when the wind blows, the blowing snow obliterates the trail, so the Christmas trees mark the trail so people don't get lost. When the ice melts in the spring, the Christmas trees sink into the lake and provide habitat for the fish and other lake inhabitants.
There were displays of gear, as well as a bicycle converted to a snowmobile that would also be appropriate for Biker Mazie.
I kept looking for one that I could stay warm in, so I picked out a gold one because it had a top, and an "optional" heater (Joe said that would not be "optional" for us).
Another machine of interest was this vicious-looking Air Sled, with lots of teeth, and an airplane-type propeller in the rear.
And this cool "racer."
The UP is big snowmobile country, with lots of connecting trails. They had a map on the wall showing all the trails that are available to ride. Something like this would be nice for us quad riders in Arizona.
We continued on our way to Manistique, which is supposed to be the "moose capital" of Michigan. They had a few moose statutes along the highway. I didn't get a picture of the first one, which had a blanket over its back, but I did the next two. The second one is wearing a tuxedo. How cool is that! We stopped at a Frish's Big Boy for lunch, and the first moose was just outside their front door.
Also at the Big Boy were some outside "toys," wooden, for kids to climb in and out of. So our big kid got into the pick-up truck. It's probably good that Collins is no longer traveling with us because he's our train man, so he would have wanted to play on the train.
There was a pretty red lighthouse on the point across the road. I didn't ask if it was a working lighthouse, but it sure stood out prettily against the blue water of Lake Michigan -- picture-postcard perfect.
We continued on Hwy 2 to Rapid River, then took good old U.S. 41 to Marquette where we will spend the next 2-3 days. We saw one deer in our travels today, but no moose. Or bear. We got to our campground about 3:30, driving clear through Marquette to the east side, I think. After we got set up, we drove back into town to the Visitor Center, Big Logs and Dollar Tree, Michael's, and finally Walmart. That took about 2 1/2 hours, and we still had to come home, put the groceries away, and get dinner fixed and cleaned up. Joe and I were both tired by the end of the day, thinking maybe we should plan a "down day" into the next few days if we can find camp sites for the weekend, which seems to be a problem in this part of the country because they are all full, especially the state campgrounds. It was a pretty drive today, especially on Hwy 2 along Lake Michigan. We got several looks at it. And we drove through the Lake Superior National Forest so we saw lots of trees, especially when we cut up through the country on Hwy. 41. We drove 185 miles today and have come as far west in Michigan as we intend to, except maybe a day trip from here up to Big Bay, which is north and just a little further west. The UP is not very heavily populated but it is interesting country to get to see. We are enjoying just having the opportunity to see this part of the country.
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