The UP

Saturday was a drive from Eau Claire to Escanaba – a little over four hours of driving time, but five hours of clock time since we crossed back into the Eastern Time Zone. We also crossed back into Michigan, although oddly the time zone doesn’t quite follow the state border.

We are now in the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan, the part “above the bridge” as they refer to it. We will have to read some history to find out why it’s part of Michigan since it really is more an extension of Wisconsin or Minnesota.

The drive was pretty standard Midwest rural scenery until we got back to Lake Michigan where we followed the lakeshore for about the last hour driving up to Escanaba. The only notable event of the day was a lunch stop at Culvers, a highly advertised mostly Midwestern fast food chain that features butterburgers and frozen custard; although they also have pot roast on their menu. The burgers were good, and they have very good fries (everything is cooked to order so you wait a while, but it’s all really fresh). The frozen custard was OK, but not up to all of the raves about it – just a very thick soft serve with not a lot of mix-ins that they add to make their flavor of the day or that you can request to make your own flavor combo.

Our AirBnB is right in downtown Escanaba over a print shop. It’s a town struggling to make a comeback and we soon discovered that just about everything is closed on Sunday so options were a bit limited. A mile from downtown is a marina and lighthouse so we headed there for a stroll. There is also a small island connected to the lakefront pathway via a bridge. Nice stroll and absolutely everyone you see says hello.

Tom found a scenic drive route to take with stops at another lighthouse, a walking trail, and drive through a “tunnel of trees”. It was about 18 miles of not much interesting to the Peninsula Point lighthouse. Really lovely area with waves lapping on the rocks and lots of birds. Tom made the climb up to the top but I was not a fan of the little bitty winding steps

We had no mileage indicators on the driving plan so we headed off unsure if we were looking for walk or tree tunnel. Again, not much happening for scenery but eventually we spotted the trail marker and pulled over. I wish I had a picture to prove this but the swarm of very, very large bugs that immediately started banging against the windows caused us to hit the gas and get the heck out of there! These were not your average mosquitos or dragonflies. This was some sort of UP terrifyingly BIG insect!

OK, on to the Tunnel of Trees! So hard to tell when we were in a tunnel of trees. I snapped a bunch of pictures thinking that maybe we had found it. Here’s a couple

We were soon back in Escanaba and well past lunch time so we parked and took a walk to the heavily advertised, and one of the few open restaurants, The Swedish Pantry. Basic food, lots of decor, and as always very friendly! They had a letter from Oprah whose staff had eaten there and given it high ratings, and their placemats indicated that they have served both Ed McMahon and “the First Lady”, although they didn’t say which one. Probably not Melania.

Weird but fun day. Thunderstorm watch tonight. I really hope they get some good rain here and the bikes need a wash anyway after so much dirt road driving today.