Conclusion? Four Gone
04/18/08 08:37 AM | Up Chucks
We left Green Bay with smiles on both our faces (mine so prominent that it kept spilling over onto Jenni's). My next destination Manistique Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. We got there after 10:00 so the sidewalks were already rolled up and put away. But the point was to get inside the U.P. and sleep which the Econo Lodge allowed to do. The next morning it was up with a crack (and a pop and a few groans too). Packing the car back with all of our stuff it was time for a pleasant drive to White Fish Point, where there be a Shipwreck Museum. White Fish Point is horn of land jutting out into Lake Superior. There is a lighthouse there, and The Great Lakes Museum. The Museum officially opens on May 1st, but there is an appointment only routine that we tried to rig using Aldiss Lamps, Semaphore and Cell Phones. I would leave a message. They would reply that they got the message. Jenni would leave a message. My new I-Phone worked well everywhere but the upper reaches of the U.P., Jenni's sprint phone didn't work well at all and 90% of the trip she was roaming. Neither of our phones were working when we reached W.F. Point, there were workmen repairing sidewalks, and people at the Coast Guard Station, but the Museum itself seemed closed. We never heard if our 'by appointment' tour was granted, and so we just
walked out to the beach and gathered Superior Tumbled stones of unimaginable beauty. The wind was blowing at about 30 knots, the temperature on the Point was just under 40° and the breakers off the beach were frozen snow-mounds covered with wind blown sand. After we were blown and stoned enough we traipsed back to the rental car (mercifully black and sitting in full, sun) where we sat looking long lingering looks at the closed Museum.
Jenni Looks South East Towards "The Glove" of Michigan.
So we did the logical thing. We told Karen (our Aussie sheela, GPS guide) to takes us to Mackinaw City. She was guiding us along the way, giving useful driving info after we had traveled about 70 miles, and made one or two turns Jenni considered suspect, I pulled over and had a talk with Karen about her choices. The avoidance's tab for toll-roads had been checked, so she was sending us all the way to Indiana and around the non toll roads and back up the other side of the lake to get to Mackinaw since the bridges is a toll affair. I unchecked the tab and she recalculated the way in her automated best.
It was during this come to Jay-Suss meeting with Karen that I also got the message from Jennifer at Whit Fish Point some 70 miles (and 85 minutes) to our rear that someone would indeed be there at the Lighthouse to take us in for our appointment tour of the museum at 12:00. Here is where I say that I timed the drive perfectly and we turned the car off at The Point at 12:01. So I got my first two disappointments all in the same 90 minute period of my vacation. The long detour, and the missed Museum moments. We did not turn back.
Four Studies of low-tide backwaters on a Lake Michigan Beach.
Highway 2 runs right along Lake Michigan, and afforded us some lovely views and just 8 miles south of Epoufette we stopped at a rest stop and walked the beach where I took the series of shots of the water on the beach and The Missus looking out to the water that adorn this litany of words.
Once we got our saucy Aussie guide to see the light of reason Mackinaw Bridge was a breeze (22 knots worth). Next was a jaunt through Petoskey, (which didn't rock) and a long drive down to Benton Harbor for the night. A stop at the Wal*Mart for a new nightgown for Jenni and some ice for our cooler, another at the Steak and Shake for evening meal and we were up to the third floor of the Comfort Inn Sites for the night. Day for ended like it began, packing and unpacking.
Chuck Pace © 2008