A trip to God's country: Long live Michigan's U.P.

Yeah, we can pretend that's how it went.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War

 

No mention of Tahquamenon Falls yet?





The northern Lower Peninsula ain't bad either, especially around the Gaylord area.

 

UP is gorgeous...

 

Nothing in the northern Lower Peninsula compares to Traverse City.

 

One of these days I've got to get out of southeastern Michigan and go north. But I always seem to find other places to go when I have vacation.

 

Love the UP, but I'll think twice before going up there in the dead of winter again.

In Feb. 2007, my girlfriend and I spent the weekend up there to do some skiing and take in a few college hockey games. We wanted to see the Wisconsin-Michigan Tech games since it was Winter Carnival weekend in Houghton (and check out some cool ice sculptures). However, hotel rooms were scarce since we made these plans late.

So we decided to stay in Marquette and ski there ... then make a day trip over to Houghton on Saturday to see the sculptures and check out the UW-MTU game that evening. As a bonus, we were able to see Michigan State-Northern Michigan on Friday night ... rounding out a CCHA-WCHA weekend.

We had got wind that a storm possibly could hit later Saturday evening, so after the UW-MTU game ... we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back down Hwy. 41 to Marquette. The minute we got out of Houghton, the storm hit ... and hit HARD. It wasn't snowing that much, but the wind was unreal ... and those who have driven that stretch along Lake Superior and Keweenaw Bay can attest that the road is almost right on the shore.

It's pitch dark and I can only see white streaks of snow eluminated by my headlights ... tracks in the road are barely visible. I'm doing no more than 10-15 mph at this point. I have no idea where the road is (and I didn't have a GPS yet ... that may have helped a bit). Whiteknuckled ... I don't think I've ever been that scared in my life (moreso because I had my girlfriend in the car with me). After a few minutes, a car came up from behind and passed me, so I tailed them so I would have some sense of direction (at least I think they knew what they were doing).

At that point, I had my girlfriend call up the Best Western in Baraga to see if they had any vacancy. Thankfully they did ... so we finally pulled in there after about an hour on the road (what should normally take 15-20 minutes). Storm finally cleared out midday Sunday and we made our way back to Marquette ... actually it was still blowing pretty good when we left, but once we got away from the lake the roads were fine.

And since the temps hovered around -10 all weekend, we never did get to ski. Instead we feasted on pasties, saw Juno at the Delft and got drunk at Hudson's Classic Grill.

Good times.

 

Ain't no party like a Baraga party cause a Baraga party don't stop.

 

We lost the Toledo war. That's how we ended up with the U.P.

 

That's two references to "pasties" on the thread. Tell me more about this delicacy.

 

The Pasty, pronounced pass-tee, (pictured above) is one of the staples of the Upper Peninsula, brought here by the copper and iron miners from Cornwall , England (Cousin Jacks). "The pasty is a sort of portable beef stew folded into a purse of pie dough and baked to a rich, golden brown. Warmed on a shovel held over a candle, the Cousin Jack's pasty provided him with a nourishing, well balanced meal no matter how far underground he was working. Together with the vegetables which went into it, it made just the dinner a hard worker required." * From www.exploringthenorth.com