Lake Michigan Summer Vacay 2015: Day 1

I woke up a little late this morning, showered and realized that I had not packed deodorant. I figured that I could find a replacement soon enough, and I had showered, so I wasn't too worried. I packed up all my stuff - all my clothing into one bag and other things into the other - and took it downstairs. I asked the front desk guy to keep it in their equipment room instead of taking it back up, then got my breakfast. I sat next to a couple in town from Lansing, MI, for a wedding, and ate my food. They took off and I wrote out the directions to my aunt's place in Shawano (pronounced shaw-no, for some reason), which took a very long time. Next, I got cash for the tip for the maid, talked to the people at the front desk and showed off my Houston Art Car Parade photos (they were talking about a local car show), and went back to give a tip to the maid. I was finally on my way down and driving out at about 9:30 am.

I enjoyed the new 70 mph speed limit in Wisconsin.

After stopping for a bit around 10:30 or 11 at a Love's that didn't have post cards for the time being, I was back on the road.

There was a go-cart, or something, behind me for a little while.

I finally arrived at my aunt's at about noon, but my mom had not arrived yet. I found my aunt mowing the lawn, and she let me pet two of her more friendly cats. My mom showed up, and she joined us. Then I put my bags in mom's car, gave the rental keys to my aunt, and said goodbye to drive to Michigan.

So we drove and drove, and decided to stop for lunch in Peshtigo, which was once burned down in the most fatal fire in US history, yeah.

Mom had the Friday Fish Fry, and I had their Cordon Bleu Sammich and some coffee. After lunch, we checked out the little shop attached to the cafe and got some neat items for very reasonable prices. I really like their tissue box cover design.

Then we were back on the road and suddenly in Michigan.

I also got some shots of the boats on the water, but they aren't very good.

We also saw some weird things on the side of the road, but didn't get a great photo of it.

We stopped in Escanaba because I thought that there was something interesting there. I think that I was creating a memory of something based on MST3k quotes, but we found a candy shop anyway and I got my first vacation selfie.

We got some candy, post cards, U.P. souvenirs, and some Packers stuff and headed back out. We eventually were off to find the Rapid River Falls on S .15 Road or something, which we did find. We were supposed to find the falls "2.6" miles up this dirt road, but "2.6" miles passed and there was no falls. We kept going and going, wondering what else "2.6" in my mom's handwriting could possibly be, and around 4 miles in, we found a park and the Rapid River Lodge.

Mom and me at the falls.

Some shots of flying insects that had landed.

Video of the falls.

And finally, some information about the falls and our location.

Then we were off through the rest of the U.P. and off to Mackinaw City.

First, the Mackinac Bridge.

Just after paying the $4 toll to cross to the land of the trolls.

We checked into our hotel and walked down to get a Pasty for dinner.

I got a chicken version and my mom got beef. I asked for some gravy later, since it was otherwise pretty dry. We went to some souvenir shops where I got a few things and we spoke with a nice Romanian girl who was in the town to work for the summer. She really liked Chicago and the big buildings there. I showed her photos I had from buildings in Houston. After that, we walked to our hotel and went to bed.