Sandy Beaches and Concrete Jungles

Just a quick heads up-- I did not have a chance to go through and edit this post before posting so hopefully you can pardon any mistakes or difficult sections to read, it's just time for us to get going now. 

We did eventually leave Justin and the two Matts and made our way down into the oven mitt part of Michigan. Sure it was several days later on the 25^th of September, but we did keep going. We left at around noon and headed down towards one of the more remarkable bridges in the entirety of the U.S. and out towards Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore. Now everyone in the mitt part of Michigan refers to their location of the state by displaying their right hand palm upwards and pointing to which part of the state they lived in. Using this representation, Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore would be at the tip of the pinky. For those of you who might struggle pulling up that image in your own brain that is the most Western point on the northern shore of the main mitt of Michigan. Sleeping Bear National Lakeshore is actually considered a National Park and usually one would have to pay to get into the park, but somehow we always manage to show up after the main gate has already been abandoned, so we were able to go hiking around on these dunes (the day after we had spent a full day at the other dunes mind you) without having to pay the entrance fee. This also meant that we hiked back to our cars in the dark, but that was no issue for us. We have before and since done much later night hikes.

Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes are about twice the size of the Sable Sand Dunes, though the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes do have a lot more traffic. Even with us arriving as the sun was sinking below the horizon and the sky threatening the possibility of rain we still ran into several people on the trail out to the coast of Lake Michigan. It was a beautiful hike though, and the sunset really added to the aesthetic. The best part of all though was the color and look of the lake at the end of the hike. Somehow the water there right by the shore had taken on this turquoise glow. It was too beautiful to just look at, we had to take a dip in the water as well (for me it also meant finally bagging Lake Michigan). I mean look at it! You can’t tell me that you would not have wanted to go for a swim as well.

After hiking back to the cars we took a moment to fix some dinner there at the foot of the first dune before we went about trying to find a place to sleep. This involved quite a bit of driving around. Ultimately we realized that there was no decent National Forest nearby for us to set up camp, which meant we resorted to one of our more desperate means of setting up camp. We found a roadside pull off that had a picnic table and set up our tent right next to the picnic table and I tried to mostly block the view of our tent from the road with my car. It was not exactly the greatest location for privacy, but we were tired so we fell right to sleep.

Next morning we awoke to our tent being soaked once again. It had rained that night, and my sleeping pad had collected a decent amount of water within it since I was on the lowest part of the incline of the slight hill we had set our tent up on. This made me a little bit grumpy from the get go that morning. But thankfully Eric and Tweedy did not have to suffer through my mood since Tweedy had just switched to riding in Eric’s car the day before.

Our first stop was William Mitchell State Park where the boys made breakfast and I just continued in my moodiness. I did not manage to get out of my moody state of mind until we stopped at another little park a couple hours later. Bay City State Recreation Area was a park that butted right up to the shallowest part of Lake Eerie. We probably walked out into the lake about a hundred yards and still the water never got higher than my waist- it never even reached the waists of the other two though (darn those tall people). It was quite chilly that morning, which meant that I was happy it couldn’t get any higher than my waist, and even being waist deep was a bit too much at times. Still it was a great looking beach. During the summer I’m sure it’s packed.

After enjoying that bit of nature it was time to dive into another city. We drove into Detroit in the afternoon and parked our cars on the side of the street in Greek Town before beginning our self-guided tour through the city. For some reason Detroit gets a bad rap, and perhaps a couple years ago there was a reason for it (I remember seeing the pictures on the news of all the abandoned high rises and trashed demolition sites), but for me it ranks up there with Chicago, though it was nowhere near as bustling as Chicago. I think that will change over the next few years though as well as more people come to the realization that Detroit is really a beautiful city. We began our walk with wandering through the streets on the northern side of the city. This part of the city is full of older architecture. If I had to hazard a guess (which I do because I didn’t do any research about the city—sorry about that) I would say that most of those store fronts date back to the late 1800’s.

This was where the shopping district part of the town was located, which was not exactly up our alley as budget travelers, so after taking some time to enjoy the architecture we started to wander South towards the board walk part of town that follows along the Detroit River. This part of the city is absolutely gorgeous. It is lined with monuments and little art installments of the three-dimensional variety. Across the river you can see the southernmost part of Canada. It’s a random peninsula that dips below the rest of the country, pretty much a Canadian Florida. Believe the place looked like it was a resort town too, at least from where we stood on the other side of the river.

After that we wandered into the Renaissance Center. This is a conglomeration of five buildings that were built by GM, though they contain about fifty different companies. The buildings are set up with one center building that was taller than the rest and four satellite skyscrapers around it. We first wandered into the one owned by the Hilton and snuck into one of the elevators and rode it to the top floor of the hotel. Unfortunately, there were no windows that could be seen on that top floor. You had to have a room to get the view. We still wandered around in there for a minute with the hope of finding some way to access the view, but ultimately failing in our quest. Next we managed to get to the base of the center building. After asking several people where we could find access to find the elevator that went to the top floor we were able to find it. It was owned by Coach (a restaurant that was located on that top floor). The hostess there on the main floor was kind enough to just let us in so we could take the ride and see the view at the top. I’m pretty sure it has to be the best free elevator in the world. It is glass so you get to witness the view change and the rest of the world diminish right before your eyes before you arrive at the breathtaking view afforded there at the seventy-second floor.

Once we got to see that view the only thing left to do was get back to our cars and figure out a place to sleep. Fortunately we managed to find a walking path that goes right through what I’m pretty sure used to be the ugly looking part of Detroit that I saw those pictures of all those years ago. Now it is beautiful though, and is pretty much an outdoor art gallery for some amazing urban painters. I’m going to include a few specimens for you all to appreciate.

(I know, quite a lot of pictures in succession, but one of my little sisters was rather disgruntled with the fact that my last post did not have enough pictures, so I’m trying to make up for it this go round.)

That night Eric managed to find us a home to stay in since our tent was soaking wet and we did not feel too inclined to sleep by the side of the road again in a soaking wet tent. Helen and Steve let us into their home despite the fact that we were all complete strangers to them, they just happened to know someone that knew Eric and trusted her to not refer complete ruffians to stay with them. They were honestly some of the sweetest people I have ever met. A dinner of spaghetti and meatballs was waiting for us when we arrived along with a side salad and a desert of ice cream sundaes. That was the most satisfied my stomach has been on the trip thus far (though the Chicago style pizza that Matt’s parents provided for us is a very close second). After a delightful dinner we watched a less delightful display with the first presidential debate. It was quite the storm. Neither one of those two candidates looked good, though I enjoyed watching it because what I studied in school (rhetoric) translates perfectly to analyzing debates. Ultimately though I think that the entire country should just say “screw them” to the main political parties and instead only vote for the less well represented parties or write in a candidate. Because if we are all honest with ourselves we’ll all realize that not a single one of us wants another Republican or Democrat as a president.

Anyway, we still slept well and I managed not to have any nightmares waking me up in the middle of the night. The next day we were served pancakes for breakfast and chatted with Helen and Steve before we headed out right around noon. It was hard to say goodbye to those beautiful people. I might have to go back to Detroit just so I can see Steve and Helen again.

But it was time to head on out. That night there was a dance to be a part of in Indianapolis, so we took to the road and in a couple hours we were telling Michigan goodbye after a nice long stay.

Don’t forget to check out Tweedy’s and Eric’s Youtube channels for the video documentation of the trip. 

Up UP and Away!

As I have mentioned something around 28 times—we get to where we are going to be sleeping late, and the night we slept in northern Wisconsin was no different. We drove into Chequamegon National Forest to find a place to camp. The campsite that we had left earlier that day had been our favorite up until that point and I know that I was at least hoping that Chequamegon National Forest would be just as pretty as Superior National Forest in Minnesota. It wasn’t. There was a lot of logging going on in the area so we would drive through a section of pretty decent looking woods just to come out of it a couple minutes later into desolate fields. Not to mention the roads were a bit difficult to manage, at least for Eric in his little Civic. Unfortunately for him I was the one leading at the time and I did not even think about the road conditions because my car just rolls over everything. What I found to be a pain was the fact that we couldn’t find any decent woods that would be nice to camp in, and when we did we would follow the road back just to find that it was a logging headquarters with several cords of wood stacked up everywhere. Eventually we managed to find a little pull off road that had a tree fall across it so clearly no loggers were using it. We set up the tent just beyond the fallen tree and then pulled out another tree back behind Eric’s car since we were still fairly close to the main road and we were hoping to get a little more privacy that way. Sleep crept on easily enough as late night turned to early morning.

Since we had gotten to bed late I was expecting to get the chance to sleep in late, but that was a foolish assumption. I had forgotten the level of paranoia that Eric and Tweedy still had in regards to sleeping by the side of a dirt road in a national forest that none of us had ever been in before. (I guess I should feel trepidation over it as well, but for some reason I don’t, and since that time all of us feel much to comfortable setting up a tent and sleeping just about anywhere—stay tuned for some of our more ridiculous campsites) Their paranoia caused them to wake me up at 6:00 in the morning because a white truck had driven by us twice, and at one point the driver may or may not have stopped and looked at our little camping site more intently. Whatever the case it freaked Eric and Tweedy out so we had to break camp and roll out as soon as possible in order to calm them down.

As we drove out of the forest we passed the white pickup, along with a few other trucks and a lot of other guys. Turned out it was just a hunting party trying to find each other. The good thing about waking up early is we had time to go and goof around somewhere for a while. Honestly we were just looking for the first park we found by the side of the highway that had picnic tables so I could fix us some morning oatmeal. Luckily we happened to stumble across the City of Ashland Maslowski Beach. It had rained on us the past couple of nights while we were sleeping, so while I got breakfast ready Eric and Tweedy set up the tent on the beach right next to Lake Superior (We’ve seen four of the five Great Lakes now and I have to say Lake Superior has been my favorite in every location that we’ve seen it) so that the tent could dry out.

After breakfast we changed into our swimsuits and took a dip in the lake.

It was cold, but thankfully the sun was out and the air was warm, so a bit of cold water was no big deal (it was still warmer than most of the mountain lakes I’ve been in back in Colorado). After the swim we continued to just hang out there on the beach. Our activities included playing on the nearby playground equipment, chatting with a couple ladies that were from the main body of Michigan visiting Northern Wisconsin, and burying Tweedy in sand.

After we had finished with our antics we broke the tent down and continued into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (from now on I will solely just use the abbreviation UP, and no this will not be in reference to the movie Up!). Shortly after we passed over the border into Michigan we had to stop for gas—I know, super exciting information, but I promise I will only mention fueling up if it leads to something. At this gas station we were introduced to the friendly and talkative nature of many Michigan natives. It was one of those gas stations where you have to pay inside, and when we went in to pay there was a lady by the counter who immediately started talking with us. Once she figured out why we were in Michigan and our quest to road trip all 48 contiguous states the talking just became more profuse, because she had lived the gypsy lifestyle since she was seventeen. I’m still torn as to whether I want to have a transitory lifestyle for that long or not; it was nice to hear it was possible though.

Back outside (about fifteen or twenty minutes later) I started getting chatted up by a biker dude. He was somewhere between the ages of sixty-two and seventy-eight. When a person has that much hair on his face it makes it rather difficult to pinpoint the age. Anyway, Eric and I chatted with him for another twenty minutes or so. He lived there in the UP, but he rode his Harley across the country at least once a year. In fact, he rode so much that he had put over a million miles on Harleys and on the particular bike we saw him on he had put over 660,000 miles. After chatting for a while we got back on the road. We thought that we would never see either of those two unique individuals ever again, and then the biker dude whipped up and around us. He pulled over on the shoulder and motioned for me to roll the window down. I did so and he shouted in that if we needed a place to stay we could crash at his place. After the past several nights of sleeping in a tent with rain pounding down on us, having a roof to sleep under sounded perfect, so we followed him down a winding road to his property.

This little bearded biker dude, Allyn (I figure it’s about time I get his name in here), built every building on his property with the help of his wife. Not only that but he built it with the trees that were on his property. There are five distinct structures on the property, and most of them are two stories tall. I was blown away! He and his wife also grow and raise their own food. This includes having a giant garden and raising a few head of cattle along with several chickens. They are almost completely off the grid aside from a small amount of electricity they use. Allyn is a retired mine worker and he says that with the way they live just his social security check provides him with more income than he can even use, and most of it just goes into paying for gas for his bike. We chatted with him late into the night, getting to try the fresh cuisine from the garden and even getting to try the wood burning sauna he had built (Allyn is one hundred percent Finnish, and apparently the Fins are all about their saunas).

Unfortunately we couldn’t hang out there forever and the next morning we said goodbye to Al and headed on up the UP. First stop along the way was the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We saw two water falls there at the park—including Chapel Falls.

Next was a stop at the Stable Sand Dunes. We have a thing for sand dunes (especially Eric), a few months back we all went to the Great Sand Dunes together with Justin as well—who we were on our way to see. This means we would be returning to those same sand dunes in order to share that experience between all four of us again, though when we returned we would be doing a lot more, so I took pictures to remember those dunes during this first visit. And goodness gracious were they beautiful, especially as we crested the final dune and looked down and out to the apparently infinite Lake Superior.

After a couple hours of exploring the dunes we drove the last leg to our first extended reprieve of the road trip at Justin’s home (that is where I was when I posted two or three blog posts in quick succession). That first night there was no working though, just chilling out with Justin and two of his roommates—the two Matts. We also got a tour of Lake Superior State University the university they all attend up there in Sault Ste Marie (pronounce S-oo Saint Marie). That town is possible the only town that crosses the border with Canada—literally it is the same place on both sides of the border, but you still have to have a passport to see the Canadian side and we did not bring ours, so we had to remain on the U.S. side, which is no big deal because we spent most of our time on our laptops anyway, at least Tweedy and I did.

From September 20^th to 23^rd we just chilled. Our non-indoor activities included disc golf, going to the sauna at the school (not near as good as Al’s), shopping, and we went shooting and I shot a gun for the first time.

It was definitely a unique experience, though not one that changes my mind about needing more strict gun laws. Sorry for all those out there that love their guns—I definitely believe in the right of the people to have guns, but after all the shootings of innocent people I think it is about time that everyone stops whining and allows for a whole lot more restrictions to be set in the hope that we can at least decrease the number of mass shootings (all of the guns used in mass shootings in the past five years in the U.S. have been attained legally). I mean it did work for Australia after all. If you disagree that’s perfectly fine, Eric definitely disagrees with my views on gun control, and we are still great friends.

Finally Saturday rolled around—September the 24^th—when Justin was finally free of school responsibilities so we could return to the Sable Sand Dunes. We ended up spending the entire day there. Sometimes wading in the lake, other times scaling the most difficult parts of the dunes, walking along the beach, eating marshmallows and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, building a small fire. All in all it was a fantastic day. That night back at the abode we had a little party since we would be departing the next day, and I fell asleep with a contented smile on my face.

That will do it for the stories from Upper Wisconsin and Upper Michigan, next up is Detroit. Hopefully I’ll get that post up tomorrow.