This morning at about 0835 hrs we said goodbye to our friends Steve and Kelley Cerny at the Holiday Park Campground in Traverse City MI, pulled chocks and headed northbound towards Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The drive was longer than we would prefer at 261 miles and 5:35 hrs , but overall scenic and uneventful. We stopped a couple times to stretch a bit and give Liberty a chance to pee.
Just before noon the Mackinac Bridge came into view! We enjoy seeing this mammoth and we both mentioned seeing it on the TV show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe.
As mentioned in year's past, I've SCUBA dived the Mackinac Straits below and to the east of the bridge a couple times. Those waters are littered with ship wrecks from the days before ships had modern navigation and communications systems. One of the biggest I dove east of the bridge was the Cedarville, a 604-foot long ship hauling 14,411 tons of limestone with a crew of 35 which sank in 105 foot of water on May 7, 1965 after being struck by the Norwegian vessel Topdalsfjord. So I have many fond memories from this area, both above and below the water!
Exiting the bridge we were charged $8 US for the truck/trailer combination and then we made our way west and north to Munising MI. We tried to make a brief stop at Suzy's Pasties to pick up a couple for later consumption, but the place was closed and it did not look like it was going to be opening anytime soon. Don't know what is going on there! If you have never experienced a "pasty" (pronounced pass-tee), it is basically a portable meat pie filled with beef, salt, pepper, diced onions, potatoes, and occasionally rutabaga. It's origin dates back to the 1800's when Cornish copper miners who migrated here would take these with them to eat during their long days in the mine. Today they are served with gravy (my preference) or ketchup. They are a Michigan Upper Peninsula (U.P.) thing and I enjoy having one while we are in the area. No worries about Suzy's being closed. I will find them where we are camping near Munising.
We rolled into Pictured Rocks RV Park in Christmas MI, just west of Munising at about 1408 hrs and got set-up quickly. We stayed here in 2020 and enjoyed exploring the area. It was a very nice 55 degrees F when we arrived but it is supposed to get down to 43F tonight, so blanket back on the bed and heater plugged in! Liberty will be in snuggle mode!
Set-up went quickly but then we spent some time scrubbing the nasty black bugs off the front cap and the nose and windshield of the big ol' brown truck. If not removed, eventually the chemical in the bug splatter can damage the finish or at a minimum be much harder to clean up.
We cooked some Cajun alligator & pork sausage for dinner that was given to us by our great friends Connie and Alicia at the Alliance Rally. We also grilled some sweet potato, onion and jalapeno. Doreen is not so adventurous, so she had turkey burger!
Tomorrow we have a boat cruise scheduled for the afternoon, around Grand Island. We did the Pictured Rocks sunset cruise last time so we will not repeat that one. Other than that, we are only here for three nights so nothing big scheduled.
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