Up in the UP

Right out there's where we went by boat

In the UP!

Grand Island Harbor

We left Charlevoix the next day and made our way over the Mackinac Bridge and the Mackinac Straits into the Upper Peninsula, or the UP. As soon as you cross the bridge you realize that the UP is another world. It’s very similar to going to New Orleans. And the Youppers (UP residentas) are proud of where they live. Signs advertising pasties (PAST eez) are everywhere as well as an eclectic assortment of oddball tourist attractions, where anything that seems to be out of the ordinary is featured as a must see place to stop and spend money. One such place was Christmas, MI, which advertises itself as THE place to postmark and send your Christmas cards and lists to Santa. Jane found a Christmas store and went shopping for gifts and ornaments. We made our way to Marquette, MI, which we had visited one the motorcycle trip in 2008, and checked in at the same motel we had previously stayed at. We went to a local restaurant that was known for its pasties to give them a try. We were told that we came to the right place and were given a choice of a pasty with or without rutabagas. They were rather large so we decided to split one with the rutabagas.

It's cold in the UP

Basically a pasty is a puff pastry shell filled with pieces of steak and finely diced potatoes and rutabagas (Much like a pot pie). Ours didn’t have a whole lot of meat in it and the overall flavor was rather bland. We think it has English origins which probably explain the lack of flavor. Jane had one bite so Capt. Larry at most of it before we checked it off the list as something we had tried. We both agreed that some smoked sausage, pork, tasso, chicken and some Cajun seasoning would have made it worth eating. We returned to the motel and walked to a nearby cinema where we saw Johnny Depp’s movie Dark Shadows.

The Ranger III

A Copper Harbor gift shop

A little UP humor!

Our ferry to Isle Royale

The next morning we took a leisurely ride through the western UP heading for Copper Harbor, MI. Here we would take a ferry over to Isle Royale National Park and hopefully collect our stamp. Along the way we stopped in Grand IslandHarbor for lunch and then visited a roadside park with a scenic overlook of the harbor. We followed some back roads to Houghton and stopped at the Isle Royale visitor’s center. Since it was Sunday and early in the season, everything was closed, but we did see the park service’s ship, Ranger III, which is used to ferry visitors and supplies over to the island. Running along the shore of Lake Superior, we finally ended up at Copper Harbor. While the village only has 90 residents, it is well set up to handle the tourists that come to visit the park. There are several motels and restaurants, but not all of them were open so early in the season. We checked into our motel, went to the ferry office to get the details for the next day’s ride, then went to a restaurant for dinner.