{"id":7906,"date":"2016-04-26T11:15:29","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T15:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/?p=7906"},"modified":"2020-06-12T21:34:37","modified_gmt":"2020-06-13T01:34:37","slug":"life-on-the-road-the-great-lakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/life-on-the-road-the-great-lakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Life on the Road: The Great Lakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Read Part 1 of Life on the Road here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Canada held a beautiful countryside.\u00a0 The air was crisp and refreshing, and we stopped along our drive to admire odds and ends that we passed along the way\u2014a stone railroad bridge, a sparkling creek, a quaint farm.\u00a0 It was simple and charming, like out of a fairytale.\u00a0 Though Canada shares a border with the United States, there was a definite change in the aura of the landscape.\u00a0 I could feel a difference as we passed through.\u00a0 And when we crossed back into the United States, camping along Lakes Michigan and Superior, I felt a different sense of nature here too\u2014still beautiful, but different.<\/p>\n

\"Lake
Lake Superior Shoreline<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We continued our adventures into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan<\/a>, stopping at Whitefish Point where the famous sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald went down.\u00a0\u00a0 Looking out over Lake Superior, I found it easy to forget that this massive body of water was not an ocean.\u00a0 We dawdled along the shore collecting bits of driftwood and colored pebbles, and soon were off again in search of lunch.<\/p>\n

\"Sunset
Sunset on Superior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A woman at a nearby welcome center insisted that we stop at a place called The Berry Patch and try their famous pies.\u00a0 It was a small mom-and-pop kind of place and we figured it would be good enough for lunch as well.\u00a0 Sitting with our menus in a back corner, I could tell the place was full of locals who knew what they wanted the moment they walked in.\u00a0 The menu had your run-of-the-mill diner fare and comfort food\u2014sandwiches, burgers, pancakes, omelets, eggs and sausage\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cHash browns?! \u00a0No.\u00a0 This can\u2019t be.\u201d Patrick looked up at us in disbelief.<\/p>\n

Shane and I exchanged looks for a moment and then lost it.\u00a0 Our German friend thought that The Berry Patch was serving up hash brownies.\u00a0 We explained to him between our hysterics that hash browns were a potato kind of side and that he would probably like them very much.\u00a0 At this point, Patrick was averaging a whole bag of potato chips a day, and from Shane\u2019s stories, I learned that Patrick was also known to order French fries and mashed potatoes for his two sides.\u00a0 Anything potato was an instant favorite with Patrick.<\/p>\n

The food ended up being mediocre and we never tried the pie.<\/p>\n

As we left, Patrick started going on about this tourist trap Mystery Spot that the waitress had told him about, but we decided our next destination would be a cranberry farm on the brochure he had picked up.\u00a0 And so we drove, and drove, and drove, came to the place where we thought it should be, couldn\u2019t find it, and kept on driving.\u00a0 We were on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, right along Lake Superior, on a rugged country road, when I realized my phone service had changed.<\/p>\n

\u201cUmmm\u2026are we in Canada again?\u201d \u00a0Somehow my service was no longer AT&T, so we must have been far enough along the coast of the UP to have started picking up Canadian cell service.\u00a0 At that point we accepted that there was no cranberry farm.\u00a0 We had reached a place so far out that swarms of mosquitos surrounded the car.\u00a0 Patrick and I swatted at the dozen or so that had made their way in through the windows before we closed them, while Shane maneuvered the car around on the rugged, narrow lane.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should have gone to the Mystery Spot.\u201d\u00a0 Patrick grumbled in the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cShut up, Patrick!\u201d said Shane from the front.<\/p>\n

Patrick never got to see the Mystery Spot and we continued on our way.<\/p>\n

The final gem of the Great Lakes region was definitely Oswald\u2019s Bear Ranch.\u00a0 After a two-mile hike to see Tahquamenon Falls, we hopped back in the car to find a sign that read \u201cBear Farm 20 miles.\u201d\u00a0 We drove rather quickly and made it through the gates promptly at 4:45pm to be stopped by a cheerful old lady in the parking lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cSorry, we\u2019re closed.\u201d She said, smiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019ve come all the way from Germany!\u201d Patrick piped up in the back.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell you\u2019ll just have to come back tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut\u2014\u201c\u00a0 Patrick tried to protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cAuf wiedersehen.\u201d\u00a0 She sang happily.<\/p>\n

Disgruntled that the so called \u201cGerman card\u201d did not work, we turned the car around and resolved to set up camp somewhere in the area.\u00a0 After some solid ice cream at a place called The Scoop while Patrick conversed in German with some Amish women, we began the search.\u00a0 It took us a while, but after a head-rattling journey along some rigorous backwoods roads, we finally found a campground called Blind Sucker #2 on an overflow lake near Superior.\u00a0 \u00a0In the end, staying the extra night was totally worth it.\u00a0 We got a chance to experience some true UP wilderness and witnessed the sunset over Superior\u2019s glittering waters\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Camping
Camping on Lake Superior<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Oswald's
Oswald’s Bear Farm, by Shane Kiefer<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

August 2nd 2014<\/em><\/p>\n

I close my eyes and let the sun spread its warmth on my skin, but the air that is carried on the wind brushes my cheek with cool fingers.\u00a0 The touch is light, but crisp and vivid.\u00a0 I look out to Lake Superior.\u00a0 I feel the ice at its center carried on the wind though it is midsummer.\u00a0 The sand, too, is cooling as the sun sinks below the horizon.\u00a0 Its last light glimmers in a warm glow upon the lake.\u00a0 As it falls, I dig my toes into the sand, clinging to the last dregs of warmth.\u00a0 The sun is a sliver of rose. \u00a0I realize I am holding my breath, and inhale sharply to a lungful of cold.\u00a0 The sun takes its final plunge, and I long to follow its radiant path to a world below the lake, an escape from the approaching cold that is night.<\/em><\/p>\n

–sunset on Superior, near Blind Sucker #2<\/em><\/p>\n

In the morning, we returned to Oswald\u2019s Bear Ranch.\u00a0 We watched them snore and bumble around, threw apples to the larger ones, and got up close with a cub named Casper who had a liking for fruit loops.<\/p>\n

\"Oswald\u2019s
Oswald\u2019s Bear Ranch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canada held a beautiful countryside. The air was crisp and refreshing, and we stopped along our drive to admire odds and ends that we passed along the way\u2014a stone railroad bridge, a sparkling creek, a quaint farm. It was simple and charming, like out of a fairytale. Though Canada shares a border with the United States, there was a definite change in the aura of the landscape. I could feel a difference as we passed through. And when we crossed back into the United States, camping along Lakes Michigan and Superior, I felt a different sense of nature here too\u2014still beautiful, but different.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":7913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1242,75],"tags":[551,886,923,121,922],"class_list":["post-7906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-trips","category-travel-stories","tag-adventure","tag-canada","tag-lake-superior","tag-united-states","tag-upper-peninsula-of-michigan","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-05 06:47:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7906"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11241,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7906\/revisions\/11241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.budgetyourtrip.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}