Huron, Michigan and Superior

   We started the day heading north from Bay City on the Rt 23 scenic drive along Lake Huron. The scenery turned out to be mostly forests which were thick enough to hide the shore line for most of the way up to the bridge. There were spots where we could see the lake and the water was a beautiful bright green color in the sun.

   There were lots of cottage homes along the lake and a number of small towns on the way, including Cheboygan, on the north end. As expected, the farther north we drove, the countryside became more remote. We could tell that hunting was a popular local sport.

    We stopped at the historic 40 Mile Point Lighthouse, toured the old living quarters and climbed to the top of the tower. The lighthouse was built in 1896 and is maintained in wonderful condition by local volunteers, some of them are the light keeper's family decendants.

   The Mackinac Bridge connects Michigan's lower and upper peninsulas. It's a spectacular sight and one of the longest suspension bridges in the world. There were high wind warnings while we were crossing and I was glad I wasn't driving one of those huge RV's.

   After crossing, we headed west again along Rt 2 with the sandy north shore of Lake Michigan on our left. About half way across the peninsula we turned toward Lake Superior and then had it's choppy water on our right. We finished our day in Marquette Michigan, a nice sized college town on Lake Superior. We found an Irish pub for dinner and toured around town a bit afterward.

   Today's weather turned chilly, temperatures stayed in the low 50's all day and will go down into the lower 40's tonight. Since I brought shorts to travel in, I don't want to get any closer to the North Pole than that sign we passed along the way.

   Something we noticed early: there aren't many foreign cars on the roads, especially ones with Michigan plates. Even though we're pretty far north of Detroit, there are obvious strong feelings about buying American.

   Tomorrow we'll leave Michigan and drive through northern Wisconsin into Minnesota.