The King Family visits the Michigan Upper Peninsula! Or, the UP, as it is commonly known. None of us have visited here before, but both Scott and Stephanie came up with the idea independently, so here we are.
Miles, Peyton, and Scarlett (age 13 months) are driving to our home base, Rapid River, Michigan, while the rest of us are flying.
MP & S left on Saturday morning (Day 0) and made it to Peoria, Illinois, to spend the night with Miles’ friend, Luke. The trip included Scarlett’s first visit to a Bucc-ee’s!
On Sunday, Day 1, everybody was in travel mode. Scott, Erin, Ellery and PK left from Stillwater on a 6:00am flight to DFW. It was a traumatic experience. As Erin put it, the American Airlines desk agent was 13, and it was his 3rd day. He could not print out their baggage tags, and as they found out later, it was because he had loaded the paper in the printer upside down. After 45 minutes getting through the desk and TSA, Erin swore she would walk to Tulsa to fly, before she will ever fly out of Stillwater again. SWO, you made an impression on us!!
Mallory flew out of JFK in NYC at 6:30, and had an uneventful trip to Chicago O’Hare. Stephanie and I flew out of Tulsa at 6:45 and it was also a smooth flight to Chicago. We met up with Mallory minutes after she walked off her plane, and had a leisurely lunch, while waiting for the Dallas plane to arrive.
The Dallas flight ran into more difficulties, and was delayed about an hour and a half. Their opportunity to catch the final leg to Michigan was in question. Meanwhile, our gate changed for the Michigan flight five times while we waited for the rest of the family to arrive. The Dallas flight arrived just in time, and there was a people-mover-golf-cart waiting for them upon arrival and they got a priority ride over to our gate, which was a considerable distance. They made it!
The final leg into Marquette, Michigan, was smooth, and we learned after we deplaned that the entire O’Hare airport was in a ground stop due to severe weather. So we got out of there just in time! We grabbed our rental cars in the main lobby of the airport, and off we went to find some dinner.
We found a local place named Daisy Jo’s in nearby Gwinn, Michigan. Most of us ordered the Cudighi, a UP specialty. The cudighi is a type of Italian-American sausage, with a blend of sweet and savory flavors. We all gave it pretty high marks, though our waitress (a local teenager) did not like them.
A few of us got ice cream at Daisy Jo’s after dinner, which is an attribute of a good vacation day. As our waitress settled up our bill with us, she asked me, “Why are you all up here?” I thought this was the place to be?
While driving to Daisy Jo’s, we passed the Gwinn high school, which had a large sign on it, as the Home of the MODELTOWNERS. We had a debate if this was read as “Model Towners” or as “Model T Owners”. In Michigan, either one seemed plausible. Our waitress set us straight that it is pronounced as “Model Towners”, because Gwinn was a model town, built up around the town mine. Honestly, who knows how much of this is true, but it sounds great so no research is required.
We were now ready to head to Rapid River, where we will be staying for the week at a VRBO known as the Rapid River Lodge. We arrived around 8pm (EST) and were united with Miles, Peyton & Scarlett, who had checked in during the late afternoon. After some socializing, Scott, Erin, Mallory and I drove into Escanaba to the Walmart. Escanaba is the 3rd largest city in the UP, which is not exactly saying much, but it was a good sized town. We stocked up on breakfast and snack supplies, so that we could spend more time later meal planning and getting the bulk of our groceries.
On the drive into Escanaba, we could see down the highway that there was an animal crossing. It was not big enough to be a deer, but it was bigger than a squirrel or rabbit. As we got closer, the occupants in the car would yell out guesses as to what it could be. “Is it a Badger?!” “Is it a Wolverine?!” We got closer… It was a Porcupine! This was all of our first experience seeing a porcupine in the wild. It was pretty crazy. It was in no hurry to cross the road. And since there was no traffic, we just came to a complete stop in our lane to watch it cross the shoulder and into the tall grass. We appreciate the UP Welcome Committee giving us some interesting things to see!
By the time we got back home around 10pm, all the other vacationers were in bed. So we put away the groceries and did the same. Given the events of the day, we were just happy that we all made it to Rapid River together, and are ready to get into full vacation mode for the week.