Our Fall Color Trip

We like to take a Fall color trip annually. We frequently go to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. This weekend we repeated the trip we made to Paradise Michigan. We had a shorter amount of time than usual. We left Saturday morning just after 8AM and returned by 3:50PM Sunday afternoon.

The color was nice and the temperature was nippy. This is Michigan afterall. We drove straigh t up US Highway 27 until it merged into US Interstate 75 just north of Clare Michigan. Of course I had to stop at General Jim's (a military surplus store) as usual. Sometimes they have some good deals there. This time I just bought three rescue knives. These are spring assisted knives that have a hook in the back of the handle for cutting seat belts. They also have a stud on the back end for breaking out auto glass for emergency exits.

I got three, a blue one for JJ. Robin chose the red one and left me with the orange one. JJ's has the Navy Seals emblem, Robin's has the Fireman's emblem and mine has the paramedic's emblem. When I explained to Robin that the were rescue knives she was OK with that. Otherwise it was, "How man knives do you need?" Honestly, if it hadn't been for the rescue feature, the knife I've been carrying around for a while is a much better knife.

Well, we moved on from General Jim's and stopped in Houghton to get gas and a meal. We stopped at a local restaurant where I ordered three Blueberry Pancakes. When they came they were a stack a couple of inches high and as big around as the plate! One would have done it. I ate about half of them, my three sausage links and talked JJ into eating about half of what was left.

We decided if we ever eat breakfast there again we would order three sausage links each, one stack of thee Blueberry pancakes and three plates. That would do us. JJ said the pancakes were awesome (more than once)!

From there we didn't get a lot further down the road before I was so sleepy that I need to get a caffienated beverage to stay awake while driving. That helped.

We finally got to parasise about 2PM. It shouldn't have taken that long but we made a few stops and breakfast took a while.

We stayed at Currley's motel (again), gettting a room as soon as we got there. After the room we drove out to Whitefish Point again, to see the Maritime Shipwreck Museum. We didn't go inside but walked around the grounds and onto the beach. We saw the last vestiges of an early light snow in the shaded side of the sand piles on the beach. We noted that it had rained shortly before we arrived.

We drove back down to Taquamenon Falls where we looked around and took some pictures. It was a nice late afternoon. The falls were nice and JJ kept complaining of being hungry.

We drove to Newberry where we stopped at a local grill and had dinner. it was nothing unusual but the bean soup I had reminded me of the soup the served in the school cafeterias we ate at when living in North Carolina. White bean soup. I was done really well.

While we were out we stopped by the little store right next to Currley's. We had stopped there last year and I had wanted to buy a winter hat from them. These were some cool looking hats that would keep your ears really warm! The store was out of business. It had been bought by new management and was due to reopen sometime in the spring. I was dissapointed.

While heading back to the room Robin dropped her room key and we could not find it but I had mine. It was embarrassing to explain what happened to the motel operator the next day!

in our room we watched some television and I worked on trying to restore a $10 straight razor I had bought the day before. I fiddled with it until 1am before going to sleep. Everybody else was sawing logs and I was  trying to hone steel.

The next morning we left the motel about 9:30AM to get back to Lansing. JJ had a Boy Scout meeting at 5PM and we wanted to make sure he made that.

So we stopped at our favorite pasty shop at 11:15AM and hat hot pasties covered with beef gravy and butter. JJ had an Itallian one without any gravy. He says he doesn't like gravy. We all said, "That was good" when we were done eating. Then we headed for the bridge. The rest of the return trip was uneventful and we got home with time to spare.

Well, there was one more thing. At the pasty shop they were selling Cheddar Cheese Curds. So I bought a bag. Sometime early this week we will be having Poontine again.