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Family trumped blogging

. . . and there's always room for dessert on Christmas.

There were actually nine present for this shot, but getting them to settle in one spot isn't necessarily in the cards.

The WADaps are arriving for a visit this evening and will be here until after the New Year.
New Year's day we'll be celebrating the first birthday of the year.
More family will be here.

Head scratcher

I was wondering why there were so many pageviews yesterday.
Then I remembered I linked a Christmas post from 2015 to the koobecaf page.
I'll get us to Teddy Roosevelt National Park soon . . .   the freeway goes right through it.

Another untitled post

Westbound!!!

But not homeward bound.

It was cold.
There was snow on the ground.

But we wanted to visit Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

We had very little idea about what to expect.

There's not much to see, other than barns and fields when traveling across the plains.

Oh, there're barns and cornfields

 The occasional house.

 . . . more barns and fiels

We crossed the Missouri River.

. . . and there was the occasional roadside attraction.

Maybe we'll get to our destination by Wednesday?

Nope . . . I didn't forget

There're still many pics from what we call the Taste of America Tour to post.
So far I've gotten us as far as Wisconsin on the westbound portion of the trip.
Now I just have to get it started again.

The next leg of the journey.

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 It was all driving and no sightseeing.

The stopover in Milwaukee Wauwatosa was all family visit and an observation of seasonal change.
There was one day (out of four) that we found it necessary to wear warm weather clothes because it actually reached 80°F.
There rest of the time it was in the 60s.

We did stop long enough for sandwiches in a suburb of St. Paul.

Gone fishin' somewhere

The cranky ol' man already used that one.
MB and I are taking a break this weekend.
Maybe we'll be on koobecaf.
Maybe there'll be pictures.
Maybe we'll come home.

we left yesterday

Day 28

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After visiting the falls it was a travel day . . .   except for the stop at Culver's in Green Bay.

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Milwaukee is a suburb

Before the interruption

. . . we were visiting Miner's Castle.

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On the south shore of Lake Superior (the lower left of the map).
We'd hoped to view the Pictured Rocks.

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 Look through the trees and you can see a sample of the Pictured Rocks coastline.

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. . . or you could try looking down about 200 feet.

The sidetrip wasn't a waste.

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The fall colors were really showing themselves.

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Then we drove back toward Munising and doubled back to the Visitor Center for two reasons.

1. We were looking to add to our magnet collection [that's another whole story in itself], and
2. We wanted to view the waterfall, Munising Falls.

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Then we hit the trail again.

to visit more family

This is where it's at

Can't you just see Buck spinning in his grave at that post title?
Anyway . . .   as early as it is now, we were there on October 1.

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Yeah, Christmas, MI is on the shores of Lake Superior.
How did we end up there?
The short answer is we didn't want to drive to Marquette.
Actually, we'd heard some people discussing Lake Superior when we were at the Grand Hotel and they specifically mentioned seeing the Pictured Rocks.
We decided they'd be nice to see.
Of course, when we got there we found that the best way to see them is by boat.
There were no boats working so we did the next best thing and went sightseeing by land.

Gotta went somewhere.

be back

Where are we?

Da U P, dat's where.

I gotta tell ya, though, that's prolly a little exaggerated.
The Upper Peninsula is crisscrossed with two lane roads, bordered by lots of woodlands and the occasional farmhouse,

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. . . mobile home,

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. . . or pile of railroad ties,

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. . . seriously?

Oh . . .   before I forget.

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now it's westbound

more or less

It continues

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One last look at Lake Huron and the St Ignace lighthouse*.
The we made our way deeper into the land of the Yooper.

Where we saw even more drastic color in the foliage.

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The photographs really don't do it justice.
It doesn't help that the camera is traveling at something upwards of 60 mph.

the speed might be a slight exaggeration

*Hmmmm, lighthouses might be a theme

Fallback position

In my first month of blogging I was still experimenting.
Occasionally I sneak back an look at those early posts.
This one really caught my attention, primarily due to recent events here, in California, and in Alaska.

We'll get back to the U.P. tomorrow.

nobody was reading the blog then

And it is . . . continued, that is

Play that walkin' music again.

We headed to the downtown waterfront heavy traffic area.
Once beyond that, eastbound, we began looking, in earnest, at local sights.

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 Residences on the main road have an unobstructed view.

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 St. Anne's Catholic Church dates to the 1700s with baptismal records back to 1600s

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 We turned left at the church . . .

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 . . . and found a path up the hill . . .

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. . . where we eventually . . .

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. . . came to the steps which will take us to . . .

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. . . . another path which eventually led to . . .

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Proof we were there.

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Then another, different set of stairs down to the main road.

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Lots of stairs.
You can see the road through the trees

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Where the boys decided they needed a rest,

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 and another rest,

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. . . before walking along the main road back to the business district.
Outside of the residential area, the only traffic with which a pedestrian need be concern is bicycles.
It's only 8.2 miles around the island and relatively level, so there are lots of bicycles availavle to rent.

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The bike in the photo above are just a sample of what is available as passengers disembark the ferries.
But I digress . . .

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We passed several other hotels, inns, and bed and breakfasts on the walk, some other curiosities, too.

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The Boy Scouts planted this replica sometime back.
On the hill behind the statue is . . .

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. . . Ft. Mackinac

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We passed a church built as a mission in 1829 . . .

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. . . and stopped in at this old grocery, established in 1884.
We noticed prices were not particularly outrageous at any of the shops.
Probably because there is lots of competition for the tourist dollar and because the locals want folks to return.

A little housekeeping:

Before the walk we paused to have our photo taken with the bridge in the background.

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I can't close without mentioning the movie . . .

It was filmed on the island.
One of the scenes was shot here

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. . . at this very gazebo.

Although the hotel shuts down in late fall and most of its employees leave, there are full time residents on the island.

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We assumed this school is K-12.
The geese are not permanent residents.

We then shopped for fudge, because that's what everyone buys on Mackinac Island, boarded our ferry back to St. Ignace to chase down out luggage, passing these two sentinels on the way . . .

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 on the right . . .

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and on the left . . .

It just occurred to me that the weekend we were at the island was almost exactly two months ago.
We arrived on the first of October.

just a little slow.