Road Trip!!! (part 1)

Formerly known as the "Iron-Man" of college/fraternity road trips,
you can imagine how I felt not having an entirely reliable car and being stuck in my small town in Southwest Michigan...it was nothing for me to put 1,000 miles on my old car during a weekend road trip (Saturday/Sunday...no 3 day weekends for me), and at my most awesome (read: brain-dead from too much time in the car), 1,000 miles in 12 hours, and 2,000 in 29 hours.


That's been part of the motivation for fixing up Ulla...I wouldn't be able to survive until I could flat out afford a newer car again.

So, with all of the work that's been done, including the recently acquired tires, it was time to head out for Ulla's inaugural (reborn) road trip, and who better to do it with than my girlfriend, Ally. And when better to do it, than when neither of us has anything to do (right before she gets too busy to do ANYTHING), and where better to go than Northern Michigan?! Well...I can think of other places to go of course, but I was certainly excited nonetheless.

Saturday morning, Ally and I finished loading up Ulla for the weekend, got breakfast, and were on our way, making a brief stop a few miles down the highway to pick up bagels from Panera for Ally's family. The drive up was fairly uneventful, especially south of Clare (the lower Michigan definition of "Up North"). We stopped for gas an Jimmy John's around lunch time, check fluids and tires, and headed back onto the freeway. After some more driving, we hit our first unplanned scenic stop, a rest stop on I-75, just south of Mackinac City. First off, when we pulled into the rest stop to stretch and use the bathroom, a man in a late model Volvo stopped me to say soemthing.

"That's a nice looking car you've got there. I used to have one just like it. I gave it to my son with 140,000 miles on it, and he put another 30,000 on it before selling it. Best car I ever had."

So of course, I took this chance to tell him about restoring her and this being the first major trip, and the new tires the day before and such and such, and I felt proud to be there at that moment. Here I was, next to this 22 year old car that I bought for $500, taking compliments on it. It was certainly a highlight of the weekend.

After Using the restroom, we notice a drive up scenic overlook in the rest area, so we pulled up there, parked Ulla, and get out to look around and take pictures. It was a beautiful sight, and it was only the first of many in the beautiful northern section of the state.

Back on the freeway, we stopped next in Mackinac City for my first true tourist moment. Ally had mentioned a shopping center called Mackinac Crossings, which consisted of the main outdoors outfitter store (like a Cabela's or Gander Mountain), and several smaller shops, including the Made in Michigan store, which had products from around the state, like maple syrup and cherries, and even Oberon, a summer ale from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, MI (My area of the state).

As much as this weekend was for Ally to see her mom and get some stuff for school, it was a weekend for us to get away and do pretty much whatever we wanted, and for her to show me around Northern Michigan. So, like I said, I was doing my best to be as much of a tourist as possible, or a "fudgie" as it were (people from lower Michigan that head "North" for fudge-and tourist-y things-, which the northern part of the state is oddly well known for).

My next awesome event (and last for this half of the weekend) was coming up shortly after leaving Mackinac City; crossing the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula. I had crossed the bridge before, New Year's Eve and New Years Day, when bringing Ally to a party, and taking her home to next day, but that hardly counted...I picked her up at night, and took her back in a snow storm. Even if I hadn't been scared to death and wanted to, I couldn't have seen anything.

Heading onto the bridge was an experience, let me tell you. Watching it rise in front of me, and driving onto the roadway...seeing the clean waters and clear skies, beautiful landscape infront of me, the island to the right, the ferry chugging along...I even drove on the metal grated lane, just because I could. I didn't do that for long though, cause it freaked me out.

After crossing the bridge and paying the toll, I did something that was probably not the best idea, but I stopped on the other side to take a picture (first, at top of post). There I was, in the middle of what was still a freeway, around 5pm, stopped to take a picture.

The next hour was vast trees and nearly empty highway, cruising along with the cruise on. We got off at Ally's home town, made our way to her house, and pulled up out front, and Ulla had made it roughly 400 miles straight north, without a single issue.

*note* additional pictures from the trip can be found here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leersobie1986/sets/72157606701337943/