From the Yoop to Viking Country

So, Tuesday (yesterday) kicked off our first of three long driving days that would take us 1,271 miles from Mackinaw City, Mi to Billings, MT--our jumping off point to Yellowstone National Park. In our planning, we tried to keep our "longest" days restricted to no more than 8 hours just so we could improvise and see "cool" things along the way. This ended up serving us quite well.

We left Mackinaw City on Tuesday morning and headed out across the Mackinaw City Bridge, which at some point in history was the longest suspension bridge in the world at 5 miles. It connects Michigan's lower peninsula to its upper peninsula, or "UP" as it's known. (Locals can be called Yoopers......and trust me, I used it as often as possible.)

From what we were able to gather, folks in the Yoop are an interesting bunch. They LOVE pastys--or at least they love advertising for them, and they love selling things on the side of the road--boats, canoes, cars, wheelbarrows, t-shirts, doodads, etc. 

Another thing that Yoopers seem to have an interest in is animals. In fact, there were tons of ads for Zoos in people's backyards......that's right. A friend we made at the gas station in Mackinaw City advised us to visit one of these homegrown zoos in particular--Oswald's Bear Ranch. GREAT SUGGESTION! Court was interested in the prospect of petting a bear cub, so we headed out to Oswald's to see what the fuss was about.

"What the fuss was about."
BEAR CUBS!
(Look at Court's face. Or look up "unadulterated joy" in the dictionary." Same picture.)

Patty the bear cub

The bear pawed me. Oswald says that is a sign of respect.  THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKIN' ABOUT!

The Man. The Myth. Oswald.

This was Reed, the bear poop scooper. He wanted us to get an unobstructed bear picture.

The Disney Classic

From the Bear Ranch, we headed out to another pit stop--Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore. In brief, this was a very beautiful place that was difficult to see from above, and it was FREEEEEEEEZING cold and extremely windy. Thus, we got the following pictures and then left immediately.

After Pictured Rocks we drove straight through the rest of the UP and entered into Wisconsin on highway-2.

Ashland, WI

If you've read our itinerary, you know we had planned to stop in Ashland, WI and camp. However, it was still early in the day when we arrived in Ashland, so we ended up camping in Duluth, MN, about an hour and half west of Ashland on Lake Superior. The campsite was rockin and we had a great night, even though the temperature dropped to the upper 40's at night........and we met a guy named Mo Squito in a big way.

Much love to all you folks at home! Thanks for the messages!