On that last day of ours, our route took us from Munising on the southern shore of Lake Superior across the Upper Peninsula to the northern shore of Lake Michigan, across the Straits of Mackinac to the Lower Peninsula, and from there down the Lake Huron coast to Detroit where we’d spend the night and catch a plane home in the morning.
We had been on the road for a while and had succumbed to the siren calls of refuges and roadside parks. So we were still in the Upper Peninsula with miles to go before we could sleep. (I think you’ve heard me say this, already.)
Here we were, driving the last few miles of US 2, when another park appeared on the right. There were groans from my fair and patient companions as I pulled off the road. It would only be a brief stop, I promised. But when were we going to come this way again? In any event, how could I not?
The sun was shining, as it had been all morning. Lake Michigan was blue, as it had been, too.
I confess, poetical waxing aside, when I see the sun and the green and the blue in Michigan in the summer, I find it impossible to shut out imagined images of the place in winter. Gray skies with cold winds. Snow covering the ground. Ice-topped lakes. Broken, brown wildflower stalks poking out of the drifts. Pine trees standing valiantly with winter moaning in their branches.
Still, it was summer — the best kind Michigan has to offer. There were purple-topped thistles rocking in the summer breeze. And there were Pines standing proudly against the summer sky.
And there was a ferry kicking up a rooster tail as it made its way across the straights from Mackinaw City to Mackinac Island.
We stood and took this in. It was just a brief stop (as a concession to my companions), and then we got back in the car, where we soon found ourselves crossing into the Lower Peninsula.
