Since arriving in Michigan, I have been inundated with comments about traveling “up north”. This suggestion is usually aided with comments about northern Michigan being beautiful, full of lakes, and being entirely different than Detroit. In fact, multiple people have described the adventure as “the more north you go in Michigan the more southern it gets” due it’s rural features – hardy har har. Please allow me to also add in the success of the “Pure Michigan” radio advertisements that plays dog adoption music along with its pleading message to break my daily routine so I can haul my family to Lake Michigan to skip rocks soon. So lo and behold, my four roommates and myself piled into my car on Memorial Day Weekend and traveled to our reserved campsite at Wilderness State Park (imagine that I am showing you where that is by pointing to my conveniently shaped state of Michigan hand).

Despite it being 37 degrees in the last week of May, it was great! We hiked 10 miles on our first day to a little place called Waugoshance Point which jets out into Lake Michigan. There was rustic lighthouses, beautiful waves, and most interesting to me – an uncanny 50 foot difference between dense coniferous forest and a shoreline full of seashells and clear water. We were dog tired by nightfall but persevered to attend the International Dark Sky Park at “The Headlands” (there are only 6 of these in the United States according to their website). Luckily, we were able to borrow a telescope from a Detroit friend and we spent a good hour away from most light pollution to observe the same celestial bodies that cavemen, Copernicus, and Galileo looked at. We were able to point out a few constellations and viewed Jupiter and Saturn.

We pressed on the following day with a trip to the Upper Peninsula (by the way, one does not simply cross into the UP. One must pay a toll to get over the Mackinac Bridge). Convinced by our roommate, Jason, to get a “pasty”, we stopped and ate a local mom and pop shop to woof down a chicken pasty. For those of you who may be curious, a pasty is indigenous to northern Ireland and was used by coal miners in the Upper Peninsula back in the day as a quick meal. It’s a breaded meat dish that is made to be eaten in layers and may sometimes contain a dessert layer. In addition to this delicacy, we caught Shepler’s Ferry to the famous Mackinac Island. This is a 3.8 square mile island that is famous for its role throughout America’s early wars. The British didn’t actually hand it over after our independence until 13 years later and then they took it back in the War of 1812. There is a large fort that still stands on the island today and serves as a tourist attraction along with the island’s beauty, history, world famous fudge, and its commitment to remain untouched by time (except corporate America exists in the form of Starbucks and there is a private airfield smack dab in the middle). Nonetheless, there is a strict no cars allowed policy so we rented bicycles and toured our way around the island to see all it had to offer. It was beautiful! We shared tons of laughs, snapped a million pictures, looked out onto both Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and unexpectedly ran into Challenge Detroiter Jon Ganci (who is the man, in case you didn’t know).

I am now an advocate for getting “up north”. It is stunning and has so much to offer with its cultural and physical attractions. It is American’s third coast and it must be seen!