Day 9

Late post—the Upper Peninsula is not renowned for its cellular service. I figure this’ll happen with increasing frequency once I cross the Mississippi.

Rain in the morning. I cleaned and drove through nondescript western Michigan in a sullen mood. I put on my Hampstead Hawks sweatshirt (three-time defending baseball champs!) and I felt better.

I stopped in Traverse City at the recommendation of my Food Tome and stopped at Don’s Drive-In, which had indoor seating. I ordered an Atomic Burger with nuclear red sauce and a vanilla milkshake that took so much effort to suck through the straw, I may have broken even calorically. Burgers here come with both fries and coleslaw, which is nice. Good food, but hardly one of the best 1,000 roadside restaurants in the country. I’ll keep looking.

Up onto US-31 and across the Mackinac Bridge. This five-mile bridge is the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere, and the state opens it up every Labor Day to pedestrians.

The rest of the day was an absolute treat. The first fifteen miles of US-2 along the northern shore of Lake Michigan was my favorite piece of driving so far. Low traffic and beautiful, easygoing views alternating between sand dunes and forests. At some points, the water looked almost tropical. I kept driving, west and then north, and arrived at the back end of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. I have a stamp collection now from all of the National Park sites, so I’m pretty much locked in at this point.

This place is an absolute treasure. I hiked one two-mile trail, without significant exertion, and was rewarded with:

• A stroll alongside a creek where I saw flashes of two large wading birds. They looked like blue herons—if they nest up here, I bet it was them.
• A close-up view of Sable Falls, with two twenty-foot cascades.
• A climb onto a hundred-foot-tall sand dune that had swallowed part of the coastal forest
• A secluded beach on the shore of Lake Superior. I saw very few people during my hike, and I was the only person here for the fifteen minutes I spent admiring the scenery.

Tomorrow, I will continue to explore Pictures Rocks, and I may have to expand my food budget. Every “restaurant” around here advertises their smoked fish, pasties, and beef jerky, so I will of course have to try some of each.