Yoopers

Day 44: Marquette to Munising, MI--45 miles

"Yoopers" is what the locals call themselves. There's a lot of "you betchas" and "eh's" in their conversation. It's really fun to listen to, and you can buy Yooper stuff at almost any gift shop! We're really enjoying the U.P. and definitely want to come back and do some hiking and water sports. In some ways, the cycling is limiting--and in others, of course, it's a great change from driving.

Although we hated to leave Marquette without exploring more of it (many places were closed on the 4th of July), we had a Michigan fruit and cheese breakfast and left town anyway. I guess we'll have to come back! We mailed our gifts home, found some sunscreen (another missing item), and started out on the bike path toward Munising.

We spent much of our ride within sight of Lake Superior, which was just gorgeous! This south shore has some of the most beautiful beaches I have seen, and I didn't see one person on them! I was imagining camping on the shore, but there were signs everywhere that said you can't do that! The sand is pretty deep and the Lake is about 51 degrees. The beach isn't really wide, but it is very nice. Scenic!

We can tell we're heading east because the humidity is rising! So of course, we're starting the day out in a major sweat! And also, it seems like each morning greets us with a BIG hill to leave town! Today wasn't as bad as some other days due to the bike path, so we were happy about that. But we were sweating buckets nonetheless. However, the temperature is rather cool--around 65 or 70 degrees. We're very happy about that!

Although we rode pretty fast, it seemed to take a LONG time to get into Munising. Maybe it was the humidity talking... The road had a beautiful shoulder most of the time, and there were scenic pull-offs all over!

Still no sympathy from the motorists--even if they have room, they seem to really stick in their lane (too close to us). We have had more scares in Michigan than in any other state. Here's a safety tip for motorists--if there's a cyclist on the shoulder and you can move into the other lane safely, do so! It really helps the cyclists by not buffeting them with the draft from your vehicle. If you bought a mini-car to save on gas mileage, you may be able to squeeze into a lane with a cyclist, but I would advise moving over no matter what. If you bought an ARK to hold your children or all your toys, you will definitely NOT fit into a lane with a cyclist. Holding your breath will not help. So definitely slow down and move over! We hug the shoulder as far right as we can, but sometimes we only have about 2 feet to work with, and that's just not enough...

We rode straight into Munising--and had a late lunch at Muldoon's, which is THE hot spot for a U.P. specialty called pasties (pronounced with a short "a" like "fast"). It's kind of like a shepherd's pie cooked up into a calzone crust. Beef, potatoes, carrots, and rutabaga enclosed in a pastry shell. Comfort finger food, eh! You betcha! It originated in this area from Cornish workers who would take pasties to work with them for lunch. I'm sure the ones we ate had no calories, no cholesterol, and no fat! Ha! We were extra glad we had fruit for breakfast. They were quite tasty, and I can imagine how good they would taste on a cold U.P. night!

There was no camping available (holiday) so we checked into the Munising Motel--nice folks and a good, clean room. There was a laundromat close-by (yes, three days have gone by and we can't cycle again until after laundry). So we did our chores and then raced down to the City Dock to see if we could catch a boat tour of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore--which is right outside Munising. We made the tour by 5 minutes and headed out on a 65-foot cruise boat that held about 150 people or so.

We got seats on the upper deck and really enjoyed a 2 1/2 hour tour of Lake Superior and the Pictured Rocks. It was nice to have someone else do the driving for awhile! And we haven't done very many touristy things, so this was a great treat. David took tons of pictures (hopefully you'll get to see them one day) and we both got lots of ideas for pottery. Maybe more Christmas presents...hmmmm, we'll see if we can pull those ideas off.

The tour took us along a fantastic lakeshore, and in addition to the colored rocks (colored by grounwater with iron, copper, lime, calcium, manganese, and other minerals in it) we saw some fantastic hiking and kayaking opportunities. Maybe next time we come. This was a really fun day for us--and it even felt like vacation! Yahoo!

We plan to be leaving the U.P. in a couple of days and heading into Canada on either 6 or 7 July.