mostly escaped the heat wave central Illinois is still experiencing...
We've been wanting to do this tour for years, but it always got postponed for whatever reason. We did in five days, although we didn't always follow the green signs (and took detours).
It was the trip of GPS errors and closures...
Monday we stopped in Saugatuck, the Provincetown of the Midwest, Holland, the Holland of the Midwest, and stayed in Grand Rapids which had cheaper hotels than staying near the Lake...
Tuesday morning, did a short hike at a local forest preserve in Grand Rapids, then drove on up to cross the Mackinac Bridge. I had found several trails in the tourist brochures from the MI Welcome Centre, but the GPS app led us astray or they had moved. So we just walked out St. Ignace, the first town on the Upper Peninsula after crossing the bridge. We stayed in Sault Ste Marie and explored the MI town and watched a lot of boats and the locks.
Wednesday we explored the Seney National Wildlife Refuge (under construction, so I didn't get to see as much as I would like) and the Picture Rocks National Lakeshore (on Lake Superior, not Lake MI, oops! :P ). Lots of waterfalls, but one had been washed out back in the spring and was still closed. Drove down to Green Bay that day.
As we did Door County in 2021, we decided to skip it to save time and money. We did visit the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary (Cassie: birds galore! CRANES.) which was really cool. So many wild ducks and geese, along with raptors being rehabilitated. The wolves were howling, which was a cool experience. We stopped at a few short trails and lighthouses, then stopped in Chicago. Unfortunately, my fave Spanish restaurant closed in April, so had to find a different one, which had the worst paella I have ever tried, and I've had Spanish school cafeteria paella.
Friday we went to Buffalo Creek Forest Preserve in Lake County, which was actually one of the nicest ones I've been to in Chicagoland. We saw cormants and terns, along with a heron that landed near a mother mallard and her ducklings (herons do hunt ducklings). A second female mallard landed near the family and distracted the heron so the family could swim off safely, and the heron took off to another part of the pond. We then drove back home to central Illinois.
It was a good trip, and the UP of Michigan has a lot more nature I want to discover.
