My most recent trip home was centered around the birth of my new, and first, nephew. I spent the first week of my trip with him, my sister, and mom. Then I spent Halloween at my mom’s then over to my dad’s for early Thanksgiving. I had a few days left of my trip and so my dad and I had planned out a mini trip to the Upper Peninsula. Heading up north in the fall has become somewhat of a tradition and it got a little overshadowed by the birth of the baby but we still wanted to do a bit of exploring.

This is the latest we’ve done our fall trip because we usually plan it just right at the peak of the fall colors. This year most of the leaves had fallen but we were pleasantly surprised by getting to see the bright orange tamarack trees as the needles were beginning to die. Did you know it’s the only coniferous deciduous tree? Pretty cool!

We started our trip in Sault Saint Marie, MI. The interesting thing about being in some of these northern cities in the late fall is how deserted they are. I typically enjoy less people around so it was perfect for me except everything is closed. We took a walk around at night (because we decided everything looks more enchanting that way). The next morning we walked around my the locks and through the pretty park before heading on.

We drove straight through to Marquette, MI. A town with quite a bit going on. It’s one of my favorite UP cities. If it weren’t so far up there I would probably live there. We checked into our hotel-the penthouse suite at the historic hotel in town. I guess my dad decided to splurge a little for our mini trip and I wasn’t complaining. It was awesome and the views were fantastic. Unknowingly we timed our arrival perfectly because we caught the airing of my dad’s documentary about his non-profit on the PBS station. More on that later. After we watched it we hit the town and visited a few local breweries. One old and one new. The new one might be my current favorite. They have mugs hanging everywhere that people have purchased so when they come back they just use their mug. I thought how fun it would be to buy one for my yearly visits but that’s a bit frivolous.

A couple of views from the penthouse. The lights in the city at night are so pretty. We couldn’t even see Lady Lake Superior. Pretty cool. I could have looked out the windows all day long. But our trip was short and we had to move on.

The previous night we took another long evening stroll through the dark streets and down to the water. We walked down this break wall and it seems pretty harmless here but at night you can’t tell how far it goes and you feel as if it will go on forever. It was slightly uncomfortable for me but I enjoyed that and I was a little proud of having done it so we came back in the morning to see how far we really walked. Not bad.

After we said bye to Marquette we drove to Mackinaw city. It wasn’t really a destination but we needed a place for the night so we decided to stay there. Mackinaw in the late fall is especially depressing. It lacks quite a bit of character and caters primarily to the summer and early fall tourists. The town was totally dead except for 3 lodging choices and about 3 restaurants. We made the most of it and laughed about the silliness of it all. Even the “cabin” we stayed at was pretty ridiculous. We kept joking about how we’d get each other a weeks long stay here as a wonderful gift.

Until next year UP!