Our U.P Vacation

Day One-- Sunday July 21st

My walking buddy, Mary Ann, and her friend, Tony, who is visiting from Florida, just dropped us off at DFW Airport for our flight to Marquette, Michigan (via Detroit).  Mary Ann is returning the favor--I took her and her girls to DFW Airport back in March when they flew to Orlando, Florida for their Spring break vacation. (This saved each of us the $8-$10 a day airport parking.)

On the way to the airport we stopped at "Fuel City" in downtown Dallas for a quick lunch of street tacos.  We discovered Fuel City several years ago when Texas Monthly magazine featured a cover article "The 63 Tacos You Must Eat Before You Die", and Fuel City was rated for having the #1 Taco in Texas!  That article has sure helped Fuel City's business!  What was then a truck stop/convenience store/taco stand is now all that and more--car wash, covered patio seating, picnic tables under the shade trees, longhorn cattle, buffalos, and donkeys to view just across the fence, and all the while the traffic on I-35E is whizzing by overhead just a couple hundred feet away!  My favorite thing there is the lady that has a "corn wagon" concession out front of the store--she fills a Styrofoam cup with layers of whole kernel corn/red sauce/sour cream/Mexican cheese.  Yum!!

We are so excited about going to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a place we have never visited before, and just as we are about to experience the "dog days of Summer" here in Texas, we will get to enjoy the cooler climate of the Great Lakes Region for a week.  We picked our garden yesterday and gave away all the veggies, and unless it rains while we are gone this week our garden will probably be dried and wilted when we get back.

As we are sitting here waiting for our plane, the Delta gate agent just announced that the plane arriving here at DFW (the one we are to board for Detroit) will be a little late in arriving at our gate.  Since we have approximately an hour at Detroit airport before boarding our connecting flight to Marquette, Mi., we should be alright even getting to Detroit a little late.  Regardless, today is going to be a very long travel day, not arriving in Marquette until 9:45 p.m. this evening.

We are on the plane to Detroit now!  Seated next to me, in the window seat is a cute 10 year old girl, Leanna, traveling alone from Dallas to Detroit.  She has been visiting relatives in Texas and is returning home.  Her Mom is picking her up at the Detroit airport for the 3 hour drive to their home (which is surrounded by farmland) in a tiny Michigan town.  The flight attendants are very watchful of her, offering her "special" snack items not offered to us!  How lucky are kids now!  When we were kids it was "car vacations" only!  Of course I grew up in a family with 10 kids; imagine the cost of plane tickets for all of us!  No way!

When we arrive in Detroit, we find that our incoming flight uses one terminal and  our connecting flight uses another terminal--on the other side of the runways!  That's right, a moving sidewalk, a short train ride, a down escalator (way down) to a long tunnel (that passes under the runways) to an up escalator (way up) then all the way down to the farthest gate in this terminal, our plane awaits, but wait, they aren't boarding yet because they can't find the pilot!  We have time to grab a sandwich to maybe eat on the plane during our final leg to Marquette.  Following an interminable wait at the nearest place to our gate, a Fuddruckers Café, we shared a $14 burger basket while sitting on the floor near our gate because three gates share this seating area and it is packed, and there are folks standing all around, and sitting on the floor all around.  What a zoo!!

But alas, we are on the plane heading to Marquette and it is still light out at 9:30 p.m.!  Wow, their days are very long up here, sort of like Alaska!  The Marquette airport, Sawyer International, is quite small (this is a former Air Force Base) plus this late in the evening there is not much going on.  We go to the Budget Rental Car counter and pick up our car, a black four-door Volkswagen Jetta.

 
Now we just need to find our hotel, Econo Lodge Lakefront.  When we arrive at the hotel (10:30 p.m.) we discover that the Northwest Little League Championships are underway and there are Little Leaguers and their parents having themselves a little party right at the side entrance where we are to go in to our rooms, totally blocking our way!  Wild!  We wriggle between and around them to make our way inside the door and to our room, and a good nights sleep after our long travel day. 

Tomorrow we go sightseeing along Lake Superior's Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  Yippee!  Just gorgeous!