Home again and it's not quite so hot!

Arrived home yesterday just after lunch.  We started the trip thinking we would go "see the Upper Peninsula of Michigan" and we managed that but it was somewhat different than we had expected.  We thought we would go one way and ended up doing something quite different.  It just adds a bit to the stress making changes on-the-fly but I guess we can manage it.  The original plan was to go from Las Vegas up to Colorado Springs then take I-70 east until we passed Chicago.  We would then go north up to the Upper Peninsula area of Michigan coming back south through Wisconsin until we reached Little Rock, AR.  In Little Rock we would pick up I-40 and come on back to Vegas.  In the end we went up through Wisconsin then down through Michigan.  It doesn't sound like much of a change but it felt like it!  In the end we drove 6,182.2 miles; of those miles 4,938.2 were towing the trailer.  And we did it in 30 days.  That means not a lot of sitting around! 

We started out from Las Vegas on September 10.  Stopped in Utah for a night then went on to Colorado Springs where we visited friends.  Colorado Springs was lovely except for some little showers that seemed to know when we wanted to be out on the deck.  Two days, two afternoons on the deck and two showers; it was uncanny. 

After our stay in Colorado we headed off for Kansas; specifically Abilene.  It was quite a drive but we managed it.  We wanted to stay in Abilene because it is the home of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum and Library.  They have the house where Ike grew up and a museum that had a lot of information about the 20 years that were Ike's heyday:  1940-1960.  When you think about it he was pretty influential in those years from commanding the invasion of Europe and ending with eight years as President.  We really enjoyed seeing it.

Leaving Abilene we headed for Columbia, MO.  It wasn't a lovely day:  rain, rain and more rain.  Happily we showed up on a weekday.  Columbia is a college town and it's football season!  Anyway, we'd heard that the Budweiser Clydesdales are born and bred at Warm Springs Ranch and  we wanted to see them.  They have an hour tour showing you basically the barn and a few of the horses in residence.  They are very careful about the coloring of the horses they breed wanting the colts to all look the same.  They have about 30 colts born every year.  They are certainly beautiful  animals and BIG! 

Next stop was West Branch, Iowa at the Herbert Hoover Museum.  Again we liked the museum and learned some things we hadn't known.  Unfortunately I didn't take a single photo!  Hoover became a mining engineer and worked all around the world earning himself quite a nice fortune.  After the devastation of WWI he became interested in trying to help feed the starving people in Europe.  He demanded that it be done voluntarily by people; not by the government.  This got him a great reputation and he was urged to run for President.  He won but almost immediately the Great Depression came along and he got all the blame so he turned out to be a one term President.  WWII comes along and again he is urging relief missions for the starving in Europe.  He ended up being quite the statesman. 

It took us two days to get from the middle of Iowa to upper Wisconsin but we did finally make it.  We wanted to see the Apostle Islands but the weather, which had been much warmer than average, became rain and you couldn't see a thing.  We drove around the Pictured Rocks area in Michigan as well but the weather was just awful.  The visitor centers are fine but don't make up  for the real thing!  They do make some nice beer in this part of the world but it's not the reason for our visit.

Following the Upper Peninsula we were headed for Mackinac Island.  More precisely we stayed in St. Ignace on the north side of the bridge.  This time we got the weather right!  We took one of the ferries out to the island that took a little side trip under the bridge so you could get a sense of it's size.  Pretty cool even if they are working on it!

Then we spent the remainder of the day on the island.  There are no cars allowed (except emergency vehicles) so you get to walk, bicycle or deal with horses.  There are lots of bikes to rent if you would like.  Horses are used to pull the taxis as well as the delivery wagons.  It was fun.  We walked about a fourth of the way around the island.  It is all very pretty and there are some great views.  There were mansions built on the island it the early days and these have been converted to B&Bs; some with huge extensions.  It was a beautiful and and a lot of fun.

I'll get us back home next time.  Thanks for stopping by!