As morning opened its windows on the steel gray skies of northern Wisconsin, we headed out of Green Bay, continuing northward on Highway U.S. 41 .... at least I thought we did!!! Turns out that US-41 somehow "clones" itself and has twin routes that parallel each other. Well, you know me, I'm trying to stay alongside Lake Michigan and it looks like I can do that on "41". No ... the road that goes that way now has the mysterious name "M-35". (Sounds like one of James Bond's bosses.) Now, you've gotta picture this - I've got two aggressive "co-pilots" and a GPS (which we named Maggie) whose favorite and most frequently repeated phrase is... "When possible make a legal 'U' turn!". Yeah, you get the picture...... But, after a brief conference we 'muted' Maggie and continued on our merry way - up M-35. As you saw from the earlier post, the weather in this area was often overcast and misty. It brings vividly to light the effect the moisture
from the enormous bodies of water that make up the Great Lakes have on the weather for hundreds of miles. But please don't get the impression that we didn't get our share of sunshine - we did. And, for folks from an area where the city slogan of our state capital, Columbia, is ... "Famously Hot" ... we can stand a little overcast
now and then. And, the skies certainly don't diminish the beauty of the area. We were fortunate that the foliage was still bright at the time of our travels and we were treated to some rather great views but - as you will see in a while - we had a lot of really spectacular scenery yet to come. One of the things we have done as we travel is to keep a "running map" of the route we take. That way we can not only track our progress but we can better explain to folks exactly where we are - or have been. I'll put the map that showed the first few days of our travels on this post so you can see what I mean. I'll update it
periodically - but not too often. Sometimes a map can get boring!!
Anyway, we proceeded up Lake Michigan, crossed over from Wisconsin into the state of Michigan and turned
northwestward toward Lake Superior. (By the way - as we began to turn westward we found that, lo and behold, we were back on US-41. Go figure!!) At Marquette, Michigan we got our
first glimpse of that stunningly large body of water and were, frankly,
awestruck. But first - Marquette!! Well, what can I say??? For someone who was not familiar with this small city I was frankly unprepared for the absolute treasures the town has to offer.
As the home of Northwestern Michigan University, it certainly has the opportunity for higher education right at the doorstep but the other features of the place are amazing!!! Marquette was ranked Number 3 on Forbes Magazines list of best small cities in the U. S. in which to raise a family. And - it was rated 7 out of 200 on the list of greatest cities for outdoorsmen. Now, let me do a little qualifying here, folks. Marquette is definitely a quality destination - but - if you're coming here in winter, be prepared. They have one of the highest snowfall rates in the U. S. with over 140 inches per year. Whoa!!! That's more than ten feet!!!!! But, they
capitalize on that weather in a huge way. The winter sports opportunities here are boundless - and - have resulted in Marquette
becoming the site of the U. S. Olympic Education Center and the Snowboarding and Skiing Hall of Fame!!! We found the architecture in the city to be rather remarkable in
that there is certainly
an abundance of modern and attractive buildings but many of those downtown buildings give the impression that they are from an earlier era. But they are still fresh and attractive. The city Harbor hosts a marina and a boatyard where maintenance work is done on the huge lake-going ships that spend so much time in this major ore-shipping port. The park alongside the harbor is really attractive and in the spring and summer would
be a great place for the kids from the University to take a break from their strenuous academic routine. Even though the population is slightly under 25,000, Marquette is one of the larger cities on the "Upper Peninsula" That term has resulted in a word none of us had heard before - "Yupper". We saw it in writing several places before we had a chance to inquire about it. The name, pronounced You-per, designates a resident of Michigan's upper peninsula. We understand that to be a "real" Yupper one has to have survived at least a "six-foot snowfall" winter. My hat's off to them!! We plan to make it all the way up to Eagle River on the Keeweenaw Peninsula on this leg of our journey but, there is so much to talk about between here and there, we'll close this post to give you a break and continue a little later. We've got some really interesting and fun stuff to show you so
join us as we explore further into the land around what the Ojibwe Indians called "Gichigami" (big water) - and which was called "Gitche Gumee" by both the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his "Song of Hiawatha" and by songwriter Gordon Lightfoot in his classic "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Whichever name you use, Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world in surface area, is an awesome sight. And - since we were seeing it at about the same time of year the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, we could imagine the weather those unfortunate souls faced. So - come on back and we'll check it out together. See ya.
As morning opened its windows on the steel gray skies of northern Wisconsin, we headed out of Green Bay, continuing northward on Highway U.S. 41 .... at least I thought we did!!! Turns out that US-41 somehow "clones" itself and has twin routes that parallel each other. Well, you know me, I'm trying to stay alongside Lake Michigan and it looks like I can do that on "41". No ... the road that goes that way now has the mysterious name "M-35". (Sounds like one of James Bond's bosses.) Now, you've gotta picture this - I've got two aggressive "co-pilots" and a GPS (which we named Maggie) whose favorite and most frequently repeated phrase is... "When possible make a legal 'U' turn!". Yeah, you get the picture...... But, after a brief conference we 'muted' Maggie and continued on our merry way - up M-35. As you saw from the earlier post, the weather in this area was often overcast and misty. It brings vividly to light the effect the moisture 
from the enormous bodies of water that make up the Great Lakes have on the weather for hundreds of miles. But please don't get the impression that we didn't get our share of sunshine - we did. And, for folks from an area where the city slogan of our state capital, Columbia, is ... "Famously Hot" ... we can stand a little overcast 
now and then. And, the skies certainly don't diminish the beauty of the area. We were fortunate that the foliage was still bright at the time of our travels and we were treated to some rather great views but - as you will see in a while - we had a lot of really spectacular scenery yet to come. One of the things we have done as we travel is to keep a "running map" of the route we take. That way we can not only track our progress but we can better explain to folks exactly where we are - or have been. I'll put the map that showed the first few days of our travels on this post so you can see what I mean. I'll update it 
periodically - but not too often. Sometimes a map can get boring!! 
Anyway, we proceeded up Lake Michigan, crossed over from Wisconsin into the state of Michigan and turned
northwestward toward Lake Superior. (By the way - as we began to turn westward we found that, lo and behold, we were back on US-41. Go figure!!) At Marquette, Michigan we got our
first glimpse of that stunningly large body of water and were, frankly,
awestruck. But first - Marquette!! Well, what can I say??? For someone who was not familiar with this small city I was frankly unprepared for the absolute treasures the town has to offer. 
As the home of Northwestern Michigan University, it certainly has the opportunity for higher education right at the doorstep but the other features of the place are amazing!!! Marquette was ranked Number 3 on Forbes Magazines list of best small cities in the U. S. in which to raise a family. And - it was rated 7 out of 200 on the list of greatest cities for outdoorsmen. Now, let me do a little qualifying here, folks. Marquette is definitely a quality destination - but - if you're coming here in winter, be prepared. They have one of the highest snowfall rates in the U. S. with over 140 inches per year. Whoa!!! That's more than ten feet!!!!! But, they 
capitalize on that weather in a huge way. The winter sports opportunities here are boundless - and - have resulted in Marquette
becoming the site of the U. S. Olympic Education Center and the Snowboarding and Skiing Hall of Fame!!! We found the architecture in the city to be rather remarkable in 
that there is certainly 
an abundance of modern and attractive buildings but many of those downtown buildings give the impression that they are from an earlier era. But they are still fresh and attractive. The city Harbor hosts a marina and a boatyard where maintenance work is done on the huge lake-going ships that spend so much time in this major ore-shipping port. The park alongside the harbor is really attractive and in the spring and summer would
be a great place for the kids from the University to take a break from their strenuous academic routine. Even though the population is slightly under 25,000, Marquette is one of the larger cities on the "Upper Peninsula" That term has resulted in a word none of us had heard before - "Yupper". We saw it in writing several places before we had a chance to inquire about it. The name, pronounced You-per, designates a resident of Michigan's upper peninsula. We understand that to be a "real" Yupper one has to have survived at least a "six-foot snowfall" winter. My hat's off to them!! We plan to make it all the way up to Eagle River on the Keeweenaw Peninsula on this leg of our journey but, there is so much to talk about between here and there, we'll close this post to give you a break and continue a little later. We've got some really interesting and fun stuff to show you so 
join us as we explore further into the land around what the Ojibwe Indians called "Gichigami" (big water) - and which was called "Gitche Gumee" by both the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his "Song of Hiawatha" and by songwriter Gordon Lightfoot in his classic "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Whichever name you use, Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world in surface area, is an awesome sight. And - since we were seeing it at about the same time of year the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, we could imagine the weather those unfortunate souls faced. So - come on back and we'll check it out together. See ya.
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