And we have left the lower penninsula of Michigan.

We crossed The Bridge! That means for tonight we’re Yoopers. Yep, this message and these photos come to you from the UP, and yep, I feel fine.

We started our travels this morning with quite a downpour, and were afraid we’d lost the glorious skies. HA, Michigan has plenty more.

Check out The Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, and one of the jet ferry boats passing in front of it. Afraid that’s as close as we’ll get to them on this trip. As you can tell if you’ve mapped our journey at all on this trip, we’re running the coast from Saginaw up and around to the west.

This foray across The Bridge will end tomorrow when we head south and begin to trace the western coast of lower Michigan. We’ve been sticking to state parks at night, mostly because they’re everywhere and usually lead to glorious lakeshore vistas! Some are a little dear, and when we don’t really need their services (electric for AC or clothes dryer, or water or dump station), we might return to a parking lot.

We want to stay at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, but have found all their 68 electric sites are reserved for the next several weeks (and we started looking weeks ago!). However, they have a precious few sites that are not reservable but held each day for first-come, although in recent days people have been lining up the night before! We’ll see. We may stay nearby and day-trip into Sleeping Bear Dunes.

If one tree was removed in front of us tonight, we could see The Mackinac Bridge from our front window! Robyn just checked, and it’s all lit up for the night. I’m not. See you tomorrow.