A 2020 Road Trip

Last week the girls and I spent the week in Copper Harbor.  After a long year with limited travel, I decided it was time to use a week of vacation and actually take a vacation.  It's been a weird year for us without a big road trip and no real vacation.  It is the first year in so many that I haven't had a first visit to a new State or Province-something that has defined so many of my trips recently.  It's been a year since I visited Hawaii and I hadn't been outside of the State of Michigan in months.  

I have missed exploring new places. I have missed planning the trip, experiencing new restaurants, seeing beautiful new views, and maybe even meeting, ever so briefly, new people along the way.  I love a good road trip and so do the girls. But this year, that just wasn't in the cards for us.  I also know many other people across the country feel the same way.  It's been strange.

I have also missed my trips to the UP to visit all of the places I love so well.  I have missed seeing all of my favorite spots, the peace and tranquility I feel when I am there, and most importantly, I have missed my friends who live so far away from me.  And as we approach the long Winter ahead with a lot of unknowns, I wanted to be able to experience a little taste of normalcy because who knows what the future holds.  While traveling is important to me, it is also important to me to stay safe, to keep others safe, and to find ways to travel as safely as possible for all of us.  And while cases of Covid are on the rise all across the country, for my own mental health and sanity, I knew that I needed a trip North.  

As I began to think about the ways I could be safest and have the most enjoyable trip for me, I knew that visiting Copper Harbor during the week, when it would be less crowded, would be important.  So I planned to travel Monday-Friday to avoid the weekend crowds I knew would be there, especially since we would be traveling in near-peak leaf-peeping season.  I made my hotel reservations and really started to get excited about the trip.  

As we neared the date of the trip, I made a last minute decision to change things up for this trip and take a different travel route that would allow us to explores some new things along the way and also get Maddie to a place she had never been before-the Wisconsin State Capitol building, because what road trip is complete without a State Capitol stop?  

So with the Jeep packed with everything we would need for a fun little adventure, we left Sunday morning, heading South through Indiana and Illinois, around Lake Michigan, and then North and West around Chicago to reach our first destination, Madison, Wisconsin.  The girls were excited for the road trip and were excellent travelers, and I was happy to get all the way to Madison without the need to stop for gas.  We powered through that portion of our trip with very limited stops and arrived in Madison ready to stretch our legs.

Madison is one of my favorite Capitol cities and buildings.  I have been there on a few occasions over the years, but my most memorable trip had definitely been when Imke and I traveled there together after our first big road trip together.  This was one of her early Capitol Building visits on the one trip we didn't take Maddie...back in the days when Maddie was a horrible traveler.  And while we'd driven near Madison on other trips West over the years, we had never stopped and Maddie was missing this Capitol city on her list of places she'd visit so it was important to me to get her there.

It was a beautiful day and lots of people were out and about around the city while we took our obligatory walk around the grounds, but in this year of Covid and civil unrest, it was definitely different than other trips we had taken.  People wearing masks, keeping their distance, no one stopping to ask about petting the girls...and all around us windows in local businesses and the Capitol Building itself boarded up, statutes protected in wooden boxes, graffiti and other evidence of protests and potential looting in the area.  And while I tried not to focus on all of those things and to just enjoy the moment, they were all there as the backdrop to our visit.  Just a reminder of the weird world we are currently living in right now.

But Maddie and Peaches were having a great time.  Maddie walking up to random strangers, ready for them to pet her, and Peaches jumping and pulling and whining with excitement because Capitol grounds are always home to many, many squirrels.  I was successful in getting a couple of pictures with both girls and a couple with just Maddie.  I smiled as I watched the girls explore the world like I have many times before, but there was a twinge of sadness knowing that this is most likely the last Capitol visit that I will make with Maddie-Capitol number 48 for her.  She's had a great journey with me and boy do we have some great memories along the way!  And don't worry, I don't think she's ready to leave me yet, she's still loving life and going strong, and we still have big plans to continue to make the most of every day ahead of us.

After our stop at the Capitol Building, we headed to the University of Wisconsin campus to walk around and explore a bit there too before grabbing some Mexican takeout and heading to the hotel for the night.  Road trip traditions are important and so of course the girls got to lick the container from the take out after I was done eating.   They always get to like the remnants of my beans and rice after a long day on the road.   We took one last walk around the hotel to explore a bit before settling in for the night.  We'd had a good day on the road and I was looking forward to Monday morning and continuing our journey to Copper Harbor.

Monday morning arrived and we packed up and prepared to continue our journey North.  We had a couple of quick stops planned along the way while in Wisconsin, but I was most looking forward to getting to the UP and beginning our stay there.  Traffic was light and the travel was good through Wisconsin so travel went smoothly.  We stopped along the way at the spot where the 90th parallel West and the 45th Parallel North meet...marketed as the geographical center of the Northwest Hemisphere.  There was a cute park with a short walk, about 1/4 of a mile, to the marker which was located in the middle of nowhere.  I was surprised to see another vehicle there, an older couple who stopped to visit, and when we left, a young family had arrived to visit as well.  It was an interesting, quirky place for a stop and the girls enjoyed getting out to stretch their legs.  They didn't enjoy sitting still for pictures nearly as much though, but I was able to get a few.  

We walked back to the Jeep and continued our journey to our next quirky stop, the World's Largest Penny.  After stops at many items marketed as the "World's Largest" over the years, I was less than impressed with this one.   It was simply a cement structure in the shape of a penny which had clearly been painted a copper color at some time in the past, but was painted no longer.  We didn't stay long, grabbed lunch for the road while in town, and continued our journey...next stop Eagle Harbor, Michigan!

The rest of our journey North was quiet and uneventful.  I was just anxious to get to our hotel and get settled in, so there were no more stops along the way.  Plus we had one very important stop to make at Great Sand Bay that night before we could end our day with a peaceful dinner in our room in Eagle Harbor.  

We arrived in Eagle Harbor in time for dinner and I already knew I was going to have dinner from the Fitz in Eagle River.  So after checking in and unpacking the Jeep, we headed out to pick up dinner.  It was a beautiful evening in Eagle River and we enjoyed the beach while we waited for our food. After a short wait, we left with my order in hand and one stop to make before heading back to the hotel for the night.

We made the short drive from Eagle River to Great Sand Bay, parked in the parking lot for the public beach and made the short walk down the beach to one of our favorite spots, our friend Bryce's beach.  Bryce had a prior commitment and couldn't join us for our walk that night, but I knew he wouldn't mind if we stopped because I had something very important to do there that night.

The waves were crashing into the beach and a strong wind was blowing, but despite the chill in the air, it was still a beautiful night.  We had arrived there in the UP at our favorite beach on what would have been my Imke's 17th birthday, and while she's been gone nearly two years, other than the small amount of ashes I left in Hawaii, I haven't been able to bring myself to open that packet of ashes.  But that night, I knew it was time to leave a piece of her behind there.

So with the sunsetting on a very beautiful day, Maddie, Peaches, and I took a moment to set her free in the wind at a place that always made her happy.  It was a beautiful, peaceful moment and I know she would have approved.

As the sunset, we headed to our room to settle in for the night.  We were so happy to be there in that beautiful place and were ready to enjoy the rest of our week in our favorite place on Earth.