Up Lake Huron to the UP

I spent most of a leisurely day driving US 23 along the shore of Lake Huron, and it was a wonderful day for a drive! The sun was mostly out, there was a cooling breeze off the lake, and traffic was exceptionally light on this road. Along the way, I stopped a couple of times at little parks on the shore to walk for a while and just enjoy the scenery.

Here’s the first real view of Lake Huron from today, or at least, the first time I was able to stop and get a picture:

To the left of this shot was a playground with a number of, shall we say, “dated” play structures which conceivably could cause nightmares in susceptible children. This is just one of the fine specimens (there were kids playing on the others and I didn’t think their mothers would necessarily approve if I just wandered over and started taking pictures!):

I honestly couldn’t decide if it was pink or orange or something in between. I’m reasonably certain it’s not a natural color for a hippo, though, and it was no doubt feeling unloved as the little kiddies were avoiding it in favor of the fish, the stork, and the turtle, all of which looked more like the real things (just much bigger and with nasty holes)!

A couple of hours later, I stopped at another park which bordered a marina. In addition to walking along the shore for quite a ways and taking a handful of pictures (not nearly as many as I should have, I’m thinking now), I went partway along a very nice walkway on the breakwater. That walkway appeared to continue for quite some distance; I saw bicyclists head off into the distance on it and never return! In fact, there were several times during the day when I was aware of there being a bike path along the shore, often for miles at a time. You can see just a bit of the blue railings for that walkway in one of the shots.

Here are a few pictures from this stop; I like the guy who named his boat “Procrastination” 🙂

And unfortunately, those are all the pictures from today. I was particularly struck by how many miles and miles of houses/cottages there were along the shore while the other side of the road was apparently just forests. There were so many For Sale signs up … tempting … this part of Michigan is really beautiful although quite remote.

I eventually made my way to Mackinaw City, crossed the bridge to the UP (Upper Peninsula), and am staying in Newberry tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll explore the UP a bit, cross back to the South, and end up in Traverse City.