A Weekend in Upper Michigan

This weekend, I went up to Doug's place at Lake Gogebic in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It had already been a few years since I was up there because it's so far away and I have my own summer place in Door County that I don't use as much as I should. All in all, it was a pleasant weekend with plenty of stories to tell.

I left at 6:00 am Friday (August 5) for the 5 hour drive from Milwaukee to Lake Gogebic. I took Hwy 41 N to Hwy 110 W in Oshkosh. I stayed on 110 W to US 39/Hwy 51 N in Stevens Point all the way up to Woodruff, Minocqua and Manitowish Waters. I then caught Cty W north to County B in Presque Isle. County B becomes Michigan Hwy 64 at the Wisconsin-Michigan border. I followed 64 all the way to Marenisco, crossed US 2 a short distance later and followed the roller-coaster Hwy 64 up the west side of Lake Gogebic.

On the way up, I was on conference calls for at least 2 hours so the trip seemed to go much faster than it really took. I arrived to picture perfect weather around 11 am, made a few phone calls and then popped a beer and relaxed. Doug and Jenny had already been up for a few days so were all settled in the routine up there. Jenny's 21-year-old daughter Heather was also up for a few days of R&R from Osh-Vegas.

After a half-hour, Doug broke out the Waverunner. We took turns riding it. No one wanted to go tubing though. Heather didn't want to ride alone so she and I took the Waverunner out for spin on the lake. When we came in, I tried to dump her off the back but she hung on an pulled me off with her. We also capsized the thing. For some unexplained reason, there was no cap on the oil tank so when we righted the thing, oil was oozing out from under the engine cover. When we got to shore and opened up the engine cover, it looked like someone had taken a jug of laundry detergent and poured it out inside the engine compartment. We pulled the drain plug and poured buckets of water into the bottom of the engine compartment to flush it out, then sopped up the excess with rags. Doug swore he put the broken oil cap on the oil tank, but it mysteriously disappeared somewhere in the engine compartment never to be found.

After the Waverunner fiasco, we went down to Gogebic Lodge for the dinner fiasco. The all-you-can-eat fish fry wasn't the quite the bargain it appeared to be since there was so much breading you couldn't find the fish. The salad bar was the saving grace. The service was exceptionally bad. It took forever to get drinks and seconds on the breading--and it wasn't even busy. However, the waitress gave us a free round of drinks. After dinner, we fraternized in the bar with the locals, whom Doug is trying his hardest to get chummy with. Tina with the large breasts is the only one I can remember. After a few drinks, we called it a night and headed back to Doug's (10 pm only).

On Saturday, I got up and went for a 10-mile jog down to Ontonagen State Park and back. On the way, you cross into the eastern time zone and back. I saw quite a few people out getting their morning exercise. Heather had to leave so we went over to the Hoop N' Holler for breakfast/lunch of chicken wings--not the little ones, but big normal-sized chicken wings. This was a rather unexpected twist on the traditional recipe. Around noon, Heather split for Osh-Vegas and we headed north to Bergland to gas up the chariot and then to Lake of the Clouds. After that we drove east to the Goodwill Store in Ontonagon.We discovered this gem a few years ago when we were in town. Jenny found some books and Doug bought some old beer glasses. I almost bought a shirt but then started thinking about who might have worn it and just hung it back up. I asked the lady at the counter if she ever found money in the pockets of donated clothes. Sometimes she does, but more often she finds used Kleenex. So wash anything you buy at Goodwill several times before you wear it. After that we drove down to Bond Falls in Paulding (South of Bruce Crossing) to see an amazing waterfall. On the way we stopped in Rockland at a quaint country general store for ice cream. I liked the tin ceiling and the old vault. The building was once a bank. It also had an interesting collection of items for sale. It obviously catered to campers. The ice cream hit the spot but the town wasn't much. Jenny said if she had to grown up there, she would have died. It was pretty desolate. When we got to Bond Falls, we parked the car and went walking down the steep path along the falls. Despite the warnings, some teenage boys were scaling the face of the waterfall, which was a steep pile of rocks with water rushing over it. One slip and they would have been toast. Signs were posted telling people to stay off, but you can't tell a young man anything. On their way down, one of the boys slipped and fell down two ledges before stopping. But he wasn't hurt. After the Falls, we drove back to Lake Gogebic and fired up the Waverunner and did some tubing before the sun went down.

For dinner, we drove 20 miles south to Presque Isle, Wisconsin to eat at Carlin Lake Lodge. They were having Oktoberfest out in the tent in the backyard but we opted for a table in the bar and had real food in there. We had a drink at the bar before sitting at our table. Dinner was good, but the waitress screwed up Jenny's order for Roulaten and brought her Wienerschnitzel instead. But it didn't matter because the waitress just gave us that dinner free and brought Jenny her Roulaten. But the bus boy couldn't find our table so we never got Jenny's Wienerschnitzel to take home. While eating in the bar, some kids were hanging out playing games and watching XGames on the big screen TV. There were the little brats playing darts and video games while their parents ignored them. One kid says "sweet" while holding onto the handles of the motorcycle daredevil game and then says "what is this." I heard the kid utter "sweet" more than I cared to. Meanwhile, the teenage boy with the fake bleach-blond hair at the next table must have been in some sort of waterskiing competition because the mother of the brats who was much older than the young man kept saying "you are sooooooo good, you should just keep on competing, yada yada yada." Sickening. Reminds me of that 40-year-old teacher who slept with her student. Anywho, the waitress screwed up the check and we ended up not paying for the drinks we had at the bar before dinner. So that was two free rounds of drinks in two days. After dinner, we got our hands stamped for free entry to the Oktoberfest tent, so went out back and watched the people dancing and singing like at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich. It was kind of cheesy so we left after a few songs and drove Jenny back to the Lake. Then Doug and I went to the Gogebic Lodge for a few drinks before heading back and going to bed. We ran into Tina again at the bar but she took off with some friends for a party someplace else.

I had several nightmares last night. I dreamt that a black bear broke into the trailer and hauled me out screaming in my sleeping bag. Then I dreamt that a bunch of hooligans in pick-up trucks drove around in circles around the trailer. Fortunately, these were just dreams. But when I woke up at 7:15 am, I discovered no less than 10 mosquito bites on my legs. They itch like crazy now. After getting up, I did another run down to Ontonagon State Park and back. The Marenisco Township Fire Department across the road from The Fisherman next door is having a Firemen's Festival at noon today. I left at 10 am for Milwaukee, so missed the fun. Before I left, Doug and I moved a sleeper-sofa out of his uncle's trailer over to "The Building" and threw the other rancid one from "The Building" onto the burn pile. No sooner had I pulled out of the driveway and drove 1/4 mile down Highway 64, a giant doe ran from the roadside right into my path 30 feet ahead. I just missed that sucker. Also, we noticed an unusual police presence in various spots during our driving yesterday. And I noticed the fuzz in the same place as yesterday near the Ojibwa Correctional Facilities on the way home today. Turns out some guy serving a life sentence for trying to kill a policeman escaped from a UP prison with the help of a food service worker and is on his way to Wisconsin. The drive home was long and boring. Even though I stopped for gas outside Stevens Point, I still made it home in 4 hr 45 minutes. I was really flying.

Well, I have to wait for Doug to e-mail me some pictures of Lake of the Clouds and Bond Falls (hint, hint) so I can post them.

My laundry is done now so have to go. Till tomorrow.