Partial Death
The whole spirit of this trip is to forget about daily life for a while. However, for our big-shot successful parents, keeping up with work while away is still crucial. Obviously I completely understand this, but this one time, I kinda wish our parents worked at Stop-and-Shop or something not as time-consuming.
We purposely low-balled our target for the day because Mom had meetings in the afternoon. It was nice not to feel as rushed and we even got to see some sights instead of driving full time. First we headed up to Sault Saint Marie, where we drove along some really old locks. Normally I'd be as enthused about this as I would be about math homework, however I found it crazy exactly how old they are. Dad says These things were built before the Civil War. You heard me. Don't re-read it, you're right. Isn't that . . . crazy? Those loches have been around longer than the abolishment of slavery. What? How? (This might not be accurate, I’m not very knowledgeable about history, sorry)
With those weirdos out of the way, we went back in the direction of Saint Ignace. On the way, we stopped at two places. The first of which was a place called Castle Rock. Really, our only purpose here was to get some pictures of a Paul Bunyan statue on location. He was cute, but not the best part. Also: am I missing something? Why are we obsessed with Paul Bunyan? What'd he do? Why do we have to see every statue of him? Weird. Anyway, it isn't called Castle Rock for nothing, and we wanted to see the real attraction: Castle Rock. The nice check-out lady told us the walk up this rock was about 170 steps. Stupid me thought she meant steps like the kind your fitbit tracks. Nope. Literal. Stairs. 170 of them. And if you're too slow, the jerkwads behind you get angry. It was awful getting up there, and Gideon was scared that the bridge on the final leg of our journey would fall. He was persistent enough about it to scare me too, so that was interesting. The view, however, was so worth it. You could see Lake Huron, a few of it's little touristy peninsulas and a whole bunch of woods. Breathtaking.
Before our next big attraction, I have a little side story. Like the first day, we've been enjoying a lot of good signs. Today's was the following:
Disclaimer: we understand that Fudge and Curds are separate words but imagine. What are fudge curds? WHAT ARE FUDGE CURDS? Made even better by the fact that I tried to articulate "Smoked Fish" but came up with "Smoked Piss" instead. No one knows why, we're letting it go.
Next was the Mystery Spot. Now you might be asking yourself. "But, Abby, what is the Mystery Spot?" Lemme tell ya, I didn't know either until our tour began. A real gamble on our part, if you ask me. Apparently, the place has an extra intense eastern gravitational pull, but I personally believe it was probably just perplexing tourist-trappy crap. Mom bought a promiscuous stress ball which made it up to her, though. The best part might have been the maze. It was in an entirely wooded area, and they made the dead ends far enough away that you truly couldn't tell what way was correct. Still, we got through it two minutes before what a worker there informed us was average. We're so cool!
On our way to a hotel for the night, we stopped for lunch at Moo Fin Fries and also a pastie place nearby. Apparently, pasties are an essential part of the Upper Peninsula experience, because everywhere you turn, there's a Pastie store. Literally. Like you can never be hungry here because there's always a pastie shop. The volume of these shops might solve world hunger if they weren't so sketchy looking on the outside. Anyway, I got one of the best grilled cheeses I will ever have at Moo Fin Fries and reluctantly tried a bite of the pastie. I was told it was essentially shepard's pie in a pastry, and that's probably the best way to describe it. Because that's literally what it is. It's really tasty, just like . . . literally an easier way to eat shepherd's pie.
We make it to a hotel room with just enough time for Gideon to clog the toilet before we go to meet up with our Auntie Erin, and our cousins. Meanwhile Mom was attending her meeting. Anyway, we met them in a rain storm at some kind of park that has a lake with springs in it. Obviously because of the rain we were all wearing ponchos and rain jackets, the problem being that our cousin Cordelia is three, so none of the ponchos fit her properly. Auntie Erin got her the smallest one possible, but it was still a little too big, so we had to cut the bottom. She was obsessed with being a little pink ghost, swimming in her clear poncho. She was definitely very scary. The lake itself was pretty, and little Delia was obsessed with the fish and haunting the whole tour. Luckily, her brother Eoin spooked the spooky out of her. I had a blast playing with Eoin, Delia and Gideon for a while longer, before exhaustion hit. Those of you introverts out there know that suddenly your social energy can just leave at the blink of an eye, which is exactly what happened to me. When we got back to the hotel, I was exhausted and pleading to stay in the hotel for the night.
We picked up some food from Main Street Pizza nearby our hotel and grabbed ice creams in the lobby for a treat. We even got to bed early, which was just the rejuvenation we all needed after quite the eventful few days.
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