2020 Big Truck across the Upper Peninsula, Day 14

Day 14 started with some indecision, me heading up to the visitors center to write this, and a last minute search for another campsite as our Traverse City plans had changed. I also wanted to get a ride in on the trails in the park, I had seen them on the map and I hadn't ridden since Copper Harbor, so I was itching to explore.

These trails are for hiking, biking, and just plain walking, so they are a mix of path, two track, and a little bit of trail. The payoffs are ridiculous. Take this overlook for example.

On the left you can see what is called Snail Shell Harbor, the original dock location from the historic town.

It is a strange juxtaposition seeing multi-million dollar yachts like this moored in front of the Fayette ruins, but rich people gotta put their boats somewhere.

More 'bike leaning against things' pics, Kimberly's favorite.

Final overlook from the other side of the harbor, very strong Pictured Rocks vibes here.

As I mentioned earlier in the blog, this campground has a curious setup, as shown here by the roughly 12' between our firepit and our neighbors' pit. Luckily they only had about 7 kids between 0 and 5 years old, so they really didn't make much noise.

If you look closer, you'll see the cairns that Jordan left at our site. She had made one for each of us, and then on one of our bike rides through the campground, she noticed a dog that reminded her of Aspen, Reggie's best bud who we miss dearly (sorry Takases!), so she made one for him too.

I'm sure the next campers will see the sentimental value in these and not at all get freaked out by the Blair Witch-ness feel.

All packed up, we said goodbye to the UP for now and headed across the Mighty Mac to our last stop.

We had searched all over the lower peninsula to find a place to stay one final night, and through all of the state parks there were 2 campsites available. One was an ADA accessible site in Mitchell State Park in Cadillac, the other was site 242 in Wilderness State Park. We hadn't stayed there in over 10 years, and given it was the only available site in the state on a Friday night with short notice, our decision was made. 

We threw our stuff on the site and jumped in the Jeep, as it was already almost 5pm and we wanted to see if we could grab a bite at the famous Legs Inn along one of my favorite roads in the state, M-119, also known as the Tunnel of Trees.

We rolled in and immediately knew this place was different.

A few more steps and we knew we were in the right place. Anywhere with a full size Zoltar machine is good by me.

Inside you really get a feel for the unique decor of the place.

It was close to an hour wait at 5:15, so we grabbed a drink and headed out to the patio overlooking Lake Michigan.

There is a meticulously maintained garden, an outdoor stage, and I can imagine the sunsets here must be killer.

When we were finally seated, it was time to cheers to a great vacation.

This place is known for its authentic Polish food, but since I was still on the whitefish kick I sampled a Polish beer instead. It tasted exactly like being at 5th Street Hall back home. 

Normally they would have a Tripelroot beer on tap, but the keg had blown and they hadn't switched a new one on yet. We were disappointed to hear that, but will return to rectify the situation another day.

The setting for your meal is pretty scenic.

We learned a little more of the history on our way out,

and we had been in such a hurry to get in that we had walked right past the reason for the name of the restaurant, the use of the antique stove legs along the building's roofline.

We made our way back to Wilderness, a peaceful, 2 lane trek back that is interrupted by potholes roughly every 10-12 feet. I discovered a sweet spot around 68mph where the Jeep would float overtop of the rough road and give me roughly 60% control of which lane we were in.

Upon our return, I turned off to the beach to catch the sunset as there was no way we were getting up once we sat down at the campsite.

We skipped a bunch of rocks (the launch angle on this could use a little tweaking, but Jordan was doing great until she almost pegged a group of swimmers - they shouldn't have been standing there).

Final sunset of the trip. Very fitting that it be this similar to the ones in Munising.

We reached the campsite, did a little final setup and bathed in 98.5% deet due to this greeting us:

Kimberly busted out the color fire packets (that is our fine china equivalent), and we sank into the fire, realizing that we had packed a ton of experiences into the past 2 weeks.

Tomorrow - home.