If you live in Michigan, chances are you have gone “up north” at least once in your life. Some of us travel about, stay in different areas, while others have had permanent homes that have housed decades of memories, or even rentals that their families have stayed at for decades as well. Some people camp, some stay in hotels, but regardless, you are up north.
We went a few times when I was a kid, sometimes all the way up to Traverse City, sometimes a little bit south of the TC for my grandma’s birthday which was in July. I remember swimming in the lake with my cousins at a rental on Houghton, endless video games in the game room at the Holiday Inn in whatever city that was we stayed in, walking up really hot sand dunes with my mom and dad when my legs were only 4 years old long. (Not the big dune!)
Billy and I always used to head toward Mackinaw or the UP on our trips. We camped, we stayed in a hotel that was really little tiny cabins, we stayed in a big hotel. We walked on beaches, hiked through the woods, visited the Sawmill at Mackinaw at least a dozen times.
We’ve eaten fudge like the fudgies we are, visited historic Fishtown, shopped in Glen Arbor. Spent days in Traverse City, sampled the wines at Mission Point, and visited the lighthouse. Just so much. So many memories that I can’t do them all justice in this post. My dad took me and the family all the way up to the Upper Peninsula in high school when I was considering Northern for college. We saw Copper Harbor, mighty storms on Superior, waterfalls, Paradise, the shipwreck museum, and ate in a restaurant that was the living room of a home. Billy and I have ventured to the UP as well, to Germfask renting a tiny cottage and visiting Pictured Rocks. Thomas Dambo just built a troll up there in Germfask, so we will have to go back!
It’s been fun watching these two through the years. They are so big now it seems! And now our pictures will have tiny Bebe too!
We may never get anywhere like Disney together, but to me these days up north are precious and full of fun. Of game nights, crafting, sitting around the fire. Kayaking, swimming, stories, and laughter. Looking for Petoskey stones (and now I want to find a Yooper Stone!), cedar forests, the scent of conifers, one of my favorite things in the whole world. I always know when we have reached “up north” – when the road at the side of the highway is just lined with all the big evergreens, reaching toward the sky, pointing our way ever north.
Look at that little face!
Thanks for looking back with me!
