Five Reasons to Visit the U.P. of Michigan

A while back, my husband, baby and I had to opportunity to drive through some amazing scenery in Michigan.

Have you ever heard of the U.P. of Michigan? I hadn’t until we lived there. Well it is short for the upper peninsula, which sticks out over Lake Superior. You have to drive across the large, engineering marvel called the Mackinaw Bridge to access this peninsula from Michigan or drive through Wisconsin on land. (This is what we did)

This whole area is so remote and beautiful. I love visiting random places that many people haven’t been and the U.P. definitely falls into this category. I think it’s worth a visit so here are a few reasons that you must go as well.

1. Pictures Rocks on Lake Superior: We cruised with Pictured Rocks Cruises. It was long (if you have a 10 month old) but totally worth it. If you make sure you show up early so you can get the best seats on top. Baby and I hung out inside the boat where it was safer for her to crawl around and play. I still had a good view, but it would have been better on the top deck.

2. Cute small towns- well actually small towns are the only type of towns you’ll see in the U.P. but we enjoyed our stops in towns like St. Ignace and Marquette.

3. Beautiful beaches and scenery- Lake Superior and Lake Michigan are truly so beautiful!

4. Pasties, ice cream and fudge- Little mom and pop places lined the roads inviting us to come in and try their treats.  Pasties (its not pastry) are mini pot pies in a crescent shaped dough pocket.  A local told us the history of this treat.  There are a lot of iron and copper mines in this area and in the past miners would need to take lunch, but they had an issue with chemicals like arsenic getting on their fingers.  I guess sinks weren’t too handy down deep in mines, so they couldn’t get the chemicals off their hands before eating.  So the wives devised a way to fix this.  They made the pastry pocket with a wide edge.  The men would hold on to the edge and then throw away were their fingers touched. We tried this delight in St. Ignace at a cute cafe.

5. Mackinac Island-We were so so sad that on our last day in the U.P., we woke up to horrible rain and cloudy skies.  We planned to go to the island that day.  This picturesque island is known for the fact that there are no cars allowed.  We hear such amazing things about it, hopefully we will be able to go back some day!!

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