Ted and I always try to celebrate our birthdays with some kind of getaway or fun new experience. For Ted’s birthday he wanted to take a winter road trip to the Upper Peninsula. The Upper Peninsula is his favorite place in the world and he never passes up a chance to spend time in the wilderness. We have been to the Upper Peninsula many times, but being there in the winter was an entirely new experience. It was so quiet, most of the towns were shut down and we were the only people almost everywhere we went- which is really Ted’s perfect vacation!
We started our road trip in Harbor Springs with our friends, David and Rebecca. We stayed in the prettiest house right on Little Traverse Bay, explored downtown Petoskey and enjoyed the gorgeous sunsets over the lake. From Harbor Springs Ted and I headed for the bridge. After hearing about the blue ice in Mackinaw City we made a quick stop to see the phenomena. It was really beautiful to see the blue ice piled up under the bridge against the blue sky.
From there we headed to Munising where we planned to snowshoe Pictured Rocks. Unfortunately, we had a little setback and got our car stuck in the snow with no cell phone reception. After 5 hours of digging we finally got the car out, but we missed our day of snowshoeing- oh goodness it wasn’t the most fun at the time, but it sure makes for a good story! We stayed in a cute little yurt that night. I woke up every night of the trip to look for the Northern Lights, but I never did spot them.
The next day I surprised Ted with a day of dogsledding. It was so much fun. There are a few locations in the Upper Peninsula that offer dogsledding. We spent the day at Husky Haven and I highly recommend it. We learned how to harness the dogs, run the sled and so much more. It was so fun to try something new together, and those pups are so happy to be running out in the snow! From there we ventured off to Marquette and snowshoed at some of our favorite parks. It is so wild to me to see how different all of those parks look from summer to winter.
One of the highlights of the trip for me was staying at a fully functioning lighthouse. The Big Bay Lighthouse in Big Bay is both a functioning lighthouse and a bed and breakfast and is gorgeous. The couple that runs the lighthouse was so kind and prepared the most delicious breakfast for us. I loved that we could climb the tower whenever we wanted, and we caught the prettiest sunrise the morning of our stay.
The trip ended with a stay in Copper Harbor. There was no-one there and everything was shut down. We spent the day snowshoeing around the harbor and taking in those beautiful views of the frozen beach. Copper Harbor is one of my favorite summertime destinations, and seeing it in the winter felt like we were in an entirely different place.
Theodore, thank you for loving the outdoors more than anyone I know. And for encouraging me to go on winter adventures, even when I suggested more than once that we just head to the beach and be completely lazy!
That picture of you hugging the dog ALMOST has me convinced that you are a dog lover ?