Northern Exposure III - 2011 - Day #12

This was a traveling day primarily but also a pleasant, if rather windy "partly cloudy" day.  We rose at dawn (which doesn't happen until 7:30 AM up here) had coffee and breakfast and then proceeded to "break camp" steadily but without excessive haste.  Getting the full-size mattress we had brought down for the duration back up the steep staircase was a challenge but we succeeded.  We systematically returned the cabin to the "unused" condition, everything washed up, floor vacuumed, fridge emptied, etc and packed all our "stuff" back into the van, before reluctantly saying farewell to our home away from home!

By 9:30 we were moving, first over to Lake Linden and then around Route 26 to the Hancock-Houghton bridge.  Heading up the hill out of Houghton we filled up with gas and then made the two hours-odd cruise down the Keweenaw and across much of the U.P. listening to a book on disc.  Marissa was thrilled, as traffic slowed, to actually see a bear lumber across the road.  John missed it completely!  We turned off the main road and headed down to the Bond Falls park for the usual look-see & photographs, the first time in three tries Marissa saw them in sunshine rather than in gloom and/or rain.  On leaving we checked out the well-stocked tourist shop but only John bought a couple of things, a mug and a loon.

We continued heading south, turned on to Route 2 and started heading east.  In due course we reached Wink's Woods store.  Marissa picked up some dip mixes but for the first time in some 10 visits over the years John walked out empty handed!  Failing to find any suitable food sources we chose to delay lunch until we could get to the far side of Iron Mountain and the source of the U.P.'s very best pasties, The Pasty Oven on the road to Norway.  We both enjoyed most of a large pasty each, John's with rutabaga and Marissa's without, and Zoe enjoyed the remains!  Heading back we stopped at our motel, checked in early and got the best pet room (right by the outside door), but didn't move in just carried on driving and on out to Summer Breeze campground for a happy reunion with Rita and Bob Stevens and (their daughter) Carol and Jerry Hammonds.  The remainder of the day was largely conversation with some mutual show and tell mixed in and a delicious dinner.  Eventually plans were made for tomorrow and we returned to the hotel to get ourselves a bit organized and caught up.