Tuesday, October 7, 2008

The UP and up

The first thing you notice when you cross Mackinaw Bridge onto the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is all the signs for pasties. Being that I am eleven years old, I thought this was hilarious, until Emily informed me that it's pronounced "pasties" (like it rhymes with "nasties"). A pasty is a little English pie, basically a pot pie like the ones you used to get for dinner when your parents went to a party and left you and your brother home to build a fort out of chairs and blankets and watch, in order, Buck Rogers, The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Hee-Haw, and Saturday Night Live before falling asleep in the fort. So, yeah, basically a pot pie, but without the pan. A cross between a hom bow or a knish and a pot pie. Apparently pasties have been a popular food on the UP for a couple hundred years. I knew that at some point I would have to get me one-a them pasty pies.

But first things first. We found a state forest campground down this long dirt road.

It was on a little lake just north of Lake Michigan. The sun was going down when we got there and quickly set up camp.

Janice and Anna brought a big bag full of Bud Light tall boys to our going-away party, and we're still drinking them. Thank you, Janice and Anna, for the gift that keeps on giving.

It was really damp and cold but we got a fire started and warmed up right-quick.

Emily made a little fire stick and wrote her name in the air. It was like our own little frickin' Fourth of July.

We got up really early the next morning for a long drive northwest to Minnesota, and the lake was glass.

And I did get me one-a them pies. And it was delicious.

1 comment:

Dottie said...

you were driving through my homeland! i grew up just off 131 (did you take that north through, did you pass the trout fountain?) in kalkaska & fife lake. looks like you got a beginning taste of the fall colors.