No Man is an Island (except sometimes) – The Trip to the Apostles

Monday 9/2

After packing the car to the accompaniment of a pretty sunset on Sunday (a positive portent), Tall Tom and I departed for The Apostle Islands on the afternoon of Labor Day. Rob and Béla were a few hours ahead of us. There’s not much to say about driving the Interstates – the miles slowly ticked by as we headed through Pennsylvania and into Ohio. I will mention that I was surprised to encounter diversity I hadn't expected at a highway rest stop outside of Cleveland. I noticed an obviously Orthodox Jewish guy gassing up a minivan, and spotted the rest of his family inside the rest area. In a sort of balance, when we came back to the car there were two Muslim guys prostrate on the grass strip next to the parking area doing their evening prayers. Being a dog owner, Tall Tom pointed out that the grass right next to the parking spots at a highway rest stop might not be the most sanitary place to stick your face, but oh, well – the things we do for our faith. While the two of us ate dinner we noticed the adjacent table was occupied by a large Hispanic family, fully decked out in MAGA gear. Even the kids had their red hats and Trump shirts on. I pictured Ohio as being a bunch of bland, white bread people – I guess I was wrong.

Pretty sunset while loading the car

We had intended to go only as far as roughly Cleveland (if even that far) on Monday, but once Rob and Béla texted that they had made it all the way to Ann Arbor, we decided we would make it there too. While they had arrived in time to have a nice dinner and brewpub visit, Tom and I got in about 9 PM, just in time to settle in and hit the hay. Our hotel was a eerily deserted Wyndham Conference Center, and when the four of us met up for breakfast on Tuesday we had the place to ourselves. At about 9 AM we set off together, having switched teams for the day – I had Béla in my car, while Rob and Tom rode together.

Tuesday 9/3

There are two routes to The Apostle Islands: one across the bottom of the Great Lakes, and the other up through Michigan, including crossing the Upper Peninsula (“UP”). Both routes are about the same length, and my traveling companions were good enough to agree to take the “UP” route, which would take us through Escanaba, MI, home to Aronson Island. A long time ago I typed “Aronson” into Google Maps just to see what would come up, and along with a lot of accounting firms and other professional practices, up popped Aronson Island. It’s been a “bucket list” destination for me ever since, and so we made Escanaba our planned second night stopping place. 

Along the way to Escanaba we did have some fun, including stopping at Northwoods Outfitters, a giant outdoors store focused mostly on hunting and fishing, but with some stuff of interest to our style of outdoorsiness. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant called Darrow’s in Mackinaw City just before the bridge to the “UP”. Darrow’s looked like it could have been generated by AI from the prompt “Midwestern Diner”. Big display case of pies. Lots of people in plaid and other L.L. Bean-looking clothes. Significantly high average BMI (maybe from all that pie). The menu highlighted fresh lake whitefish, a Great Lakes fish which is apparently the same fish used in the kosher deli whitefish salads of my youth, and so I ordered a blackened whitefish sandwich. It was very fresh and delicious – firm, and flavorful but not fishy. For dessert we all split a single piece of their pecan pie.

We had made reservations at one of Escanaba’s two hotels (while the town is neat and tidy I sense it’s not a big tourist destination), choosing the one within walking distance of America’s best island. When the Hotel Luddington opened in 1864, it was (per a historical marker) “the largest and only hotel in the city having baths, steam heat and electric call bells - $2.00 per day”. Today, there are no longer electric call bells and the price has gone up somewhat, but the place seems otherwise unchanged since its Civil War era heyday, and it would be a great setting for a Scooby Doo mystery. Big, old, and creaky. Our rooms turned out to be suites – mine had a bedroom, living room, full kitchen, and a strange empty walk-in closety sort of space, and all-told was at least as big as my first apartment in New York. The furnishings were sort of yard sale/antique shop caliber, and my suite had paintings where you felt the eyes should be following you as you walked around. In addition to our group, the only other guests we saw were a large and friendly group of motorcycle tourists.

Main Street, Escanaba, at sunset

Home at last!

I drove 900 miles for this picture!

After a day of sitting, the four of us were eager to move around a little and so we walked the length of the town’s commercial strip. Like many so many American towns, Escanaba has a quaint but failing downtown. There are a handful of shops, the most thriving of which seemed to be the cannabis dispensary. Sadly, it was not called Escannabis, which would be what I would name my business were I to open a cannabis dispensary there. At dinner we ran into the motorcyclists again, which was not too surprising since there were only two open restaurants in town. After a surprisingly good meal, we walked over and made our first visit to Aronson Island, where we staged a photo shoot in front of the island’s sign.

The House of Luddington

House of Luddington decor

The House of Luddington’s past guests include Thomas Edison, John Phillip Sousa, The Harlem Globetrotters, and Johnny Cash. Surprisingly, we were not visited by any of their ghosts during the night (being visited by the ghost of Johnny Cash would have been super cool!!), and in the morning after a quick cup of coffee we loaded up our stuff and headed back to Aronson Island – this time by car – where I was thrilled to find more signs, each unique. My original bucket list hope had been to actually launch my kayak from my island, but with a full day’s driving ahead, none of us really felt like pulling the boats down and getting into full paddle rattle just to say we had done it (though adding a second Great Lake to our trip’s paddling would have been cool). Instead, we satisfied ourselves with exploring by car and on foot, including visiting the island’s pretty beach, which faces Little Bay du Noc on Lake Michigan. We took lots more pictures.

Aronson Island signs

Aronson Island Beach

All good things must come to an end, and eventually we departed Aronson Island, bound for our final destination of Bayfield, Wisconsin. Escanaba didn’t really offer anything in the way of breakfast (I had hoped to try the signature Swedish pancakes at the Swedish Pantry downtown, but alas, they were closed for renovations). We set off with empty stomachs, figuring we’d grab something along the road; however, once you leave Escanaba, there isn’t much of anything along the road through the UP, and we drove about 75 miles before we came upon a tiny strip mall which contained a Subway and, interestingly, a rather hip coffee bar called “Buddha Bean”. I got an egg sandwich at Subway and a decaf Americano at Buddha Bean. The barista was apparently new, and while she pulled the espresso shots without issue, she added tap water rather than hot water (an Americano is several espresso shots diluted with hot water down to American coffee strength), leaving me with a lukewarm coffee. Worst coffee I’ve ever had in Crystal Falls, MI! I'm giving them only one star! I should have gone back and had them remake it, but we were eager to resume moving.

Escanaba to Bayfield was a relatively short 4 ½ hours, which was nice. As we approached Bayfield we of course stopped at another outdoors store, and I noticed the rather nice looking StageNorth Arts Center. I guess the human urge to create art is strong, even in the remote Chequamegon Bay area.

Our first stop in Bayfield (because we stumbled upon it) was the Maritime Museum, where we learned about the maritime history, and lots of shipwrecks – foreshadowing! – of Lake Superior. Tall Tom had reserved an AirBnB for us, and after checking in we had a light lunch in town. I could tell we were in Wisconsin from the fact that my "salad" was 85% cheese and 15% salad greens. We spent the rest of the day on the typical fussing we do the night before launch – buying fresh food items, and packing, re-packing, and re-re-packing gear. We did have a very nice dinner at The Pickled Herring, a restaurant with a deck overlooking the lake. Rob, who loves all manner of fish and fish parts, ordered the whitefish livers, which sadly, weren’t as exceptional as the fish itself. We retired early to get a good night’s sleep before launching.

Shipwreck display at the Maritime Museum in Bayfield

Surprisingly good map of The Apostles from 1671

Rob ordered the whitefish livers at The Pickled Herring