Great Trip....Cooler Locations

     It has been so hot here in Texas that we decided to go North where it would be hopefully much cooler.  We had always wanted to go back to Upper Michigan when we had come through there several years ago.   So a couple of weeks ago, we took off...went up through Missouri to visit family then on to St. Paul MN to see some fabulous wood work at a museum there.

There was also a musical instrument museum in the same building which had some very interesting old phonographs and other things.

St. Paul is a lovely old city overlooking the Mississippi River.  It had been a railroad town and has a wonderful model train museum.  I am not usually into this type of museum but this one was close to our motel so we decided to take a quick look.  But we really enjoyed  it....done exactly to scale of the twin cities in the period around 1950's.

We ate at the famous Mickey's diner in downtown St. Paul....a very fun place because of the history and pretty good food to boot!

     Then we drove to Munising, Michigan where we spent a couple of nights.  The town is located right on the Upper Michigan peninsula on Lake Superior.....surrounded by many water falls and the "home base" of the Painted Rocks Park.

One of the falls we saw

And another fall.

It was raining and quite cold up there....especially since we coming from 110 degrees weather!!!  We still got everywhere we wanted to go but had to wait a couple of days to get to take the boat tour of the Painted Rocks.

An arched rock on the Painted Rock tour.

From Munising we traveled to Sault Saint Marie to see the locks.  Again a really great time...we not only saw several huge freighters go through the locks, we took a tour ourselves.

One of the gates of the locks on our tour boat.  We are heading from Lake Huron to Lake Superior, the higher of the two....a great experience!!!  The International Bridge is in the distance.

After leaving Sault Saint Marie, we drove to Mackinac City....staying there a couple of days...visiting Mackinaw Island and the fort one day....going over on a ferry and taking the carriage tour; our own walking tour afterwards.

Team of horses that pulled the carriages...no cars allowed on the island!

The Grand Hotel (where we didn't stay...way too expensive!!!)

From Mackinac, we went to Traverse City home of the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes and other spectacular scenes!    We really loved this area...on a drive up one of the peninsula on Lake Michigan, we saw barns with quilt blocks painted on the sides. Many of the blocks were symbolic of what the family stood for...like a totem pole.

Then we did another car tour on our own to the Sleeping Bear Dunes....very impressive!!  The dunes were huge...created by wind and water...and constantly changing.

     The whole trip was just one adventure after another...we met so many nice people everywhere we went and saw so many terrific things..from nature to museum...wonderful lighthouses; fantastic food...we even visited two Presidential libraries on our way home...Gerald Ford in Grand Rapids, MI and Abraham Lincoln in Springfield, IL.

     I have relatives in Illinois so we spent a few days visiting with brother, cousins, niece and nephews...great time!!  Now we are home and back to where I left off!!  Quilt show is this coming weekend and I need to get my labels and my sleeves on my entries!!!  Much as I loved the trip, I am glad to be home!