Twelve Mile Circle – An Appreciation of Unusual Places

Tag: Michigan

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 8 (In Town)

    I’ll just come out and say it, Mackinac Island is an odd place (map). Lots of people love this scenic spot on Lake Huron for that specific reason, and I admit I enjoyed my brief time there too. But it was disorienting and bewildering to this first time visitor. It felt like a topsy-turvy version…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 7 (St. Ignace)

    I realize that I mentioned Mackinaw City as a cheaper alternative to staying on Mackinac Island. However, we didn’t actually stay there. Instead, we crossed over to St. Ignace on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It was a quieter town, a little further out of the way, and didn’t experience the same levels of visitor density. Don’t…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 6 (Mackinaw City)

    We drew ever closer to our ultimate target. Only a fifteen minute ferry ride separated us from Mackinac Island today, a place we could see quite clearly from the mainland shore. However, we focused on Mackinaw City and its immediate surroundings so the island had to wait. Mackinaw City is nothing like Mackinac Island despite…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 5 (Eastern U.P.)

    Staying in St. Ignace for a week was a whole lot cheaper than staying on Mackinac Island. It was also a lot easier to use as a base for exploring the eastern end of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Once, many years ago, I drove along the southern edge of the U.P. and stayed overnight. Other than…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 4 (Petoskey)

    One day we decided to explore Emmet County, at the northwestern tip of Michigan’s lower peninsula. Prior to that, my only exposure to this place happened along a brief segment of I-75 barely clipping the county line before crossing the Straights of Mackinac. My entire elapsed time in Emmet lasted mere seconds. However I’d completely…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 3 (Sault Ste. Marie)

    Now safely ensconced in St. Ignace on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, we could venture out on day-trips from our home base. One such journey brought us even farther up the U.P. to Sault Ste. Marie. This was my first visit to the town but not the first time it appeared in Twelve Mile Circle. I devoted…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 2 (Counting Fingers)

    The purpose of the trip wasn’t county counting, it was visiting our older kid who worked on Mackinac Island for the summer. Even so, I still had a bunch of uncounted counties in that area so I planned to use that convenient occurrence to my advantage. That’s how a day that normally should involve a…

  • Mackinac’s Orbit, Part 1 (Up North)

    I had good reason to travel up to Mackinac Island in Michigan, a place sandwiched between its Upper and Lower Peninsulas. My older child worked at an internship there this summer, a requirement for a University degree. You know, the kid who loves zoos, designed a town, and noticed all those modes of transportation? Yes,…

  • Thumb Drive, Day 2

    On the first day I stuck to my original plan. However, I needed to pivot to something different on the second day due to a storm hundreds of miles away. As an alternate, I could finish Michigan’s Thumb with only three more counties remaining: Sanilac, Huron and Tuscola. True, it would involve backtracking along some…

  • Thumb Drive, Day 1

    My older son had to get back to Michigan State University for the start of the new semester and it was my turn to drive. It takes about nine hours to get there under ordinary circumstances so it involves an overnight stay in East Lansing. Then, I figured, I might as well stay a little…