I love travel, especially to places that have splendid natural beauty or rich history.  I’ve heard that the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan is beautiful in the past.  Finally decided to take a week off and visit there.  The trip was absolutely a delight filled with breath taking sceneries. 

We started driving north on Sunday.  The ride through OH is uneventful.  We stopped at Anne Arbor for lunch.  Wondered around down town Anne Arbor a while.  It is a small but chic town with boutiques and ethnic restaurants along the main street.  The college town influence shows up in the many book stores and theaters sprinkled among the shops.  Over all, it gives you a very delightful first impression.  Since we were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to find any desirable Chinese food in the rest of the trip, we chose a Chinese restaurant on the main street and had lunch there.  The owner was a Taiwanese and was very friendly.  We chatted with him while ordering.  He talked about how he started the restaurant and how good a cook he is, but he does not cook himself any more normally.  We asked him to cook for us and he accepted.  Well, let’s just say he was a good dish and we enjoyed it. :)  (BTW, you could tell that he did cook in the restaurant too often now since when he finished and came out, he directly went to the bar and poured himself a glass of chilled whiskey, while the water brought out the dishes. :)

We kept going north from Anne Arbor and arrived at Travis City around 5pm.  Travis City is a tourist town on the shore of Lake Michigan.  There are many hotels and rental condos along the lake shore.  The water in the lake was crystal clear and I was surprised by the superior quality of the beach there.  Actually, all the beaches we visited during the trip along Lake Michigan and Lake Superior are very nice, with fine sands, much better than many of the beaches in FL in my opinion.  Travis City is not in UP yet.  We stayed there for two days. 

First day, we visited the Sleeping Bear Dune National Lake Shore.  We drove through the scenic drive, which as its name indicates offered superb scenic views along the way.  Below are some pictures I took along the scenic drive.  This is the first time, I saw a covered bridge.  The irony red color gives it a rustic but romantic flair.  The most impressive view is still Lake Michigan.  Due to the different depth of the water close to the shore, it has different colors: from bright torque to jade green to dark green.  When the sun light bouncing on top of all these beautiful colors, it feels almost magical. 

The next must stop at Sleeping Bear Dune National Lake Shore is the Sleeping Bear Dune. :)  It is a huge dune built by sands blowing over by the strong winds from Lake Michigan.  When I say it is huge, it is huge.  You can tell that by the relative small size of people in the pictures below. :)  Without hesitation, I joined those brave people who set off to conquer the dune. :)   The climbing was not too bad except that I made a mistake to leave my sandals at the bottom of the dune.  It was easier to climb without shoes, but with bright sun shine directly heating up the dune, those sands were burning!  I mean BURNing!  Well, finally, I thought I got to the top of the dune and was panting.  I looked up and realized that there was another dune on top of this one!  Well, since I’m not somebody to quit mid way, I took a deep breath and kept climbing without stopping at all.  (All right, a confession: it is not that I didn’t want to stop and took a rest.  It was really because the sands were so hot, I couldn’t rest either of my feet long on it. :)  When I finally got the top of this dune, I was astonished by the view I saw.  Lake Michigan laying beneath the dune quietly, like a piece of giant jade.  It was so calm that I could not imagine the wild days during which it blew all the sands off shore to firm these giant dunes.  Amazed by the view, I did stood there still for a while until I got over the scenery shock and the burning heat beneath my feet brought back to reality.  I climbed back, admiring a few pretty girls in their bikinis playing volleyball.  Even more impressive are the children running around, laughing, playing with the sand, throwing themselves in the sands … All in all, it was a very happy picture with artistically shaped snow white clouds floating in the blue sky.  I know I must have a smile on my face all the time.  :)

We spent the second day in Travis City to visit a few unique towns in the surrounding area.  We drove alone the lake all the way.  The water along with some very impressive vacation lake houses made the drove very enjoyable.  The first couple towns we passed through were winery towns.  We stopped along the way and did some wine tasting.  The wines were all right but not superb.  The settings in most of the tasting venues were very pleasant though.  I was more impressed by some of those delicious cherry products.  I also bought a lot of cherries, which is one of my favorite fruits. J  It was my main snack for the next few days. :)  By the end of the trip, I was more convinced that I should plant a cherry tree. :)  The town that made the best impression on me is , which is a fishing town.  It is a very small town, the kind of town that you can drive through in ten minutes. :)  But it has a very cute main street and a pretty harbor.  Coffee shops, restaurants, boutique shops selling hand made crafts, candy shops and ice cream shops fill the area.  We arrived there around 2pm and there were not many people on the street.  A few tourists bouncing from one shop to the next.  More people were resting on rocking chairs on the patios outside coffee shops and the ice cream shops.  :)  We had lunch at a restaurant on the harbor and sat outside on the deck, which over looked the harbor.  I ordered clam chowder and local white fish.  The chowder was not bad.  The white fish was just OK.  I don’t think I had white fish before.  It seems to be a rather unfloverable fish though. :)   What made the lunch more enjoyable were the two teenager waitresses: one blond and one dark hair.  Both are absolute beauties.  I wonder whether girls there are all this pretty.  If so and if I’m a guy, I’m moving here!  Well, at least for the summer while the weather is constantly in the perfect high 70s and low 80s.  I’m not sure the natural beauty and the splendid smiles of local girls will be enough to warm me up during the brutal winter here.  Well, luckily I’m not a guy so I don’t need to figure this complicated dilemma out. :)  There were many boats in the harbor.  Some are for local fishing industry and some are charter boats for tourists.  I’ve never done deep sea fishing.  Before the trip, my colleagues were telling me about their pleasant experience of fishing on the great lakes.  I asked the captain of a fishing charter boat how much it would cost to charter a boat for deep lake fishing.  He told me $700 for a day trip.  He also showed me pictures of huge fishes that his clients caught and promised that I would definitely caught some big fishes even though I had no clue of how to fish.  He even explained how they would help me clean the fish, cut them into pieces, seal them into bags with no airs and proved ice box to take them with me at the end of the day. :)  I thanked his hospitality but told him it probably better for me to practice fishing a small pond first before I jump on his boat and spend $700 to embark the big fishes.  He laughed and told me to come back after my practice. :)  He was kind enough to even went on and talking about what fishing rob I should get first etc.  I wish I wrote it down now because I couldn’t remember a thing now. L  Sorry, Capitan. The rest of the day was spent here and there between beaches and small towns, between a bit swimming, laying on the sand, window shopping and watching sun set on the lake.  :)

(To be continued.)