Google Maps Told Me I Could Get There By Walking, I Drove Instead

How epic was the road trip I just got back from?  

So friggin' epic that I'm already planning my next one and learning from my mistakes.  The s/o and I took the long weekend I already had off for Lollapalooza (sold the tickets, line up was less than stellar) and headed out to the open road on a Pure Michigan road trip.  My initial plans were to hit Grand Rapids, Holland, Ludington, Traverse City, Mackinac Island, the U.P. and Frankenmuth.  And surprisingly, everything was done except the trip to Frankenmuth which is fine because that's really a day trip from my house.  Honestly, we could definitely have made it to Frankenmuth Sunday and spent the night to see the things we would have missed due to such a late arrival.

I think we definitely had the right idea.  The decision to take the trip was really rather last minute and some major improvement can be made between now and the next road trip.

We didn't have an actual map.  We picked up the local touristy maps at each hotel we stopped at but you really needed that to help plan out your trip initially.  I kind of broke the trip down to like two major cities everyday.  Since the trip was so spur of the moment, it didn't even occur to me that I needed to really plot out things to do once we got there and travel time between cities.  Thankfully, we went during a perfect time of the year; all the little quaint downtown areas had sidewalk sales going on and of course Traverse City had another record breaking year for their 9th Annual International Film Festival.

I also think I should contact some of the Big Three and see if they would let me test drive a car for the long weekend while I complete another road trip.  I could blog about the performance of the car, note how many times I need to fill up in this vehicle, how many total miles and the total drive time for the trip.  Come on Ford, wouldn't you love to see your C-Max in action this year?  Road tripping could totally be my new niche, if I wasn't so exhausted all the time.  

Taking this trip really had me forgetting I was even in the state of Michigan anymore.  Everywhere had it's own distinct beauty that I started to forget that I was still in the United States.  Have you seen Traverse City?  There isn't a colour in the crayon box that perfectly captures how blue it is up there - breathtaking.  

My goal in completing this trip was to be able to really call myself a  Michigander.  How can you if you've never gotten your fudge straight from Mackinac Island while listening to a horse empty its bladder?