Newberry, MI

Who knew that Newberry was the Moose Capital of Michigan.  Not us, but pictures and statues of moose are all over this town!

We left Ashland after doing laundry at our own private laundromat and car wash (the car wash portion obviously hadn't been used in years as it was mostly storage and overgrown with weeds).  However, the laundromat side was very clean and had good machines.  They had had a local fiber optic break the day before which affected the motel's tv, phone, and internet.  While the hotel had been restored, the server for the laundromat had not, so we had to revert to quarters rather than using a credit card (how archaic, :-).

Our trip East continued on US 2 along Lake Superior with vast expanses of water on our left.  A really straight road which went through several small towns, mostly geared to the summer tourist crowd.  The desk clerk at the hotel said they made 70% of their revenue in three months of summer.  Otherwise, it was ice fishermen and hunkering down for the winter.  

Construction crews obviously made the most of summer also.  We ran into several stretches of road which were limited to one lane, so we sat in traffic waiting for the guy/gal to turn the sign from Stop to Slow.  It affected our travel time to the extent that we had to cancel our reservation in Sault Ste Marie because we would have had to travel too long.  Did you ever try to cancel a non-cancellable reservation in an area where cell service is spotty?  Not fun!  Eventually we had to pull off to the side of the road where we had service and work through the process.  Luckily, the service representative was helpful and sympathetic, so the reservation was eventually cancelled and we continued on our way

We got into Newberry about 7 p.m. and got the last room at the Quality Inn, so good fortune continued on our side.  Went to Timber Charlies for dinner, but the line was out the door (not surprising, since it was the only restaurant in town).  We elected not to wait and patronized the Subway in a nearby convenience/gas store.  Got there just in time as they were about to close.  Although we had our problems along the way, it was a beautiful drive and better than cruising along an Interstate.  Lots of trees (which we're not used to) and little lakes on the right side of the road with Lake Superior on the left.

Today we're heading to Sault Ste Marie where we enter Canada and then continue East on the Queen's highway, probably to Sudbury.  Rain forecast for most of the day, so Zelda will get a good bath.

p.s.  In a previous Ashland log, I mentioned that Dave was going to send us the picture with our poster from Leech Lake.  He did yesterday, but I'm having difficulty posting it to yesterday's post.  Only a portion of it comes through, so I'll have to work on that.  It's either the blog website or me, I'm betting on me.