Michigan Vacation, Part 1: Getting There is a Trip Itself

What sane person would take their two kids (4 and 2) on a cross country plane trip only to then later cover over 600 more miles with them by car? Hopefully this one. You tell me when you finish reading our story.

As I have nearly ever other summer of my life, this is the time of year to escape to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (UP for short). It’s great to be able to get away from the hustle of suburban life, the Austin heat, the craziness of work, and to spend some quality time as a family. The only problem is that escaping to the UP takes quite a bit of effort from Austin.

This time around we debated on where to fly to quite a bit. The closest we could get on a direct flight was Chicago, but that’s still a long drive away. Flying closer is an option, but by the time you factor in the extra time involved with a second short flight and the added expense, it’s not really worth it. So call it escalation of commitment, but we thought, “We’re already going to have a long drive, why not make it just a little longer and fly to Pittsburgh instead.” That way we could see my parents and my sister and her family — almost like two trips for the price of one.

So off we went to the airport to catch Allegiant’s direct flight to Pittsburgh. Since we were going to be gone so long, we convinced Kaitlyn to haul us all to the airport instead of parking the car for two weeks — which worked out great. This was an added bonus because we flew out of Austin’s new South terminal which is completely separate from the main terminal. That being said, I must say that I was pretty impressed with it. The are only a few flights there, so security was short (though Pre Check was limited), but once you got through, you’re in a nice waiting area. There was even a food truck that had “free beer” for tips. My guess is it had something to do with TABC, but I wasn’t about to complain about a cold Lone Star. The pulled pork sandwich we shared was pretty good too.

The flight itself was uneventful, which is exactly what you want it to be when you’re traveling with young kids. Some people might complain about the super-discount airlines, but as long as you know what you’re getting yourself into, I think they work out great. It’s not glorious, and they do charge extra for everything, but if you pack reasonably, it can be a really cost effective way to travel.

The nice thing about flying into Pittsburgh was that we got to hang out with Melissa, Jason, and Annabel. It was horse trading days in Zelie so we went up there to look at the things going on after breakfast in one of my parents’ favorite places. The kids loved running around, and we even went on a horse drawn carriage ride.

Carlyn, Crosby, and Annabel just had a blast hanging out. I stopped and got some toys to take up to Michigan including a monster frisbee and a Velcro catch set. Crosby especially was loving playing with them… that is until he got hit by the ball which I must admit was surprisingly hard. We wrapped up the evening with burgers and beers back at the house, followed up with a game of Codenames with Melissa and Jason. Good times!

Sunday was Pirate day, so after a leisurely morning, we all piled down to go to the baseball game. This was my first time to PNC Park and I must admit it is really neatly situated downtown next to the river. The game itself was pretty good with a walk-off victory, but the real fun was all the popcorn refills, peanuts, and DD drinks my parents managed to figure out. Crosby also had a blast “waving the Jolly Roger.” We hung out again that evening, but didn’t stay up as late because we were going to have an early day the next day.

Our original plan was to take two days to drive up to the cabin, but when we looked on Google Maps, it showed “only” 9 hours, so we figured we’d just play it by ear. Our first planned stop (Chick-fil-a for free breakfast from the game) was only 10 minutes down the road, so we didn’t quite get a huge start on the drive. It did have a playscape though, so as it turned out, it was a good thing because not far down the road after that, both kids ended up falling asleep… total surprise, but also totally welcome.

This allowed us to get several hours under our belt with no fuss whatsoever. We made a few more stops along the way, like finding a park to eat lunch at, for example. But the best find along the way had to be stopping at the Azure Acres Blueberry farm. They had just started the picking season and the bushes were loaded with berries.

When we got there, I of course used the obligatory joke with Crosby that they had to weigh him first so that they’d know how much he ate. And being young and innocent, he starts walking around to look for the scale. Both kids did great picking though. We ended up with about 7 pounds of berries in about 30 minutes. I was amazed how many berries Crosby ended up with, and even Carlyn had a decent showing.

The last major stop was for dinner in Gaylord and there too we found a place for the kids to run around and expel some energy, even if it was just a small yard next to a closed down gas station. All in all, the kids did amazing, so we managed to do the whole trip in a day. And honestly, it didn’t even seem all that bad!

Next up, things we did in Michigan…