October 7, 2012 - Fish Creek to St. Ignace

October 7, 2012 - Fish Creek to St. Ignace.  The distance is 316 miles along the west side of Green Bay and the north rim of Lake Michigan.  It it a nice drive with beautiful foilage and sparkling lake water.  Mapquest said it would take a little over six hours.  It took us about seven.  We stopped to reprovision at Walmart in Escanaba. 

Do you know what a pasty is?  It has nothing to do with exotic dancers.  It is a meat pie very popular along the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  It's history goes back to Cornnish miners who needed hand food they could take into the mines.  They would carry them down the mine shaft in their lunch pail.  When it was time to eat, the miner would remove the pasty, light a candle under the lid of his lunch pail, put the pasty on the lid and, bingo, he had a hot, portable lunch.

We learned about pasties in May, but didn't try them.  Today, we put off eating until we could get to a place that offered pasties.  So, at 4:30 today, we had our first pasty -  and our last.  Oh, to be fair, it was very similar to a pot pie.  But, it wasn't worth waiting until 4:30 to eat one. 

We'll ferry across the straits to Mackinac Island tomorrow.  We'll check the weather before deciding to take the bikes.  However, the day is supposed to be clear with temperatures in the mid-fifties.  If that turns out to be accurate, we'll take Ruffy and Tuffy.