We spent the next day, slowly heading along the range from mine to mine. Some places you could stop and take a peek, but most had closed long ago. It was kind of a lonely jaunt through hills and ghost towns and not much to show for it. We did find a neat museum with a few relics but no real Sheeple Bait Store. We were once again, traveling the back country, seeing the sights that most never see.
Eventually, we wandered into Christmas, stopped and got some gas and took a look see at the bear. It seems every time we went through the U.P., we had to make a stop there. But the day was getting long and we were still pretty far from home, so we packed up and headed out. We got into St. Ignace and settled for the night, figuring tomorrow we would make a stop at the farm, see the grandparents the next day. We always brought back some kind of treasure for 'em, share the journey, and it was always nice to stop and relax.
The next day we headed south down the Great Road, crossing the Mighty Mac. As usual, I sat in the back, bug eyed and pale, being quiet as a church mouse, doin' the timmy thing. At the crest, all of two hundred plus feet above the water, we heard a pop and then a scraping sound. My dad looked back in all the mirrors and announced that we blew a tire on the camper, we would have to pull over and change it.
I do believe he chuckled at that point. Surely he was joking, if not about the flat tire then at the very least about stopping on the bridge? My dad was a great one for making jokes about flat tires and dodging jellyfish on beaches, heck even swimming the previous suburban across flooded roads. Surely, he was joking. My mom said, yeah right, keep driving, but my dad insisted that the tire was flat and we would have to stop. Mom saved the day by saying in no uncertain terms that we could pull off once we were across in Mackinac and not a minute before hand.
So we slowed and eventually got off the blasted bridge into Mackinac and yep, sure enough, a tire had blown on the camper. My brother and dad went to work changing the tire and I plopped the head phones back on and paced outside the car, thinking, no swearing I would never cross that bridge again, I would ferry first, not that you can ferry, but whatever. Crisis averted and I only whimpered maybe once, and a small one at that. We headed for the farm.
We spent the evening with the grand parents, telling them of our adventures, got in a rousing game of spitzer and of course had to watch Hee Haw and the Waltons. Typical Saturday night at the farm and the end of our journey. The next day we headed home with a nugget of fool's gold, a few cans of pics and whole lot of non-lame vacation behind us.
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