M to N: Greenbush, MI to Sparrow Rapids Campground, MI

8.4.10 - 8.6.10

We woke up 9am, and woke our friend up soon after that to go eat breakfast at the Red Rooster Cafe in Greenbush. Delicious and greasy and perfect fuel to get us going. We drove along scenic US-23 along Lake Huron and over the Mackinaw Bridge into the Upper Peninsula. After a brief stretch of driving along US 2, we cut up to M28 on 77 and stopped at Lake Superior. We strolled along the sandy white beaches and stared at the great expanse of water - no wonder our friend calls the lakes "the ocean". We had just enough time for a quick pit stop in Marquette to do a much needed load of laundry and to pick up fantastically good and cheap Thai food at the Rice Paddy. We drove the rest of the way to the campground on M28 and cheered our good luck of having a 9:30pm sunset as we were very far north and almost to the very western edge of the Eastern Time Zone. We easily found Sparrow Rapids Campground, a free 6-spot Ottawa National Forest campground that only had one other occupant. We ate the rest of our Thai food and got to bed fairly early. The next morning we woke up, Emily let Buzz out the van for her morning walk and we started to make coffee and pack up, all as normal. After about a half an hour, we noticed Buzz hadn't returned to the van, which was strange. We looked for her for hours, walking everywhere we could think to look and trying to hear for the jingle of her collar over the combined roar of the wind in the trees and the rapids nearby. It started to become clear by the late afternoon that she was lost, and we couldn't think of anything to do but wait for her to come back. We made arrangement for Emily to fly from Seattle to SFO the next week to make her flight to Cyprus, as delaying our departure for a day would make it impossible to drive there. We waited another full day, spending most of our time calling to every vet and animal shelter in the area to report her disappearance. Emily made a "lost cat" sign to put on the campground board. We were very sad.

Links: Red Rooster Cafe, Rice Paddy, Sparrow Rapids

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