Leaving Chicago, we drove south and east around the bottom of Lake Michigan, then north to Lansing, MI, to visit Dale’s brother, Tim. He lives in a nice suburban neighborhood of East Lansing and has recently retired from teaching at Michigan State University – MSU – which also happens to be my initials.

Here’s Tim’s house and our rental car for this trip, a Kia:

Tim’s daughter, J.J. is home having just finished college at the University of Hawaii. She’ll be leaving in June for Cambodia where she is going to be in a work/study program earning post-grad credits teaching English as a second language.

We had a nice dinner and met again for breakfast Friday morning. Here are Tim and J.J. again:

After breakfast, we drove north through the Lower Peninsula of Michigan to Mackinaw City and the Mackinac Bridge, the third longest suspension bridge in the USA.

It was a beautiful day for driving, but not for stopping. When I got out of the car to take a picture of the bridge, I was immediately engulfed in a swarm of mosquitos so thick that I had to run to the shoreline to take my pictures before dashing back into the car while swatting the bugs away.

Anyway, I did get a nice panorama shot of the Straits of Mackinac, spanned by the Mackinac Bridge. The Straits connect Lake Michigan to Lake Huron and the bridge connects the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the Lower Peninsula.

Crossing over to the U.P. (as they call the Upper Peninsula), we had expected to find somewhere to spend the afternoon and night, hoping to visit Mackinac Island, but the mosquitos convinced us to continue driving.

We ended up driving all the way across the U.P. to the Menominee River that separates Michigan from Wisconsin, stopping as soon as we entered WI to stay the night in Marinette. It was a long driving day, but we’re used to that.

Tomorrow, we’ll drive to Madison for Ben (and Michelle) Gern’s wedding!