My friend Nancy talks about 'going on a wander'. That is what we did this week. Monday we started to wander around Lake Michigan in my 23 year old Miata. The trunk is small. We each had a bag and the computer bag. I had never been to Mackinac Island, the UP of Michigan or the Traverse City area. Day 1 of our Circle Tour started with us taking off before sunrise from Madison and heading North. Since we have been to Door County and the Two River's area we drove 8 hours pretty much straight to get to St. Ignace.

I packed a nice lunch so we stopped in a little park alongside the lake and had a picnic. Leaves were pretty, in some places 60% fall color. Scenery was amazing.

We got in St. Ignace in the afternoon and did some wandering through a few shops. After a dinner of freshly caught whitefish we followed a sign to St. Anthony's Rock.

The geocache description says... St. Anthony's Rock is one of several "sea stacks" in the Straits Area. It is made of a type of stone formed 350 million years ago, when the roofs of deep caves collapsed into stacks of fragmented rock. Calcium carbonate in circulating groundwater cemented the stacks of limestone, dolomite and chert into much harder formations than surrounding unbroken limestone. Much later, glaciers covered this area, then began melting about 12,000 years ago. Wave action in the resulting lakes eroded the adjacent soft stone, leaving St. Anthony's Rock exposed by 2000 B.C.

It is interesting to see signs for food... here is it fudge, pasties and whitefish.

Less interesting is the fact that while I have the GPS, two iPhones, iPad, MacBook Air and my Canon G12 I forgot my hairbrush and hair dryer.

Even with all the electronics we do have 2 guidebooks. One is for the Circle Tour and has the route and bits of information about small towns and historical factoids. As we drive I read these to John. But I love my electronics. As were were getting close to St. Ignace I had a list of hotels with prices on my iPhone so we could drive by and read reviews of each. We were commenting on how much harder this trip would be with no electronics to guide the way.

Day 2 is a trip to Mackinac Island!