A weekend that ended in the Devils Elbow

This last weekend my best friend and I took a trip up north to Michigans Upper Peninsula, she wanted to see Pictured rocks and Tahquamenon falls, and I wanted to drive through the tunnel of trees, a long winding road that races the coast of Lake Michigan. So we set off on Friday night once I got out of work, with a bag of weed and a few hits of acid in hand, we were on our way north.

On Saturday we made it to Munising, which was our first stop in the U.P to see Pictured Rocks. Upon arriving to Pictured Rocks we were a little confused, we could see the rocks but as cool as they were, they also weren't. We spent some time walking up and down the pathways, seeing the rocks from different views and low and behold after a while of being there we both had to pee. Luckily we saw what looked like restrooms over by one of the entrances to the beach. Taylor went in ahead of me and instantly came back out of the little room laughing. I didn't know why until I entered the restroom right next to the one she had just come back out of. The toilet was basically a bucket, over top of a hole on a concrete slab with a sign hanging above it that said "please keep lid closed". I walked back outside too and starting laughing with Taylor. We don't have things like that in the L.P apparently. I may never forget the smell. But I have high hopes that I will.

We decided that we wanted to "go out" once we finished up at Pictured Rocks. We splashed some cold water on our faces and went to find a place to grab some drinks, and more importantly a place to sleep. We rolled up on a little restaurant that was called Johnny's bar or something like that, and the only people that were there once we walked in were us, and the two ladies that ran the joint. We got burgers and drinks and watched Nascar and Boxing for a couple of hours. By the time we left we were still the only two people there.

We found a campground right down the road from Johnny's and signed ourselves in for the night. Taylor made a bed for us in the back of the SUV she was driving, we continued to smoke weed until we couldn't anymore and finally went to bed.

We woke up the next morning and took ourselves a nice long campground shower before figuring out how to navigate up to
Tahquamenon Falls. It was only about an hour and a half drive before we found ourselves at Tahquamenon state park! We entered the trail and found the falls right away. I think both of us were blown away by how beautiful the falls were. They blew pictured rocks out of the water! "haha :)"
Although we didn't make it to the lower falls, we did make it to the Taquamenon Falls Brewery, which again, both of us were super impressed with. The food was awesome, and the beer was cold. We walked around the giftshop after we ate and bought some shit neither of us needed and we said our goodbyes to the falls. It was now time to throw ourselves down the tunnel of trees, but not without eating a hit of acid first.

By the time we got to the starting point for the tunnel of trees both of us had to pee and we wanted coffee, but the little town we had stopped in had three things. A biker bar, a closed down bakery, and a little restaurant that sat at the farthest edge of the town, it was called "The Old World Cafe". We decided if they didn't have coffee to go we would just get wine instead. When we walked in we were surprised to the point of being speechless. We looked down at the floor and the big marble tiles led us to the "please wait to be seated" podium. An older woman greeted us and then seated us at a booth. We looked around us and saw multiple paintings, and not normal paintings, paintings you'd find covering the walls of The Louvre, the chairs were leather at the tables around us, this was one of the fanciest restaurants I've ever been to, and here we are dressed like hikers, smellin like weed and campground, trippin on acid . Luckily they had coffee and with that came food menus. We weren't hungry but we decided to get something anyhow. My eyes landed on $14.00 french toast, and Taylor got a real small piece of expensive tiramisu. Best french toast i'd ever eaten. Taylor hadn't ever had tiramisu before but she agreed that it too was the greatest thing she'd eaten in a while. We paid our bill and headed to the tunnel of trees.

Alright so I lost my shit on the tunnel of trees. I don't know how many times I stopped the car to stare at a beautiful house or to get out of the car to take a picture of lake Michigan but I am obsessed with that entire road. That was my favorite part of our northern adventure. I don't know if it was the big beautiful trees, the fact that all you could see in the horizon was Lake Michigan, or the fact that we were trippin but if I lived anywhere near that part of Michigan, I'd drive the tunnel every day.

After the tunnel we had to head back south to our home town of Marshall, but not before getting a beer at Petoskey Brewing Company. We smoked the rest of the weed we had left in the 7 hours it took us to drive back and we parted ways to get ready for work Monday morning.

So what I learned this weekend is all you really need is some blankets, your best friend, some weed, and some gas money, then suddenly life doesn't seem so bleak after all.

Here's when I was losing my goddamn mind about the view from the tunnel of trees.