1. We started the day with a gorgeous drive across the Mackinac Bridge and into the Upper Peninsula. We stopped in at Straits State Park, drove around a bit, and took a short hike. Everywhere on the Upper Peninsula the leaves are beginning to change colors, the landscape sometimes dotted, sometimes awash in orange, vermillion, and yellow. We could enjoy these views of the leaves because we drove on state roads, -- almost exclusively two lane roads. At several points we had spectacular views of Lake Superior and its bays, sometimes rewarded with the autumn leaves reflected on the water's surface.
2. As we neared our destination of Marquette, MI, we made an awesome stop at ByGeorge Brewing in Munising, MI. The guy pouring beer was low-keyed and very friendly and I had a great conversation with him and his one customer at the bar. Out on the patio, Debbie and I had more fun conversation with three Yoopers. We didn't talk about anything special, but had fun swapping stories about dogs and our travels. One of the guys has family in Livington, MT and urged us to tell them hi if we ran into them.
Debbie loved her pour of Sexy Dad Bod X-tra double IPA, a huge hop bomb weighing in at 9.1% ABV and full of all kinds of flavor. I took one sip of it so I wouldn't spill the beer as I walked it outside and it hit my tongue about five different ways. It was remarkable. I couldn't drink a beer with that much alcohol content and opted for ByGeorge's Somewhere Between 'Eben and Epic' Classic Pilsner. It was a Czech pilsner and caught me off guard with its, to me, unusual maltiness. I gladly adjusted to its uniqueness and enjoyed this fascinating beer more and more the deeper I dove into my glass.
Oh! Debbie and I loved ByGeorge's glassware and bought a couple of barrel shaped pint glasses to take home!
3. Once in Marquette, we figured out that our best bet for a dog friendly brewery was Ore Dock down on Spring St. We ordered a flight and the only beer of our flight I really enjoyed was Ore Dock's porter. Debbie enjoyed the IPAs and other samples more than I did and she decided to have a couple of half pint pours of their rye IPA called Gnomenclature. I was very happy with the two half pints of porter I ordered. The outdoor seating at Ore Dock was in front of the tasting room, on the sidewalk, close to the street. It was fun watching citizens of Marquette on their bicycles and skateboards. Others were jogging and plenty of people were on foot, strolling into Ore Dock for a beer or appearing to hustle home after a day of work. Many of the beer drinkers outside were old codgers like ourselves -- we see this often as we stop in at breweries across the nation, especially because we are enjoying matinee beers.
We finished our afternoon and evening in Marquette by driving over to Thai House. I went in and ordered us a Thai House curry with tofu and an order of Pad See Ew with chicken, both medium spicy. The restaurant was overwhelmed with orders. Our food took about 45 minutes to come out. No big deal. We also took it I stride that the restaurant was out of wide noodles and that our Pad See Ew had to be made with something like Pad Thai noodles. (There was also a sign on the door announcing the restaurant had to close early. I'll bet they were running out of product. It seemed to be a very popular place today.) We hustled our food back to our room and it was fun to eat Thai food again. I hadn't eaten any since leaving Kellogg.
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