Cruising the UP with da Cruisers!

[joe.schigel]

Hey All,

I wanted to share the trip that my family and I just finished with our Land Cruisers through Michigan and the UP! It was mostly a road trip with a splash of dirt thrown in. But this was the first major family road trip in a long time and with our 2 Cruisers!

I'll start with the trucks.

Mine - 1995 FZJ80 with a bunch of fun bits
MY Father's - 2024 LC250 First Edition


Day 0 we met at my house in the SE Michigan area and loaded up. We had 7 adults and a 14mo old so this would be a fun trip! I had some handheld radios from previous trips that we used for car-car communications. My family has never been to Northern MI so my wife and I got to play tour guide! We would be going to Traverse City, Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes, Whitefish Point, Crisp Point, and Munising / Pictured Rocks. It's a long set of drives but we wanted to show a little bit of everything to my family. And test out how well the 80 works with a young family.

I'll post a series of pics from each day.

 

[joe.schigel]

Day 1: SE MI to Traverse City

On Day 1 we made the long drive up to Traverse City MI. Not too much of note but we did get to stop at the world famous "Cops & Donuts"!


The cruisers were doing great wit hone of them being significantly thirstier than the other. The 80 will pass anything but a gas station! haha

We continued on to Traverse City and eventually made it to the Mission Point Lighthouse. This is one of my favorites and it was a good spot to stretch our legs. My daughter got to play in sand on the great lakes for the first time and that was a lot of fun! Until she tried to eat a fistful! haha We just did normal touristy things to finish out the day. We visited a winery and then made a hasty retreat to the rental cabin so our daughter could sleep.

 

[joe.schigel]

Day 2: Sleeping Bear Dunes

On Day 2 we got to take the family to the Dunes and show them around Glen Arbor. We did a short hike at Pyramid point followed by the family trying the smaller, less consequential dune climb. (If you try to go down and up the big dune but don't make it, expect a fine upwards of $3000 to get rescued)





From there we got lunch in Glen Arbor at the Cherry Republic HQ. It was pretty good and my dad had one of the funniest moments of the trip when he dropped his fresh ice cream not once, but twice! Everyone laughed and he was a good sport about it.

RIP ice cream