This picture is from the my 2011 North from the Crossroads road trip. This was a long anticipated spontaneous trip. I started to say “long planned” but that would not quite be true. It was almost entirely on the Dixie Highway which I essentially already had plotted but I certainly did not have much of a plan in place when I left home and had not considered heading north from anywhere until about a day before I did it. What I did have in place was a plan for an entirely different trip. I had a trip to the east coast all laid out when it became apparent that hurricane Irene was targeting some of the same places I was and at just about the same time, too. So I scrapped the idea of driving east and headed north instead. Taking a trip was not spontaneous but taking this trip was.

As it worked out, I covered the Dixie Highway Eastern Mainline from its intersection with the National Road in Vandalia, Ohio, to its northern terminus in Sault Saint Marie, Michigan. I even slipped across the border into Canada for a few hours. Returning south, I followed the Dixie Highway Northern Connector between Mackinaw City, Michigan, and Indianapolis, Indiana. The picture is of the Mackinac Bridge heading into Michigan’s upper peninsula. I also visited Mackinac Island for the first time.

Trip Pic Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the trip journal it is from.