Side trip: PANIC! on Lake Superior, or The Near-Wreck of the Old Honda Accord (600')

The legend lives on from highpointers on down
of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
The lake road, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of mid-August turn gloomy.

The car was the pride of a hiker named Stoat,
loaded down with her worldly possessions.
As mid-size sedans go, it was bigger than most
with driver and Pokemon well-seasoned.

They were headed southwest from that old raven's nest
Eagle Mountain, a hill they'd been climbing
As they turned from the forest to highway they saw
they'd got down with impeccable timing.

Highpoint #28: Mount Arvon, MI (1979')

Leaving behind the Land of Lincoln, I drove out from the canyon and over the border into the legendary dairy-land of Wisconsin. Seriously, the first town I hit after crossing the border had a monument to the Swiss settler who first made cheese there:

Good ol' Nicky Gerber.

Other than that, the roadside terrain was much the same farms-and-fields deal as yesterday. I sped over the Sugar River (are all the local rivers named after pie ingredients? If so, I totally approve) and through Madison, then stopped for lunch in Fond du Lac at the foot of Lake Winnebago (another large Midwestern lake just short of greatness). Seagulls circled above the parking lot, hinting at waters beyond the horizon.

From there it was a relatively (and, at times, absolutely) straight shot up I-41 to the Upper Peninsula. Never had I seen an interstate highway so hypnotically flat and level--certainly none with four lanes of traffic on each side. Without curves or hills or any meaningful change in scenery, there was nothing to hold my attention to the road--even at 80 mph it felt like I was barely moving. I had to sing to keep my mind from straying. Up I shot through Oshkosh, Appleton, Green Bay...