Yesterday we left St. Ignace Michigan on our way across the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. We specifically took the scenic route across the lower portion of the UP because the path was right on Lake Michigan. Problem was our scenic route was clouded by rain and fog and a detour that took us off the scenic route. Not what we wanted but it was the first day of rain that we had. However, it did not prevent us from finding the odd and unique on our trip.

One of the first things we saw was Yuppy and his cow. I am not 100 percent certain what a Yuppy is but I believe it is someone that lives full time on the Upper Peninsula. I am certain that anyone that does live in the UP fulltime would be insulted by this portrayal. If course we would be remiss without a Paul Bunyan.

One of our stops along the way was in Gladstone Michigan. Gladstone is a great town at the top of the Green Bay. While in Gladstone we took a tour of the Pet Casket factory. This is the largest pet casket manufacturer in the country. Tom, the plant manager gave us a tour of the factory. We saw the entire process. The caskets are made of a resin plastic and you can get a cheap casket that is just a plastic box, no hinge and tape used to close the casket to the Deluxe. Deluxe is a double sided hinged casket with blanket, pillow and material covering the entire inside of the casket. As you can see camouflage seems to be very popular. They buy as much local as possible. The boxes used for shipping are made in Gladstone and two local women make the pillows and blankets. They do not make custom size, the biggest casket is 52” and the smallest, for birds or hamsters, is 10”. There is a total of 7 employees and everyone of them are happy.

They have added cremation to their list of offerings as well as gravestones etc. I think the thing that struck Fred and I, they were so friendly and happy that we stopped by for a tour. They even gave us each a pen, a ruler and a magnet with instructions how to get a skunk smell off of your animal. Although we have no unusual and unique cemetery/graves we felt the casket factory was in keeping with graves.

From there we went to Escanaba Michigan to see yet another lighthouse. At this point we are 2500 miles into our trip!!