Personal Narrative: Where Up North

There isn’t anything more breathtaking than going Up North. If you’re not from Michigan you might be wondering, “Where up north?” In Michigan we use “up north” as a term for the upper half of the mitten, I’d say from the top of the thumb up. The UP (Upper Peninsula) can be considered Up North but normally it's just the UP. Trust me when I say, you know when you’re Up North. The traffic gets thinner, the trees get thicker, and the towns are terribly small. If you blink, you miss them. As a Michigander I have been Up North thousands of times, the very first time was in 2000 on my parent’s honeymoon. I don’t remember this at all considering I was 2. Let me give you a glimpse of what I do remember. One of my earliest visits Up North …show more content…
The summer before middle school, a weird transitional time for most. This was when I went backpacking for the first time. My dad and I went to Manistee National Forest, which you can locate on your hand map a few centimeters lower than Lake Ann and covers a little more than a thumbs worth of space. I step out of my dad’s truck and everything felt right. The smell of damp earth and decaying leaves hits my nose, travels to my mouth, and creates a smile. I fill my lungs with that organic northern air until they feel like they’re going to burst. My dad says, “When we’re out there you can go a little ahead of me but you have to stay within eyesight and earshot. Remember, there aren’t only people out here but animals, like bears, out here too.” The air in my lungs is released so quick I choke a little. Bears? I might run into a bear? This frightens me for a few minutes but when I saw the forest, anything I was afraid of disappeared. I was suffocated by green. The richly colored ferns were up to my waist, and the leaves on the trees were dripping with morning light. I walked ahead of my dad my backpack feeling like nothing, I hear giggling. The further I walked the louder it got until I broke through the trees. There it was! A beautiful river, laughing joyously as the water danced over the rocks. My dad and I sat and admired the view for some time before we moved on. We hiked in human silence because the forest was singing its own song for us. The …show more content…
So get out your hand mad and touch the very top of your middle finger, just above that in Lake Huron is Mackinac Island. Before this moment I had never went over to the island. I have been in Mackinaw City on the mainland, and I had even drove over the Mackinac bridge to the UP. (Mackinac and Mackinaw are both pronounce as the latter) My business class got on a charter bus on a uncharacteristically cold and damp May day. Chalk it all up to Michigan’s dysfunctional weather. The gentle movement of the bus and the sweet sounds of Hyukoh in my ears put me asleep as soon as we pulled out of the school parking lot. I woke up with a jolt when someone shouted, “I can’t wait to ride a tandem bike.” I looked out the window and we were at the ferry docks. Everything look quite dismal. Fog hung around the ferries so thickly all I could imagine was that Scooby-Doo Episode where he cut the fog into a donut. Because of this dreary weather we sat on the inside of the ferry and we couldn’t see anything outside the windows, just white sheets of water droplets. When we got to the island we had to hear this lady talk about the ins and outs of business on Mackinac. All I could pay attention to was how the fog creeped away, like a coward, as the sun rose higher in the sky. “So now I encourage you to wander and experience these businesses for yourselves!” Yes, freedom! We walked around and visited all the historical spots, haunted by nothing except