Traveling Around - Michigan - Casino, Elk Herd, and Fall Color

We left home at mid morning and made a stop in Gaylord, MI. A city park in that small town in north central Michigan houses an elk herd that numbers close to 100. We saw a small part of the herd near the viewing area and enjoyed a break from the road.

We assume the bull elk (top photo) governed the group (bottom photo) as he would wander around it, sniffing here and there. Even though they had to be somewhat tame since they'd been in captivity for so long, he acted wary and not the least bit friendly.

As is visible in the bottom picture, their habitat is vary space and includes much open space with trees and grassland.

After stopping for a light lunch we got to the casino by early afternoon and as usual had no problem checking in. When we'd reserved our free room we were told the only space available was in the East Wing. Never having stayed there before but having investigated its location on a previous trip, that was fine with us. The desk clerk tried to be as accommodating as he could and we were soon ensconced in a non-smoking room on the first floor with easy access to the casino.

We settled in and I decided to explore the casino. Blithely leaving the room, I promptly got lost and had to be rescued by a Pepsi delivery man who directed me through a background maze to an unusual casino entrance.

As it happened I came out in an area that contained some Fast Four nickel machines and I got trapped there for about an hour or so. Had a good time.

It was touch and go but I finally managed to lose part of my $20 buyin and wandered off to another area of the casino. I found the game where I'd gotten a royal last time here and settled in. In a short while I got the hand pictured at the beginning of the article and decided it was a good time to quit while I was ahead.

We went downtown to a restaurant called The Lockview Restaurant that was across the street from the locks for food. I'd found it on the internet expecting to have some view of the locks but was disappointed. There wasn't any.

I'd seen on the internet that they served a lot of whitefish meals so we both had whitefish chowder and split an order of whitefish nuggets. It more than filled us up.

One interesting note from the downtown excursion was that even though it was only October 10th, the entire area was closing for the winter on October 12th. Guess winter comes early in the upper peninsula.

Thursday night television was too attractive to pass up so we tucked in with a bottle of champagne I'd brought along and watched our favorite shows until it was time for shutty eye.

Friday AM we were up and ate at the snack bar which was close by. Then wandered down to the casino where I played some more on the quarter machine I have such good luck on. No good luck that morning but no bad luck either. Played for about an hour and broke even.

We packed it up and got on our way. Made a shopping stop at a thrift store where I found a couple books - one of them on playing on line poker by Harrington. Quite a find for 25 cents.

Headed south hoping for lots of color in the trees. As seems to be the case, we didn't see a lot of it. I'm beginning to think that accolades about the color in northern Michigan in the autumn is a publicity gimmick that no one wants to disagree with. This is our third trip north and we've never seen much. Of course, most people that are loyal will tell us that we're either too early or too late in the season.

Here's the best we saw.

Stopped at Applebee's in Gaylord for a really spectacular lunch. It started to rain while we were enjoying it and we drove on home in the wet. Sun broke through as we were entering our driveway.

Happy climax to our trip.