Cousin Mitch's Wedding: Houghton, Michigan, August 9, 2025

Robert has never missed a first-cousin's wedding, and he wasn't about to start now, for littlest first-cousin Mitch, so we boarded a flight to Chicago at 7:30 Friday evening, then hopped on a connection to Green Bay, and spent the night at a Comfort Inn in Wisconsin. Saturday morning (not quite as bright and early as perhaps was ideal, but as early as we could make it with three dragged-out kids who didn't get to bed until 12:30) we drove the rental car three and a half hours almost exactly due north to Houghton.

Along the way we stopped for cheese curds and frozen custard and butter burgers at Culver's (we walked in one door and straight out the opposite door, and then used the drive-through given the quite unpleasant smell inside--the food seemed fine, though!); stopped for more cheese curds and a giant root beer float at A&W (where we admired the wildflowers and beautiful yellow bench in the garden of the house next door to the A&W--an otherwise unscenic location in Iron River); compared cheese curds across places (A&W won for their authenticity and resemblance to those at the Minnesota State Fair, but Culver's were strangely compelling); navigated the state lines (Wisconsin, Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan--it was wild!) and the time zone change (none of us saw it happen, sadly); and briefly met up with Dave and Candy at a pull-off on Route 141, a road shockingly devoid of....everything....for over an hour (no coffee shops, no fast food, no rest stops, no gas stations...one tiny little pull-off, and that's where we stood in the drizzle and hugged and took pictures and compared how our phones had Wisconsin time at the same moment as their phones were on Michigan time, and generally visited as much as we could, since Dave and Candy were rushing back home to Chicagoland due to an AC fail and a heatwave and worries about their pets, while we were still heading north to the wedding, hoping the skies would clear for the bride and groom).

Houghton itself, when we got there, was a lovely little town, with beautiful mountains and the remains of the copper mining industry, and I wished we'd had more time to explore the entire area.

Dan later said he wished we had time for a walleye charter in the lake, and...yes! Sign us up! Me too, Dan, me too. A mine tour would have also been cool, but as it was, we checked into the Hampton Suites, admired our beautiful spacious corner room, visited briefly with Grandma Judy in the lobby, and then changed for the wedding. Samantha demonstrated how to tie a tie with Robert's tie, while Marcus worked on her own. Also, look at her snazzy shoes! DSW for the win!

The skies did clear, which was wonderful--there were a couple isolated raindrops during the ceremony, but nothing approaching the level of rain or even drizzle, and it was a beautiful outdoor wedding, just a minute or two down the hill from the hotel.

The reception was in the first rink to ever host a professional hockey team, back in 1903--we walked over via the river path with Jerry, playing hopscotch and chatting on the way, and then we read all the historical markers and peered into the hockey museum on the ground floor of the rink (sadly, closed now) before going upstairs to the venue to enjoy the cocktail hour (plenty of midwestern cheese and sausage), the dinner, the speeches, and the dancing. And of course, the baby cousins--those were a big hit!

When people were tired, it was easy to peel off and head back to the room--first Samantha, then me and Helen, and finally, after awhile spent hanging out with Brian near the water, Marcus and Robert, carrying a pasty that was served near the end of the reception. I was very excited, having had pasties on my Michigan bucket list, and devoured it at 11:30 in our room.

Sunday morning, there were more little cousins at breakfast, and then goodbyes as everyone set out to head back to Minnesota, North Dakota, Illinois, or (in our case) Wisconsin (er, I mean Massachusetts. Eventually).

We stopped for more pasties (regular and also a breakfast one, with eggs and sausage and hash browns and cheese) in L'Anse at Silver River Bakery; we looked for places selling fresh blueberries near the side of the road; we inspected every stream and river we crossed for the best fishing spots; we stopped for cheese and sausage and toffee and more cheese at Kugel's; and we made it through the absolutely-nothing-there stretch of 141 to arrive in Green Bay around 2:00.

Kugel's, a cheese shop adjacent to a factory, was indeed a stop worthy of note. We ended up buying smoked quite the assortment: string cheese (fabulous. Oily and smokey and amazing, perfect eaten out of hand and also top-notch in quesadillas with corn tortillas the next day at home for lunch), mozzarella "whips" (really good. Samantha was sure I was buying a bag of fresh udon, which she noted was a little surprising for the middle of Wisconsin, but no--just some wonderful unique cheese), cheese curds both plain and garlic dill (the guy in the shop apologized that they had been made on Friday and therefore were perhaps not quite as squeaky as one might hope). We also sampled some blue cheese that the shop guy said was too strong to be able to sell (we all liked it, even Helen, to the amazement of the guy) and chatted with another patron about the blue cheese (he loves it) and numerology (he also loves it). Marcus kept saying, mystified, "The guy seemed normal. And then he just...wasn't." At any rate, the cheese was delicious.

At that point, we had just enough time to walk through the National Railroad Museum, admiring a Big Boy locomotive, the Dwight D. Eisenhower presidential train, and various sleepers and mail trains. We stopped for a meal at Cheesesteak Rebellion, where there were cheesesteaks, tater tots, fried pickles, waffle fries, and more Star Wars decor than even in our house (your choice of bathrooms was gendered Leia or Chewie).

The Green Bay airport is tiny so returning the car and going through security took about five minutes all together (good news!), but our flight back to Chicago was delayed (bad news!), so much so that we would certainly have missed our connection out to Boston. Except our flight from Chicago was also delayed (good news?), and in hindsight, we didn't even need to send Marcus sprinting over to the connecting gate while the rest of us took the bags and hustled along as fast as we could. We made it home around 1:00 in the morning, tired but happy. It was a too-brief visit with family, and in the midwest in general, but there will be other times in the future, for sure.

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Created: 8/12/25. Last Modified: 8/14/25.