Reserve

Just outside Brimley in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula along Lake Superior on Whitefish Bay, our dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Reserve fuel warning. Find a gas station now. You idiot.”

All true, except for that last part. My words for me.

We were below a quarter tank of fuel, which triggers something in the engine system and causes the reserve warning light to appear.

Driving north to the UP, as it’s known by locals (“Yoopers”) and down staters (“Trolls”) like us, who live all points south of the Mackinac Bridge, we had spent the last six hours on the road.

Until now, it was a happily uneventful Monday.

We laughed about past RV trips, talked about nothing and everything, sang old songs that replayed on Sirius XM’s The Bridge.

We looked for anything resembling changing leaf colors, as Maddie slept in her car seat dreaming about squirrels and her next meal.

As usual, Rebecca began our journey but needed a break. It was my turn to drive. That’s when things got interesting.

Our plan was to land that afternoon near Munising at Pictured Rocks RV Park off M-28 in Christmas, of all places. Established in 1938, Christmas is that place the local weatherman points to on the map every December 25.

Ho, ho freakin’ ho.

We were now about 50 miles from Newberry, home of Oswald’s Bear Ranch, 240 acres of land that houses 40 rescued black bears who have likely just awakened from hibernation. Most of them are kept in contained habitats and are able to roam free.

An added attraction for those with no common sense is feeding adorable cubs Reese’s Pieces out of your hand, which to them also looks like a tasty snack, along with vulnerable ear lobes. (Ask Rebecca about this sometime.)

We didn’t stop at Oswald’s this trip. Mostly because … WE WERE ABOUT TO RUN OUT OF @#$%& GAS!

OK, enough with the cursing and ALL CAPS, which most of you know I abhor.

Sadly, we had driven too far to go back to Brimley. So, we kept going, hoping to find a gas station in the middle of nowhere.

“Look at the trees,” Rebecca said. “I think I see some colors.”

Yeah, look at them, honey, because we’re going to be here long enough to see those colors change from green to red to brown and back again.

I started saying the Holy Rosary in my head until I got tripped up. (Ten Hail Marys, one Our Father … shoot.) Then, I said the quiet part out loud.

“This is why I shouldn’t be driving. I’m the navigator, your co-pilot. You’re the driver. Driver, navigator, co-pilot. I keep track of the snacks, the maps and the gas.”

Rebecca glared at me and gave me the look that sears your skin like the sun after 17 years of togetherness.

“Now is the time to be positive, Jennifer.”

Yeah, I’m positive we should have stopped in Brimley.

Home of Bay Mills Resort & Casinos, Brimley is one of 10 gaming sites in the UP where you can spend hours and loads of money playing the slots and other table games. Twelve different Native American tribes own and operate the state’s 23 Indian casinos, including Bay Mills.

Seems we were engaged in a new kind of game of chance this trip: Place your bets, ladies. How far can you drive on diesel fumes without running out of juice?

According to the RV owner’s manual, our model has a total capacity of approximately 26.4 U.S. gallons. “Reserve fuel” comprises exactly 5.3 gallons of that. At roughly 16 mpg, we were definitely on fumes.

“That’s at least 30 miles,” my co-pilot calculated. “Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry? Like when we were in Alaska stranded on a glacier and you said those exact words followed by, “How’s my hair?”

From there, things turned quiet. You could almost hear the leaves changing.

Some 29.9 miles later, we made it to Newberry and filled up with $67.28 of liquid gold diesel fuel. We had averted disaster once again. I handed over the keys and took my rightful place riding shotgun.

The rest of our trip had a few hiccups, but we made the best of it.

Chilly temps and high winds prevented us from taking the Pictured Rocks Splash Falls cruise we had booked in advance. In fact, all cruises were canceled the entire week due to high waves.

We got shut out of this same cruise last fall. So, we bought a souvenir book.

With a couple of days left, we decided activities on dry land sounded much less dangerous:

• We visited a maritime museum in Munising and bought fresh whitefish dip at VanLandschoot & Sons market.
• We drove five miles to Au Train in search of a gas station/grocery store that sold what the Welcome Center woman called “the best pasty (rhymes with nasty) ever.” We found it, but as luck would have it, their oven was broken, and no parts were to be had for a week.
• We drove to Marquette, about a half-hour away, and visited the Lower Harbor Ore Dock at Mattson Park on the lakeshore. The dock is a relic of Marquette’s mining and maritime industry used for loading iron ore onto lake freighters. It closed in 1971 and still looks imposing.
• We (and by that, I mean Rebecca) built blazing campfires, cooked hot dogs and potatoes wrapped in foil. I roasted marshmallows to perfection.
• We played Scrabble on the picnic table at our campsite. I lost by one measly point. Or did I?

As often happens on these adventures, we also met lots of good people, including a nice young man who helped us remove the fresh water hose that someone screwed on too tightly. Or maybe someone was turning it the wrong way. Doesn’t matter.

We also met Kelly from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and her dog, Finn, an 88-pound, year-old white Lab who thought Maddie was whitefish pate.

Kelly and her husband, who works remotely, have been full-time RVers for the past four years. Before COVID-19. They’ve traveled all across the country in their 40-foot motorhome towing a Jeep 4×4. Michigan was a must-see, she said.

I toyed with the idea of asking who drives and how often they fill up that monster, but I thought better of it.

Anyway, one of the best things we found were the tastiest pasties ever at Miner’s Pasty & Ice Cream in Munising. They had just the right amount of sliced veggies and meat in the traditional Yooper (beef and pork) and even offered a Vegan pasty made without lard.

They were so delicious that we went back and got some frozen ones to take home. The clerk gave us directions on how to oven-bake them, adding, “It will smell like Thanksgiving in your house.”

We’ll see. Right now, we’re just trying to get through Christmas.