I left Escanaba on US2, which was a nice reminder of why I carefully avoided putting it on my route. The speed limit is 55mph, but it’s a race track with a lot of traffic (by UP standards). Being able to go 55 doesn’t stop traffic from piling up me, it just takes longer. Fortunately I only had to ride a fee miles on it before turning on to M69, which was my main road for the morning. More than 40 miles of two-lane, with only occasional cars.
When I got to the intersection of M69 and M95, I decided to detour south instead of turning north. I rode the 15 miles to Iron Mountain, for two reasons: 1) it’s one of the few real cities in the UP that I haven’t been to, and 2) by crossing the river into Wisconsin I was able to check off Aurora County, which otherwise was going to be a gap in my map. 🙂