Hey everybody. This weekend, one of my favorite areas to drive through is finally getting some bonafide springtime weather. Hot temperatures, bright sunshine, and the leaves are beginning to sprout for the very first time after a long, long winter. As such, my better half and I decided it was about time to organize a good few day long road trip to take in the new green and celebrate the true end of winter in the Midwest. I thought it would be fun to turn this into our own little Grand Tour. I’ve seen some others do this on here, documenting their trip, and I thought I’d try my hand at doing the same thing. So without further adieu, here goes…

*This weekend on Reddit, I sweat a worrying amount in the humidity, my passenger complains about about our travel speed, and we both discover the exact chemical composition of a pasty.

Welcome to my very own Grand Tour adventure, taking on the legendary Great Northern Route across Michigan’s rugged, isolated Upper Peninsula.

The mission is simple: start at the northernmost crest of the Keweenaw Peninsula, drive down through the ancient iron ranges, conquer the brutal logging trails of the central U.P., to arrive and gawk at the mighty Mackinac Bridge at the Southeastern edge of the Peninsula, before looping back Northwest through Tahquamenon Falls to return to Houghton Michigan near our starting point to enjoy some local cuisine – A Pasty!

It is a route of staggering contrasts. To our left, an inland freshwater sea so massive it creates its own weather. To our right, millions of acres of dense, unyielding wilderness filled with apex predators and people who use chainsaws as a primary form of currency. It is beautiful, desolate, and completely brilliant.

To tackle this American wilderness, I’ve chosen a quintessential American icon: a 2001 Chevrolet Corvette Convertible finished in glorious Torch Red. A legendary 5.7-liter naturally aspirated LS1 V8, 350 brake horsepower, and 360 foot-pounds of torque. It’ll do 0-60 in a blistering 4.7 seconds. Top Speed: 175 miles per hour… although trying that on a U.P. backroad would likely result in an immediate meeting with a white-tailed deer.

The C5 is a masterpiece of late-90s/early 2000s engineering. It has hydroformed steel frame rails, a transaxle layout for perfect 50:50 weight distribution, and composite body panels. Yes, the interior looks and feel like it’s been recycled from old plastic milk jugs - because it probably was - but when you drop the canvas roof and bury your right foot, the roar of that pushrod V8 makes you forget all about interior refinement.

The first leg of our journey was nothing short of cinematic. We kick things off at Brockway Mountain Drive, a spectacular ridge line rising 1,320 feet above Lake Superior. Built entirely by hand during the Great Depression by out-of-work copper miners, it is arguably the greatest paved scenic road…in the world... Or, at the very least, the American Midwest.

With the V8 echoing off the rock faces, I threw the Corvette down the mountain and onto the historic US-41, a highway that actually started its life as a Civil War military wagon road authorized by Congress in 1863. It was designed to keep the military camp Fort Wilkins supplied just in case the dastardly British blockaded the Great Lakes. Of course, that would have meant getting there first…

We blasted south through the scenic “Copper Country”, passing small mining villages of yesteryear that feel more like ghost towns from the 19th-century copper rush than actual places that human beings live, and crossed the Portage Lake Lift Bridge into Houghton. From there, the road transitions away from copper and into the rugged Menominee Iron Range.

Driving a low-slung, rear-wheel-drive sports car with 350 horses on these heavily weathered roads is an exercise in pure concentration. The C5 handled the sweeping bends beautifully, but the stiff suspension meant every frost heave felt like hitting a curb. By the time we rumbled into Iron Mountain - home of the legendary 1890s Chapin Mine and its massive Cornish Pump - our spines were thoroughly compressed, our ears were ringing, and we had massive, idiotic grins on our faces.

Coming up in a future post…, we make our way East through dense logging forests, winding woodland highways, as we move ever closer to the mighty Mackinac Bridge. Provided I can figure out how to put his roof back up before the brewing thunderstorm finally rolls in...

I'll be back with a part two later this weekend with more thoughts on the car, the road, and the scenery.