Welcome to Rover Haven's first guest post! This blog entry is being written in part to satisfy an academic requirement for a blog post on three things important to the author. So our guest blogger has chosen watches, road trips, and skiing. One funny thing that happens when you let a digital native guest-post on your blog is that he shows you how to use all the host site's features that you never bothered to learn. Read on to see how the youngest and newest member of the Hamilton 9721 Club fared when an epic blizzard halted him in his tracks...

My name is Parker, I am a big fan of Rover Haven, and I am studying communications. I am borrowing Rover Haven's blog space to write an article on three things important to me. For President's Day weekend I am taking a trusty Bimmer 228 ix up to Marquette, Michigan, to go skiing and spend time in our State's beautiful Upper Peninsula. Our original plan was to stay at the historic Landmark Inn in downtown Marquette. We were scheduled to arrive Friday night and depart Monday morning.

Visit the landmark inn

Three essentials of a good road trip: a good watch, a good car, and a highway companion (And some nice tunes!)

Nice Tunes

The Watch: Just before leaving on my trip, my father presented me with a nice Hamilton 9721, which hasn't been produced since the 1990's. It uses an ETA 2824 automatic movement, and it has a stainless steel 36 mm case. Perfect for any wrist. L.L. Bean sold this watch for one season only in the spring of 1991. Considering that the Spring 2016 catalog has just come out, that would make this watch exactly 25 years old!

Friday, The Trip Up: We left home at about 9:15 AM for the 425 mile trip that would take us up through the lower peninsula of Michigan, across the Mackinac Bridge, and into the Upper Peninsula. The Mackinac Bridge opened in November 1957 and is an engineering marvel. It is the largest suspension bridge in the western Hemisphere. It costs $4 to cross it, but the views of Lakes Huron and Michigan alone are worth it.

Suddenly, disaster! Highway M-28 is closed due to blizzard conditions in a city on Lake Superior called Munising. After checking all six motels in Munising, I'm confident in saying that we got the last room in the area, and only 45 miles away from our final destination! We made the best of the situation with a swim and watching Top Gear.

Saturday and Sunday: Finally skiing! The highway was still closed on Saturday, but we went around it and came up to Marquette from a different direction. After completing the car trip and checking into our hotel, we got to Marquette Mountain around 11:30 AM on Saturday. After the panic that is putting on ski boots we were ready to go. It was really cold for skiing (6°F) but we got some fabulous views of Lake Superior. Hit some kickers, sent some cliffs, had a great time.

Monday, The Car and the Trip Home: On Monday morning, we reversed direction and came home. The car's trip computer showed total distance traveled of 986 miles and average fuel economy of 29.6 miles per gallon. Our skis and what little luggage we had fit easily in the back of the car, and with snow tires and all-wheel-drive it was a great car for this trip.

Thanks for reading my blog post! Here are some extra images from our trip: