Leaving Hale and the woods of northern Michigan, I drove along the southern edge of Saginaw Bay and east to Bad Axe where yours truly was born and raised.
Bad Axe's unusual name dates to the time of its settlement. While surveying the first state road through the Huron County Wilderness in 1861, Rudolph Pabst and George Willis Pack made camp at the future site of the city and found a much-used and badly damaged axe. At Pack's suggestion, Pabst used the name "Bad Axe Camp" in the minutes of the survey and on a sign placed along the main trail. This axe can be found today in the public library!
After visiting family, old neighbors, and friends, I went to dinner along the eastern shoreline of Lake Huron, stopping along the way in Harbor Beach to walk along the break wall.
The day after I left, Sean Penn arrived in Bad Axe to film parts of his next movie. Of course.
