"For three weeks in August 1997, David E. Bonior, along with his wife Judy, left behind Bonior's life as Democratic whip in the U.S. House of Representatives to walk 300 miles from their home in Mount Clemens to the Straits of Mackinac. Challenging middle age, they grappled with a tiny tent, overcame blisters, slogged through rain, surmounted high bear anxiety, and generally thrived on exploring Michigan for themselves. From the outset they were on their own. There was no existing route to follow. They had to plot their own course, stringing together trails, back roads, and abandoned railway beds. Their daily trials were alternately daunting, mundane, funny, and frightening. This is their journey linking the Underground Railroad and waterways, the fur trade, the timber and lumber industry, agriculture and the automobile, and of course the people all along the way."--BOOK JACKET.