When my three friends from college and I decided to meet up for a dudes weekend this summer, I knew we had to pick an interesting location for our hijinks. They were coming from Washington, D.C., and I, of course, was starting in Milwaukee. When we settled on Windsor, Canada and Detroit, I threw down the gauntlet: could I make it Canada and back on one tank of gas?

Don't call me crazy just yet. In my possession was a month-old Toyota Prius, a hybrid hatchback that had so far averaged about 50 miles per gallon. And unlike previous trips east, this time I could try out the ferry from Milwaukee to Muskegon, aboard the two-year-old Lake Express.

Friday, 5:30 a.m., Bay View

I rolled into the Lake Express terminal before sunrise and joined the long line of already waiting cars. The check-in process was swift, and I stepped aboard the boat several minutes before the 6 a.m. departure. The first thing I noticed right away is that the Lake Express ferry is nothing like its Manitowoc counterpart, the SS Badger. That experience is fun, but the boat isn't particularly fast, and it looks and feels old. The Lake Express, by comparison, is new, sleek and well-appointed. The two main cabins sport big screen TVs, and a full-service café even serves pretty good food. The seats aren't cramped, and there's plenty of room on the deck to sprawl out if you (like me) get a little claustrophobic below sea level. There are two cabins, regular and premier class. Premier class, where I sat, is a bit roomier and comes with free non-alcoholic beverage service.

The ride itself began incredibly smoothly. Before the 2005 sailing season, the Lake Express added additional stability controls -- and you can tell. As the ship glides across the lake, the experience feels more like a plane than a boat. Only when we experienced heavy winds as a storm started brewing, did the ride get choppy. Still, the ship was significantly quieter, and the ride was much more gentle than the Badger. It was faster, too -- not even counting the drive up to Manitowoc. The Lake Express reached the other side in just two and a half hours.

Friday, 9:30 a.m. (Eastern Daylight Time), Muskegon, Mich.

After an orderly unloading of the cars, I headed for what would hopefully be the interstate to Detroit. I hadn't done much research on Muskegon, proper, but other than being on the opposite side of Lake Michigan, this sleepy little town is nothing like Milwaukee. Don't even consider taking the ferry without a car, which does add $118 (roundtrip) to the $85 per person fare. In short, it's not cheap, but some might argue that skipping the Chicago traffic -- and shaving about 200 miles of driving off the trip -- is worth it.

Unfortunately, I could find little signage pointing me out of this small town, but I gambled correctly and found I-96 East and began the next leg of the trip. The Detroit airport is about 190 miles east of Muskegon, but the speed limit on Michigan's freeways is 70, so the trip goes quickly. From I-96, I headed south on US 131 and finally east on I-94. The terrain is straight and flat, and I beat my friends to the airport by some time. After a little lunch, we headed through Detroit, south (yes, south) to Canada.

Friday, 5 p.m. U.S.-Canadian Border

Here's a valuable lesson: read the signs very carefully when you enter Canada. There are two ways into Windsor: through the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and over the Ambassador Bridge. We opted for the tunnel, and upon crossing the border picked a customs booth that was apparently for Nexus card holders only, which is the Canadian version of the I-Pass. In this post-9/11 world, that's a recipe for getting yourself stopped. The friendly, yet serious, border guards pulled us over, inspected our documents, gave the Prius a good once over and scolded us. But that was that, and they let us into their country.

We picked the Radisson Riverfront (333 Riverside Dr. West) as our hotel, which overlooks the blue waters of the Detroit River and the city itself (and from a distance, it's a pretty skyline. Up close, it's a different story, but more on that later).

For dinner, we ate an Irish pub called Patrick O'Ryan's (25 Pitt St. East) that served good food and a fine selection of beers from the Emerald Isle and beyond. After some catching up, we perused Windsor's main drag, Ouellette Street. The drinking age in Canada is 19, and because of its proximity to Detroit, Windsor has become Ontario's version of Bourbon Street. The bars cater to American college kids, so we felt a little old (we graduated nine years ago). But it was a long day, so we didn't feel bad snacking on a little late-night falafel and hitting the hay before Canadian bar time.

Saturday, 10:30 a.m., Windsor, Ontario, Canada

Nothing like a hearty breakfast to renew our youthful vim and vigor. First, we checked out the Hiram Walker factory (2072 Riverside Dr. East), makers of Canadian Club whiskey. The stately old building had lots of potential for a great tour - until we learned that the tour didn't include the factory, just the administrative offices. In fact, it didn't even include whiskey (except for a half-shot in a commemorative glass at the end), so we hit the road to the Windsor Casino (377 Riverside Dr. East).

The casino is not unlike Potawatomi, just bigger and not Native American-themed. Some American gamblers prefer the Windsor Casino over Detroit's three relatively new casinos because of a favorable exchange rate. But losing is the same in any currency, and we four novice cardsharks left after about an hour with our pockets lightened by a few loonies (Canadian dollar coins; we weren't smuggling waterfowl in our pants).

After weighing our options, we concluded that Windsor, bless its heart, is a pretty sleepy town by day, so we crossed back into Michigan in a much less eventful trip through the tunnel. And in Michigan, there's something every red-blooded American has to try at least once: shootin'.