Copper Harbor south to Calumet

Thursday:
We left the campground and headed south on Hwy 26. The stretch of road between Copper Harbor and Eagle River is the most beautiful we’ve ever seen in MI. I noted the coordinates for two great boondocking sites on the map for our next trip. The picture of the rocky coast could have been taken in Maine. In another area there were sand dunes and a wonderful wide sandy beach. Just beautiful.

The coast of Maine?

In Eagle Harbor we visited the Holy Redeemer Church which was built in 1854. In the church, there is a guest book. Look at the note a recent visitor left. His great-grandfather was baptized in this church.

Our camping destination for today was the Gratiot River County Campground. It’s not a campground in the conventional sense. A four mile graded, not recently I assure you, dirt road simply stops at a cul-de-sac on the shore of Lake Superior. A few paths lead off here & there. You find a spot you like and there you are. There is a pit toilet but that’s it. The access road is a bit of an adventure. It starts out as two lanes of washboard. After the first mile the quality of the road improves somewhat but it begins to get narrower. The last mile, or so, the road is barely a full lane wide. You just hope no one is coming the other way.
But when you get to the lake. Wow!! We cannot recall staying in a more beautiful setting. We’re parked under a canopy of aromatic cedar trees but with enough open space to let the sunshine in. Behind us is a combination sandy & rocky beach and then Lake Superior. This is one of the few places where Carol can actually get an unobstructed view of the lake from the campsite. This is as good as things get. Between the great site, and the adventuresome access road, we’re going to just stay put for a while. This morning I topped off the water tank before we left the campground and we just dumped the tanks yesterday. We’re all set.
The County Park is a very popular day-use area. There were perhaps a dozen cars here at any given time. Some people came in search of pretty rocks, some brought their dogs and let them run, a few came to pick thimbleberries and some to just enjoy a perfect, sunny, summer day. One guy came with his diving dog. A first for me. The dog was a male German Shorthair Pointer. Stood perhaps 30" at the back. He would rush out into the water until it was almost over his head, dive down until all you could see was his tail sticking out of the water, and come up with a large rock which he deposited on the beach !! He did this time after time for a couple of hours. Amazing.

Tonight we have the place all to ourselves. The cost? It's free!!

The mouth of the Gratiot River


Friday:
Change of plans. About 3am we were awakened by thunder. The lightning display over Lake Superior was spectacular. It rained for perhaps an hour but nothing bad. In the morning the sky looked very dark. We turned on the weather radio and there was a severe thunderstorm warning in effect for our area. Torrential rain, damaging hail and 60mph plus winds!! were in the forecast. The last place we wanted to be if this came to pass was at the end of a four mile long dirt road that was in marginal condition to begin with so we packed up and headed into Calumet. It rained most of the way and all morning, but nothing nasty. Took advantage of a gloomy day by doing the laundry. Later on I looked at some of the historic copper mining exhibits in the area. Copper mining is certainly interesting, but I’m about maxed out.
Tonight we’re at the City of Hancock Recreation Area campground. It’s us and 50 other RV’s jammed side by side. Turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. Bummer. We could have been all alone on the shore of Lake Superior.

Tonight's view. The check-in station for the campground. Only cost us $22!!

Tuesday:
The day started with a trip to Roy’s Pasties and Bakery. Locally, Roy’s is touted as being the very best place for pasties. I stocked up on chicken/broccoli. Plus a few goodies, of course. The ginger/molasses cookies were the best we’ve ever tasted. Years ago during a trip to Prince Edwards Island, we were exposed to this great French origin cookie. Been baking them at home ever since ever since.

This morning we drove to Lake Linden which is only about ten miles from where we were. Per the GPS, a 17 minute drive. Our kind of day.

During the copper boom, Lake Linden was home to a number of stamping mills. When the copper bearing ore was mined, it then had to be “stamped” to a finer consistency before the copper could be extracted. Lake Linden has water access to Lake Superior so it became the main stamping and smelting area in this region. Copper bearing ore generally only contains from 1% to 4% copper. As refining practices became more advanced, it was discovered that the stamp sand contained a good amount of copper even after being processed once. The dredge in the picture was used to recover the stamp sand that was routinely disposed of by dumping into Torch Lake. The entire area is now a designated Superfund Site. One article I read, said the stamp sand is so hostile an environment that not even weeds can grow. And the House of Representatives wants to clamp down on the EPA because they make it much more difficult to repeat this sort of thing.

L'Anse & Houghton

We left the Van Riper SP about 10am heading towards L'Anse. On the way, we stopped by two very nice roadside parks with waterfalls. Unfortunately, neither of the falls was wheelchair accessible so we continued on.
We came across a roadside stand and bought some wild blueberries and two huge yellow squash for only 50 cents each.
When Henry Ford was building the early Fords, there was a lot of wood involved in the construction. In order to control both the supply and quality of the wood, he purchased thousands of acres of timber land around Alberta, MI and built a saw mill as well as housing for his workers. Carol doesn't have much interest in such things but I toured the mill then we drove through the remainder of the town. The sign tells the story.

The Yelp! program on the iPhone told us we just had to have breakfast at the Hilltop Restaurant just outside of L'Anse. They serve breakfast until noon time. Excellent choice. We'll be back on our next trip this way.

For the night we wound up in the L'Anse Township Park Campground. The community park, and campground, sit on a bluff overlooking the L'Anse Bay. We got a great site with an unobstructed view of the bay. Gopher & I took a walk along the water.

From our campsite, we could see some RV's camped right along the bay. In the morning we drove over to take a look. It's the Ojibwa Recreation Area. We drove around and had about decided to stay there but the place was just too trashy. We've stayed in, and driven through, other Native American camping areas and for whatever the reason might be, they tend to not be very well kept. We continued on.

The City of Houghton has a small RV park located right on the Portage River. There is a paved path running from the campground to the downtown area perhaps a mile away. When we pulled in, the Campground Full sign was up but I inquired just the same. There was a small grass area used for overflow. $10/night. It turned out to be the best camp site in the park. Lots of grass, a nice unobstructed view of the community beach & park, and no neighbors jammed right against us.

We took a nice walk along the river to the downtown area. Very pretty. We've been here before but stayed in the city campground in Hancock which is just across the river.

So can you trespass before 10 p.m.???

From the copper mining days

There was a large mural depicting life during the copper mining period in this area.

Two more enjoyable days in the UP.

Munising

On Sunday we made the beautiful drive from Grand Marais to Munising through the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore first stopping at the Grand Marais city campground to fill up with water & dump the tanks.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

It was a rainy day and that cut into our sightseeing time. We drove through one of the campgrounds but it was full. Actually, I was glad to see the rain. The long drive on the dirt road to/from the Lake Superior campground had made a real mess of the camper. The heavy rain gave it a much needed bath.

We've been to Munising before. First thing we headed to the National Forest campground of Bay Furnace to see about a campsite. This was Sunday afternoon when typically there would be a good selection of sites available but there were only three sites available out of 50. We really got lucky with our site. It's large, private and has full sun for a good part of the day. We need that sun for the solar panels.
We'll be here until either Friday or Saturday depending on when the mail arrives at the Post Office. Suzanne shipped Carols new Kindle e-book reader.
There is an old blast furnace on site. The pictures and sign tell the story. The campground itself is located on Lake Superior.

There was another Lazy Daze in the campground. Two very interesting women from Wisconsin just cruising around the UP. Unfortunately they were on their way out as we were just getting settled down so we only got to chat for a little bit. They are heading to parts of the UP we just came from so I gave them the information on our "special" camping areas.
On Wednesday we went into town to do the laundry and go grocery shopping. I went walking while the laundry was getting done and came across an excellent bakery; Sweet Dreams. The warm cinnamon rolls were as good as any I've had anywhere. Carol was really happy with my discovery. So was Gopher. We shared a huge cinnamon bun while the cloths were in the dryer.

On the way back to the campground, we stopped at Muldoon's so I could get some more pasties. Two chicken & one apple.

The weather has been just perfect for us. Cool at night, in the mid-upper 70's during the day.

On Thursday we just enjoyed the campground area. Went looking for more rocks for the water garden. When the blast furnace was operating, the sand molds were right along the beach. The molten iron was so hot, it turned the sand into glass. Large chunks of glass and slag are everywhere. We found some small, and very colorful, pieces for our collection.

Friday we went into town to see if the mail had arrived; it had not, nor did we really expect it so soon. We did some more laundry and enjoyed another hot cinnamon bun from Sweet Dreams. After the wash was done, we went looking for water falls. There are dozens in the area, but as you would expect, very few that Carol could see. We did find two. The best was Carols namesake waterfall, Wagner Falls.

Carol Wagner Daniels by her own waterfall.

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We checked out other camping areas in Munising. The city campground, Tourist Park Campground isn't much. It is right on the lake but it's just RV's stacked side by side. $23 to $28/night. The Kewadin Casino which is located just across the street from the Bay Furnace campground has six designated RV spots with electrical hookups. No charge. If the Bay Furnace campground is full, the next best choice is the casino parking lot.
Made another stop at Muldoon's for pasties. Two chicken, one apple.

Saturday. The mail showed up so we continued our journey west and north through MI. We stopped at WalMart in Marquette to pick up Carols meds and do our shopping. Then off to the Marquette Tourist Park campground. The campground was full; no huge surprise there. It was Saturday afternoon plus there was a big bike race in town. Two years ago we tried to stay here and it was filled because a festival of some type was going on in the area. We could have "camped" at WalMart but that is way down on our list of choices; pretty much at the bottom. We can always come up with something better. The Van Ripper State Park is about 30 minutes west of Marquette so that's where we are now.
There was plenty of room here in spite of the weekend. Still almost all families as we found in the other state parks we've stayed at. Pretty soon the kids will be back in school and we'll have the campgrounds to ourselves.

From here we head north to the Keweenaw Peninsula. We've been there before but this time we'll explore different areas.

Lake Superior State Forest

Sunday morning we headed east on road H-58 towards the Lake Superior State Forest campground. Our camping neighbor in Grand Marais is an experienced UP camper and was telling us about how nice it was. They had taken a ride out there on Saturday just to look and the campground was full as expected for a summer weekend. There are only 18 sites to begin with. We hoped that on Sunday afternoon we could get in. The stars must have been in perfect alignment because just as we were pulling in, someone was leaving. We grabbed the only available spot and it was a great one. Very large with a nice path leading to the shoreline, fairly level and the tree cover was thin enough to give us some sun for the solar panels. For the rest of the day, we watched cars slowly cruising through the campground looking at the stickers posted by the campsite listing the date of departure.

The downside was the road getting to the campground. It's about ten miles east of Grand Marais. Our neighbor did advise us that about five miles of the access road was wash-board dirt. He was right. Twice I was ready to turn around but Carol said "We've come this far, no sense turning back now". OK, on we went at perhaps 5 mph on the good parts and less on the bad. I'm so glad we continued. This place is a real treasure. It's on our list of places we'll return to next time we're in the UP.

The water supply here is a hand pump. The campground host has a very simply creation to feed the water from the spout on the pump into his water container. He took a funnel like you might use to pour oil or transmission fluid into a car then attached with a hose clamp a piece of appropriately sized tubing about two feet long. He used a small bungie cord to hold the funnel to the spout while he pumped the water. It worked well, cost little and took up very little space. I'll make one up.

The weather is just perfect. We woke up to 60* this morning. I doubt it reached 80* today.

The close of another perfect day.

Grand Marais. 45 years later.

We started yesterday by swinging by the new bakery we came across in Manistique. OK, but nothing special. Did our last grocery shopping at Jack's then drove to Grand Marais on the Lake Superior shore. The sign tells the history of the area. Grand Marais has a year around population of about 500. The downtown area is a few streets with two restaurants, a hardware store, a grocery store and a few tourist junk stores.

The harbor area.


Grand Marais does have the Pickle Barrel House of which the village is justifiably proud. It's on the official list of historically significant places. A cartoonist from the Chicago Tribune built the house as his summer cabin.

We're staying at the town campground; Woodland Park. A fairly typical campground. Since we've been in Michigan, this is only the third campground we've stayed in that had electrical hookups. We arrived about noon time and there were only four available sites. We got the last one with a view of Lake Superior. The campground is just a few blocks from the downtown area. Each day the three of us took a nice walk.

Access to the lake shore is via a long and steep set of steps so, unfortunately, Carol couldn't get to the shore. She did, however, have a nice view. Gopher & I took some nice long walks. I collected rocks and she swam and chased sticks. The rocks are all worn very smooth from being tumbled for thousands of years. Some are very colorful. This area is very popular with geode collectors but since I don't know what they look like, I don't think I found any. We have a water garden in our backyard. Rocks & driftwood from our travels are scattered around the pond. Unfortunately, we can never remember what rock came from where, but we enjoy looking at them just the same.

RUST. Seems that any car or truck with MI tags, that's more then about five years old is rusted out. A camping neighbor I met a while ago was in the snow plowing business. He said the salt from the roads just eats cars up and there isn't much that can be done to prevent it. Undercoating helps, but not by much. The rust is the smaller issue. The worst, he said, was the damage the salt water spray does to electrical connections and fittings. We don't generally buy used cars, but if I did, it wouldn't be one from a snow state.

Rust

August 6, 1966 Carol and I got married in Groton, CT. Today is our 45th wedding anniversary. I was a newly minted ensign in submarine school and Carol was a medical technologist at Lawrence Memorial Hospital in New London.
After the wedding we had the reception at Carols parents house. That's where we were at this time of day 45 years ago. Who would have ever guessed we would be spending a beautiful day overlooking Lake Superior 45 years later.

Manistique

Early this morning we continued west on Hwy 2 to Manistique. We needed to resupply with food before heading into the interior and north to Lake Superior. Manistique is the only town of any size around here.
We've been here before so headed to our "campground" for the night after we finished running our errands. There is a 1.83 mile paved path running along the lake so we were all able to enjoy a nice walk on a perfect day. The high today was about 80*. This morning we woke up to 58*.
During the heyday of the timber industry in the UP, there were four saw mills in this area. The practice was to dump the sawdust into the Manistique River or barge it to the lake and dump it there. It's estimated that over 5 million tons of sawdust was dumped over a period of about 25 years. The prevailing ideas were that the supply of trees was inexhaustible and that the sawdust, and other waste products, would just vanish in some magic way. They were wrong on both counts. In places, the lake bottom is still covered over a foot deep in hundred+ year old sawdust. It's a dark brown gooey mess and washes up onto the beaches near the river. The last sawmill in this area shut down in 1912.

100+ year old sawdust.

Tonights campground.

The harbor lighthouse

Earlier, I was trying to charge my cell phone from the outlet on the dash and noted that it wasn't charging. Investigation indicated I had let the headlights on when we parked earlier today. Called our road service company; Coachnet. About two hours later a guy showed up to jump start the LD. After we got started we took a ride to get the battery charged up. We remembered an ice cream store we saw earlier today, single scoops only, and discovered a bakery for the morning. :-) No sense wasting a nice ride.