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.