Exploring the UP (13 July)

The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is an interesting place, sparsely populated and full of scrub forests of pine and deciduous trees, It seems that only near the lake shores can you find normal-sized trees! Perhaps it’s because of the hard winters. For some reason, I didn’t get any pictures of those trees.

I started by heading north from my hotel to the Lake Superior shore. My first glimpse of the lake was a stunning view through pines and I pulled over to the side of the road as soon as I could to get a picture! As soon as the car stopped, a cloud of flies descended on it and I decided (wisely, as I later discovered) to stay comfortably tucked away on the inside! My first actual picture, therefore, was taken of the small bay in the town of Grand Marais. The view was more spectacular in person!

Getting to Grand Marais was an adventure in its own right. A caution for you if plan to get lost in the UP – roads with “Truck Trail” in their name are prone to becoming gravel (at best) or sand (more likely) and they will take you places where there is absolutely no phone reception (so no data connection to download maps!). I spent an hour driving on these, heading generally the right direction but not knowing if I would actually be able to get there via these “roads!” It all worked out in the end, though, and I did get a good (evil) laugh when I found pavement again – about a quarter mile into the paved road, a bright red Corvette with the top down went flying past in the other direction, and I laughed to think of the surprise that driver would get in just a few seconds when he hit sand and gravel 🙂

Grand Marais is at the eastern tip of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore which I explored for a bit. I didn’t get far enough into it to actually see the Pictured Rocks, but it did give me the opportunity to get some great photos of Lake Superior.

I also saw a display of some logging equipment, a logging sled and logging cart. Those wheels are a good eight feet tall and were designed for use year-round.

Let’s talk about flies. Remember that cloud of flies from earlier? It turns out that the flies along the Lake Superior shore are BITING flies, and even in a strong wind, you can’t stand still for a second without them landing on you; you have to keep moving, vigorously, continuously, to have any chance at all of avoiding them. Even worse, when I got back into my car after the second stop in the National Lakeshore, about six of them flew in as soon as I opened the door. My ankles were still getting bites an hour later, at which point I finally convinced the last one to leave through an opened window!

From here, I headed south to the Lake Michigan shore so that I could cross the bridge back to the lower part of Michigan. I made one last stop to walk a bit along Lake Michigan:

I certainly couldn’t have had any better weather for viewing these lakes! What a change from last year’s trip, where it was cool and rainy every single day.