Lake Michigan Road Trip: Days 6 and 7

Day 6

Start: Marquette, MI
Finish: L'Anse, MI
Miles: 238
States: Pure Michigan 

I came to the realization that I have been calling this the Lake Michigan Road trip even though it was split about 50/50 between Michigan and Superior. I believe my thinking was that I'd call it the Lake Michigan trip because I had somehow never been to Michigan before. The few people I told this fact to on the trip found it funny that it took 31 years to get across the border.

Day 6 started with a short drive to Presque Isle Park to see what was going on. The first thing I spotted was a lighthouse way out on a concrete and stone pier so I got my walking shoes on and headed out. It took me about 15 minutes to get out because climbing on giant stones without trying to break a leg or my camera took some finessing.

The park overall was pretty cool for being a free public place to go run, hangout, or take the kids to although you could do some damage if you fell off the cliffs surround the whole place. 

View from the lighthouse platform looking out on Lake Superior.

A short hike up Sugarloaf Mountain was next before heading out of Marquette. There were some good views but it got my thinking about how much I miss the views from the "real" mountains out west. Maybe time to plan another trip that way???

Looking back at the small rain shower that was heading my way.

After the hike back down it was on to Copper Harbor. If you look at it on a map, Copper Harbor is way up there and is essentially the farthest place north in Michigan outside of Isle Royale National Park which requires some work to get to. Trip Advisor came up big here with things to do as the town is only 10 blocks long. The first stop was Fort Wilkins State Park. I pulled a quick one here and flashed my park pass from the previous day and got in for free haha! As the name states, the main attraction here was a pretty well preserved army outpost from 1844. 

There were probably 15-20 buildings here you could walk through and most of them had exhibits to check out. Kind of a cool history lesson on vastly different life was back then. Your main goals were finding food and water, fighting natives, and trying not to die of dysentery. I thought the below picture was an interesting exhibit and it reminded me of those Eyewitness books from back in the day that would show cross sections of castles, ships, the human body, and other things.

After getting some ice cream from the gift shop, of course, it was on to Hunter's Point Park and Agate Beach. The name suggest agates were everywhere but it was more like traditional stones but still a change from sand being absolutely everywhere. I didn't take a close up from the beach but this is from google. Obviously I took handfuls of stones and chucked them into Lake Superior like the grown child that I am.

 

 

Here is a picture that I did take though.

 

 

And another one from the point. It was only half a mile from the parking lot but surprisingly empty considering how nice the weather turned out after a gloomy start.

 

Just up the block from the park was one entrance for the Brockway Mountain Drive. It had been about a year since I had New Hotness in low gear and you didn't have to tell me twice to put her to the test again. The whole route was 8 miles but it was only 4 to get up to the summit and parking area.

 

 

700 ft above Lake Superior and 1,300 ft above sea level. This would have been a sweet spot to hang glide off of as the wind was whipping.

Manganese Falls was the last place I wanted to check out before heading back south. This was the easiest water fall to get to as it was literally 10 yards off the road once I decided to head in the right direction. It's nice to find places that require a hike as most people won't do it but on the other hand, it's nice to come across places like this that take 8 seconds to get to.

Up until this point, I hadn't eaten any real meals for supper outside of ordering a pizza so I headed down to the water front for a burger and chips. An hour and a half drive was still ahead of me but this was a very relaxing way to end the day. Had I known that Copper Harbor had so much to offer, I would have planned to stay a night there and I definitely recommend it to anybody looking for a place that has a lot to offer in a small area.

Upcoming: Golfing Timberstone, Timm's Hill, and heading back to Rice Lake.

Start: L'Anse, MI
Finish: Rice Lake, WI
Miles: 289
States: MI, WI

Day 7 ushered in the finale of the trip. I'm on vacation so naturally I woke up at 6:45 to head over to Timberstone Golf Course in Iron Mountain. The drive was an hour and a half but I also gained an hour coming from the eastern time zone so I got there with plenty of time to spare. This course was a recommendation from a friend of a friend and it did not disappoint. Not too exciting to describe a golf course though and I've already done it once so here are some pics of the par 3's.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And hole #18 which was probably the coolest on the course. A 600 yd par 5 with 2 or 3 drops that if you drove the golf cart off of, you'd probably be maxing out your credit card on repairs. Had a very makeable birdie putt here and of course I miss it after not trusting my gut that my line was trash.

 

 

There was also a ski jump here and I'm still amazed that people shoot off of those things and don't die. Well, I guess a few of them do.

The last scheduled stop on the way back to Rice Lake was at Timm's Hill County Park. A quick geography lesson for you is that Timm's Hill is the highest natural point in Wisconsin. A 300 yd walk and a quick climb up the lookout tower led you to this view.

And this one.

 

From there it was nothing but driving west on Highway 8. Here's one random thing I came across and had to stop to get a pic. RIP Dale. #3 foreverrrrrrrrrrr.

 

I also had to get a pic of the old train in Ladysmith which brought back memories from my childhood.

That's another trip in the books and I'm not sure where my next one will be to but it may end up on this blog for your reading and viewing pleasure. I hope you've enjoyed this edition of Eric drives somewhere and "writes" about it.

Eric