Iowa

We crossed the mighty Mississippi River and have landed  in the state of Iowa (a first for me). We are camping in a state park called Pikes Peak. We rode our bikes out to Point Ann to an overlook of the river. But for those of you who think all we do is bike ride and hike, here are a couple pics of a typical Saturday on the road. Markie planning on the computer and watching college football and me making homemade pimento cheese....with Wisconsin cheese, of course!

So Long Wisconsin

Not only have we enjoyed hiking in this area of Wisconsin, but we also enjoyed getting to know a new friend, Cherri, from Chicago. Cherri is fun, open and pretty impressive traveling solo on most of her camping adventures (other than her little dog Maggie) in her TAB trailer. We hope to meet again somewhere down the road.

Feeling small

Devil's Doorway

Cherri & Maggie

Devil's Lake State Park

Traveling south, but still in central Wisconsin, we arrived at Devil's Lake State Park; a beautiful park that surrounds a natural lake formed by glaciers. It is Wisconsin's largest state park. This is a picture of Balance Rock located on one of the bluff trails. The Ice Age Trail also runs through the park but Mark and I had to wait for a cold front to move through before hiking a section of it. It just seemed inappropriate to do anything Ice Age related with the temps in the 80's.

The Ice Age Trail is a National Scenic Trail that stretches 1,200 miles through the state of Wisconsin.

Welcome to Wisconsin

We arrived in Wisconsin on the first day of fall and the hottest day they've had all year. This warm snap is expected to be brief but I'm so glad our first campsite in Wisconsin is our shaddiest. We are at our first county park and it is so peaceful and beautiful. The name of the park is Big Eau Pleine. I would highly recommend this park. The only drawback for us has been no shower facilities and because our water pump is leaking we decided not to use the shower in the camper. No worries though because the nearby town of Wausau, WI has a wonderful YMCA that allows us to use their facilities for free since we are members of the Y at home in TN.

Starbaby seems to be enjoying our decision to run the air conditioner in the camper for the first time.

Presque Isle River

With only one evening left in the UP we decided to drive out to the far end of the park to see the Presque Isle River, it's waterfalls and hike out to where the river dumps into Lake Superior . It was an absolutely incredible evening and we had the whole place to ourselves since it was so close to nightfall. We couldn't believe our luck when we hiked to the end of the river and witnessed a beautiful sunset. The icing on the cake was while driving back to our campsite we had to stop our truck to let a large porcupine cross the road. It was the perfect ending to our stay in the Porcupine Mountains!

Museum porcupine 

Agates

As for Agate hunting, the beaches here are mostly made up of small rocks and sand. We had noticed people on many of the beaches picking up rocks much like we would pick up shells on the beach in Florida. We discovered the "prize" most are looking for are agates. Mark talked to a park ranger who shared that his wife was an exceptional agate hunter and had a nearby location that she kept a secret....especially from tourists. He told us about this secret location, so even though I can't disclose where we went I can say Mark found his first agate. It is the small rock at the bottom of the picture.

Pasties

A couple things left on our list of "things to do" in Michigan were eating a pasty (pronounced pass-ty not paste-y) and going agate hunting. After talking to a fellow camper, who comes to this park regularly, we were told to visit Ontonogan, MI (about 15 miles away) and give Syl's Cafe a try. Syl's had the atmosphere we were looking for and we discovered we love pasties!

Ski Slope Disc Golf

Another cool thing about this park is that many of the trails become cross country ski trails in the winter. When we checked out the local ski resort we discovered an 18 hole disc golf course with moveable baskets. We were tempted to move them closer to the tee boxes but resisted and still managed to par a few holes. I think we are getting better, but even if we aren't we are having lots of fun with this new (to us) game.




Markie taking it easy at the snowless, deserted chalet. I loved that the benches were made from old ski lift chairs.

The Porkies!

The Porcupine Mountain Wilderness State Park is 60,000 acres and is one of the few remaining large wilderness areas in the Midwest. It has the biggest tract of virgin northern hardwoods in North America which means beautiful fall colors. Where Copper Harbor prides itself on being a mt. biking Mecca, the Porkies beat all the Michigan State Parks we've visited with their varied and extensive hiking trails. Every day we choose a new trail to hike and are astounded at the uniqueness of each one.

   

 

Copper Harbor

We were convinced that 70/80 degree days were over but our last day at Copper Harbor was in the high 70's. Annie and Jon gave me this coffee concentrate system to make iced coffee for our travels so I haven't been tempted to give up on iced coffee yet.

Fall comes earlier to the UP and we are excited to possibly have the longest autumn of our lives as we follow the changing leaves south over the next month.

Even though we were sad to leave Copper Harbor after eight days we were created with this beautiful sunrise to welcome us to the Porcupine Mountains which will be our last week in the UP!

Side trip to Eagle Harbor

We learned from fellow campers about a monastery in Eagle Harbor that makes the best jams and jellies in the whole state. We picked up jams and bread at the Jampot then traveled down the road to see another beautiful Lake Superior lighthouse and cool waterfall

Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary around Copper Harbor

This part of the UP is home to a grove of some of the largest and oldest giant white pines, growing more than 125 feet tall and dating back 500 years. We loved our hike through the Estivant Pines Nature Sanctuary.

A fun new experience, over the weekend, was geocaching for the first time. The park where we are staying hosted the event that ends up being a kind of outdoor treasure hunting game using GPS devices/coordinates to attempt to find the geocache (container) hidden at that location. We had lots of fun discovering different locations throughout the park, and found out at the end of the "game " we had won a gift certificate to a restaurant on the harbor. Even though Mark hasn't gotten his fishing pole out yet,we got to have a meal of fresh caught Walleye right out of Lake Superior!

Most Upper Part of the UP

We packed up early and got on the road to push about 300 miles further north. Our destination being Copper Harbor where we had reservations at Fort Wilkins State Park for eight days. We arrived and set up then headed straight for the Nature Trail. It was a windy day so when we reached the shoreline huge waves were crashing on the rocks, It really reminded me of Maine and was just beautiful.

 

Mark discovered there was a biking trail that took you to the northern most point in Michigan (High Rock Bay) and it was one of the coolest rides we've done. It's like a roller coaster that ends with an incredible view. In this picture I'm showing off my "HandUp" biking gloves that say "Merica" when you hold your hands together. Thanks Laura Ann for my awesome gift.

Michigan Cherry Pie and Markie's Lake Challenge

One of the things Michigan is known for are it's cherry trees. Mark and I passed through Traverse City, Michigan (nationally known as the Cherry Capital of the World) on our way to the park and realized one of the first things we needed to do was locate a couple pieces of cherry pie. The Berry Patch restaurant, in what's ironically called Paradise, Michigan, had two pieces so we brought them back to our camper to have with our afternoon coffee. I can't even describe how good this pie was. We know we can't eat pie every day that we are here, but surely every other day isn't too excessive.



Another goal or "thing to do" on our Michigan list is to swim in any of the Great Lakes we visit. It was an easy thing to do during our Dune stay on Lake Michigan but moving further north we discovered that Lake Superior was a lot colder. I decided to revise my "to do list" but Mark refused to be detoured, so at 59 degrees with 14 mph winds at noon today, he took the plunge. I took this picture from the safety of shore in my nice warm down jacket.

Tahquamenon Falls State Park

Tahquamenon Falls (rhymes with phenomenon) has, as you would imagine, some pretty impressive waterfalls. We hiked the trails around both the Upper and Lower Falls and were impressed with the volume of water as well as the unique color of the water caused by natural tannins that leach into the river from the cedar swamps surrounding the river.



Another fun thing we did in the area was riding our bikes out to Whitefish Point, on Lake Superior, to see our first Michigan lighthouse. We've discovered that our favorite way to sight see in an area is on our bikes.

 

The biggest city near our campsite was Sault Ste Marie. One day rain was in the forecast so we decided it would be a great place to not only sight see but also resupply and do laundry. The city is among the oldest in America and ended up being so close to Canada that our IPhones thought we were in Canada and alerted us that we would have uninterrupted coverage during our stay there. We loved reading about the history of the town and watching the ships go through the locks. We also went to Lake Superior State University and played a round of disc golf on the course they have on campus. It was a fun filled day

Welcome to the UP

 

The only thing we dreaded about going to the Upper Peninsula was crossing the Mackinac Bridge. It has it's own webpage so you can check weather conditions for fog or wind that could make crossing over challenging. The weather was perfect and Mark did great getting us across.

Going through the toll booth, on the other side, made it seem like we were crossing the border into Canada. Ironically, as we traveled another 100 miles or so to Tahquamenon Falls State Park the vegetation and cooler temps made us even more sure we had crossed the border.

Starbaby is excited that the Upper Peninsula seems to be home to a large population of chipmunks!