The UP is absolutely gorgeous! The landscape is so different than what we are used to. While hiking through the forest, it feels as if you have entered an enchanted wood. Parts of it even remind Brad and me of Ewok Village!
We arrived at our campsite, which was literally ON Lake Superior. It was cool, but with a balmy breeze. Brad and I settled into our lounge chairs to enjoy the sunshine, while the crazy kids put their bathing suits on and attempted to swim. That didn’t last long, as the water temp was around 50 degrees! After sunning for about an hour, it was as if someone flipped a switch and the wind picked up to a ridiculous pace. There was a constant wind of about 20 mph, with gusts that had to be over 40 mph. Brad and I have never seen wind like that other than tropical storms and hurricanes. We wouldn’t even let the kids open the camper door by themselves as the wind tried to rip it out of their hands. This crazy wind made the temperature drop considerably and we shivered a lot! We met some locals in the campground, and they said that it was very unusual weather for June.
We decided to go exploring, so we drove the Jeep over to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which has a lot of forest attached. We hiked to some rock formations, like Miner’s Castle, and we also visited several waterfalls…breath-taking scenery.
Sunday morning we slept in and then took the Jeep on some ORV trails. There are miles and miles of trails up here. Most of them are intended for snowmobiles, but ORV’s can ride them in the summer. We found a few tight spots that we had to turn around in, and there was one path blocked by a fallen tree, but we had a blast.
That afternoon, we boarded a boat for our Pictured Rocks tour. This tour goes out into Lake Superior along the coast of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The rock cliffs are made of sandstone, so there are many different horizontal layers of rock. Then, because sandstone is porous, creek and river water seep down into the rocks and carry mineral deposits downward into the layers. This creates vertical stripes of different colors. Green stripes are from copper, white is from calcium, orange is from iron, and black is from manganese. (Sorry if that’s boring, but remember: I’m a science teacher now!)
We also learned some fascinating facts about Lake Superior on our tour. It is the largest of the 5 Great Lakes and has more water in it than the other 4 combined. At its deepest, it is over 1300 feet. If you built a swimming pool that was 5 feet deep consistently and filled it with the volume of water in Lake Superior, the pool would be the size of the continental US. Wow!
Today, we say goodbye to Lake Superior and the UP, and head south towards Wisconsin and Lake Michigan. Sadly, our trip is ¾ of the way over.
We arrived at our campsite, which was literally ON Lake Superior. It was cool, but with a balmy breeze. Brad and I settled into our lounge chairs to enjoy the sunshine, while the crazy kids put their bathing suits on and attempted to swim. That didn’t last long, as the water temp was around 50 degrees! After sunning for about an hour, it was as if someone flipped a switch and the wind picked up to a ridiculous pace. There was a constant wind of about 20 mph, with gusts that had to be over 40 mph. Brad and I have never seen wind like that other than tropical storms and hurricanes. We wouldn’t even let the kids open the camper door by themselves as the wind tried to rip it out of their hands. This crazy wind made the temperature drop considerably and we shivered a lot! We met some locals in the campground, and they said that it was very unusual weather for June.
We decided to go exploring, so we drove the Jeep over to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, which has a lot of forest attached. We hiked to some rock formations, like Miner’s Castle, and we also visited several waterfalls…breath-taking scenery.
Sunday morning we slept in and then took the Jeep on some ORV trails. There are miles and miles of trails up here. Most of them are intended for snowmobiles, but ORV’s can ride them in the summer. We found a few tight spots that we had to turn around in, and there was one path blocked by a fallen tree, but we had a blast.
That afternoon, we boarded a boat for our Pictured Rocks tour. This tour goes out into Lake Superior along the coast of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. The rock cliffs are made of sandstone, so there are many different horizontal layers of rock. Then, because sandstone is porous, creek and river water seep down into the rocks and carry mineral deposits downward into the layers. This creates vertical stripes of different colors. Green stripes are from copper, white is from calcium, orange is from iron, and black is from manganese. (Sorry if that’s boring, but remember: I’m a science teacher now!)
We also learned some fascinating facts about Lake Superior on our tour. It is the largest of the 5 Great Lakes and has more water in it than the other 4 combined. At its deepest, it is over 1300 feet. If you built a swimming pool that was 5 feet deep consistently and filled it with the volume of water in Lake Superior, the pool would be the size of the continental US. Wow!
Today, we say goodbye to Lake Superior and the UP, and head south towards Wisconsin and Lake Michigan. Sadly, our trip is ¾ of the way over.