Lovers leap
Another day, another summer blog entry. Get ready for part three in the series ...
Where were we? Ah yes, L'Anse.
Time to leave this beautiful campground and move ourselves to our next destination, which was the tiny town of Christmas, about 5 miles from it's much larger neighbor, Munising, MI.
We parked in the parking lot of the Kewadin casino.
Not the most attractive campsite, but it was FREE, with complementary 50 Amp electric. You can't beat that deal! (As you can see, the casino is decked out in Christmas decorations year round ... )
The reason for being here was mainly to see the famous Pictured Rocks, and we'd booked seats on the popular sunset boat-tour in advance to make sure we we were 'on'.
The day we arrived they were experiencing some stormy weather and all tours were cancelled, but fortunately overnight the weather totally turned around and it was a gorgeous day!
We toured the area around Munising in the morning, checked out some beaches, dipped our toes in Lake Superior ...
Not bad actually!
We drove to the little harbor that our cruise was going to leave from that evening, to check on parking.
And we went on a few short hikes to see a couple of the many waterfalls in this area ...
The Munising Falls, which drops about 50 feet (15 m) over a sandstone cliff.
And the Memorial and Tannery Falls
Flowering milkweed along the trails attracted clouds of monarchs and an occasional Painted Lady ...
We drove a little north-east out of Munising to Miners Castle, the most famous formation of the Pictured Rocks, mainly because of it's easy accessibility by vehicle and short trails.
It's also very beautiful of course!
If you can't go on a boat tour this is the place to go, to see a little bit of what the Pictured Rocks have to offer.
We hiked the small trail that leads you to the 'lower' overlook:
Back in town we picked up a couple of Michigan's famous pasties for an early dinner ...
A pasty (pronounced pass-tee!) is a traditional Yooper (meaning: 'from the Upper Peninsula', as in U(you).P., got it?) food.
Originally brought over by the Cornish but over time adopted by the Finnish. Back when mining was huge (in the 1800’s), the miners would take pasties with them down into the mines for lunch because of their easy portability. The 'crimped' part made it easy to hold with dirty fingers and was discarded after eating the rest of the pie.
In a mine, the pasty's dense, folded pastry could stay warm for several hours. The legend says they heated them up on their shovels over a candle!
The crusts are filled with ground beef, carrots, rutabaga and diced potatoes, and they are always seasoned with salt and pepper only and served with ketchup or gravy.
We got one with pork, one with beef and one with apple for desert. All in all ... there not bad. A little too bland and definitely too much potato but I guess that depends on who makes it.
We were advised to leave early for the boat dock, to get the best seats for our tour and we were glad we did. We were among the firsts to line up, which guaranteed us seats on the right sight of the upper deck, exactly where you want to be!
The tour was sold out and the line long ...
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is managed by the National Park Service as one of only four national lakeshores, it includes some fifteen miles of amazing multi-color cliffs along its 40 mile length.
The first part of the tour brings you out of the marina and into Munising Bay, while following the coastline of Grand Haven Island.
At the tip of the Island you pass the historic East Channel Lighthouse (1868) at the north of the Bay.
After leaving the bay and crossing to the other side of the channel, it doesn't take long before you'll see the cliffs rising up in the distance.
Pictured Rocks derives its name from the 15 miles of colorful sandstone cliffs that reach up to 200 feet above lake level.
They have been naturally sculptured into shallow caves, arches, formations that resemble castle turrets, and of course the obligatory human profiles, among others.
The cliffs are composed of the Munising Formation of 500-million-year-old Cambrian Period sandstone, which occurrence is also responsible for the large amounts of waterfalls in the central part of the Upper Peninsula.
Another Bridalveil Falls
These kayaks paddling past the Painted Coves area, with it's vast sandstone walls, give a good idea of the massive rock face.
Streaks on the cliffs come from leaking ground water.
With it come iron (red), manganese (black-white), limonite (yellow-brown), copper(pink-green), and other minerals. As the water evaporates, these minerals leave streaks of color
Rainbow Cave
Caves of all colors
Lovers Leap, lore has it that a couple expressed their (forbidden) love for each other by jumping of the cliff together.
Which was fortunately something this couple didn't have to do. Actually, this tour coincided with our 17th anniversary! How romantic is that?!
These huge pieces of rock that slid off the top of Gull Rookery show how this coastline is forever changing ...
On calm days, like ours, they bring the boat into the tight Chapel Cove, where the vertical rock walls surround you by three sides.
Awesome!
And Grand it is!
And Indian Head:
For the life of me, I don't see it ...
Battleship Rocks
Battleships, all lined up, ready to head out to sea ... OK, I'll by that one ...
A Cormorant fleeing the boat
Miners Beach waterfall
And, maybe the most photographed rock of the whole tour,
Chapel Rock.
It is capped with a lone Pine tree, that has stayed alive so far by reaching with it's roots to the shore, making a true 'lifeline' when the small rock it stands on ran out of soil to grow in.
Looks like an umbilical cord, doesn't it?
Oh my gosh, I made so many more pictures, it's very hard to choose just some, but this post is getting way too long, so I'll finish with just a few sunset pics ...
The last 30 minutes or so it was pretty much dark and also rather cool.
The good thing was that by that time we'd pretty much left the cliff area and were cruising straight back to the marina.
It wasn't very pleasant (or scenic) anymore though, I was happy to be back.
Well, that about wraps up our time in Munising. What a beautiful area, I'm so glad I've seen it!
The next morning we set out to drive all the way to the south-eastern end of the Upper Peninsula, to stay at another Kiwadin Casino in St Ignace.
We crossed the peninsula, and drove alongside the dunes of it's southern shores, back on the Lake Michigan side again!
Until, after crossing the peninsula at the southernmost tip to the other side once again, we reached St. Ignace, which is situated on the shores of the third 'Great Lake' that we would encounter during this trip, Lake Huron!
Another parking lot indeed, with 50 Amp electric hookups, but this time we had to pay for it.
Still a good deal though at $15 a night!
Not a bad site at all, at the edge of the lot, backed up to a park-like grassy area, nicely landscaped and bordered by some large pines.
I forgot to take a picture of the casino but it was build on a small hill, overlooking Lake Huron ...
Even the indoor pool had a nice view. We were allowed to use it, but we didn't. We're not much of a swimmers ...
I spotted some Mergansers in the Lake. Such pretty birds :
We'd planned to stay here for 2 nights since our next campground was another Passport America deal which as usual, is only valid from Sunday through Thursday, so we had to bide some time.
Which worked out perfectly, since that next day was the day of the Solar Eclipse.
Although only a 70% eclipse in St. Ignace, and it only got a little 'gloomy' at best, it was pretty cool nevertheless!
We didn't have eclipse glasses or special camera filters but my handy husband made it work ...
And there you have it! Part three is done! Yahoo! I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of ...
'where the heck were the Hess's this summer?'
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