Tahquamenon Phenomenon: Tahquamenon Falls State Park, MI 9/23/2009

Gorgeous, gorgeous day! We are SO appreciating the blue skies, dry weather and temp at around 70-75 deg. Trust me, we are not taking this for granted knowing that at any day the rains and cold weather can set in.. We left the campground at 10 this morning, but didn’t get very far before our first stop. But, how can anyone pass up “Yooperland.” (Yoopers are slang for Upper Peninsula inhabitants) which included a yard filled with kitschy sculptures, like the world’s largest shotgun and chainsaw, and a gift store that seems to be a cross between dogpatch hillbilly and Scandinavian folk lore. We frittered away about an hour walking around the yard and viewing every hand built contraption you can think of, like a bicycle lawnmower. We proceeded from there to Marquette, the largest city on this stretch of highway in UP. It’s a beautiful city, built right on the lake, with lots of stately brownstone buildings. We did get a chuckle out of region specific businesses, like a skate sharpening shop and a bingo supply store. The next hour or so we drove along the shores of Lake Superior, quite beautiful with all the fall colors next to the blue waters. I think the bread gods were smiling down on me. On one of the backroads we stumbled across a bakery that made sour dough french bread baked in a brick oven! It’s not Truckee, but it’s not bad either and should go fine with the wine this evening. (James, you would appreciate the fact that the woman was from Wawa.) We finally made it to Tahquamenon (rhymes with phenomenon) Falls. WOW – really spectacular and well worth the extra day in Michigan to see it. (See today’s pic). The falls are the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi. It has a drop of nearly 50 feet and is more that 200 feet across. A maximum flow of more than 50,000 gallons of water per second has been recorded cascading over these falls. This is also the land of Longfellow’s Hiawatha, “by the rushing Tahquamenaw” Hiawatha built his canoe. We had a fun couple of hours hiking to the falls and viewing them from the brink as well as from the lower gorge. After procuring a campsite at the falls for the evening, we decided that we had just enough time to make it to the Shipwreck Museum located on Whitefish Point. This point has been called the graveyard of Lake Superior. Since navigation began on Lake Superior there has been approximately 550 wrecks (6,000 throughout all the Great Lakes). The museum, movie, lighthouse and beach were just fascinating. There were several fresnel lens, replicas of the ships that are located at the bottom of Lake Superior, and interesting history lessons on many of the wrecks. I love this stuff! Currently, we are sampling the french bread with a glass of wine. Ned has the steaks on the grill and we are camped near the rushing of the lower falls. Life is good. Tomorrow we venture into Canada. I think we'll be two days in remote areas before hitting Montreal.