After a lovely pit stop with a Colorado friend in Wisconsin, we were bound for my cousin’s stomping grounds: northern Wisconsin. She had tons of suggested places, hikes, and activities, listed for us by region and in order. Remind you of anybody? 🙂 She obviously shares a passion for both the organized and the outdoors.
We kicked it off by heading to Copper Falls State Park in Wisconsin. This place is stunning and full of gorgeous, easy-going hikes. They even have some handicap-accessible hikes! The water running through this area is brown, which Tony and I, the consummate geologists, immediately identified as iron in the water. We were quickly humbled by an informational sign indicating the coloring of the water is from tree organics, specifically leaves, thank you very much. So why am I mentioning this? I don’t really know, other than because I heard someone else attributing the brown water to iron just the other day and they’re wrong, dammit!
From Copper Falls we checked out several hikes on our way to the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula (part of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan… colloquially, ‘the UP’). First stop was Houghton Falls, WI. This hike is quick and easy, through a beautiful forest following a river which normally generates falls, no such luck for us. We meandered our way to Lake Superior at the end of the trail. As we did, we ran into another crew of folks hiking with their kid (maybe 12 years old?). We could start to see the lake and as we did the kid ran in front of us, ripped off his shirt, and dove headfirst into my favorite Great Lake with the vigor of, well, a 12 year old.
My memory may be a little exaggerated, but I swear Tony turned to me and said, “we are doing that too!” After some foot-dragging (We’re not wearing swimsuits!?!), he convinced me (A sports bra totally counts as a swimsuit top. Come on!!!), I ripped my shirt off and we dove in. Lake Superior is known for its shockingly cold water, but for whatever reason the water here was perfectly cool, almost warm. Bee was running all over the little cliffs making sure we weren’t dead.
We were instead rejuvenated, and excitedly walked back to the truck with that same ‘vigor of a 12 year old’.
We spent the rest of the day seeing “all the falls” (at least 4 short hikes to multiple stunning falls), did some unexpected (and questionably legal) off-roading near Powderhorn Ski Area, drove through famous mining country, and began off-roading to our camp for the night.
The place was packed considering we thought we were in the middle of nowhere, but it was a beautiful Saturday night and we knew that there was a chance it would be busy. Once we were set up at camp, we made some tacos, hiked to the beach, and then hunkered into the tent. But Tony protested as we settled down for the evening. Shouldn’t we enjoy the meteor shower tonight? I protested back. I was tired, I was used to going down with the sun. He led by example and laid on the hood and windshield of the Land Cruiser, insufferably exclaiming about how beautiful the meteor shower was. Well, I couldn’t help myself. So with spunk provided by the margaritas I made earlier that evening, I crawled out of the rooftop tent window onto the hood, and we cuddled, watching the meteor shower, while he constantly exclaimed “you didn’t see it? how could you have missed that one?!”
As expected, folks left Sunday morning and we had the peninsula mostly to ourselves. We took our time getting out of camp and took a bath in Lake Superior. We hiked at Estivant Pines (the last virgin forest of white pine in Michigan), had dinner in Marquette, and then migrated to our next camping spot.
We got to Christmas, Michigan late in the afternoon with the sun going down. We planned to camp at Bay Furnace, but all the spots were taken by the time we got there. This resulted in an “emergency” sleeping spot, where we just pulled over to the side of the access road, popped the tent, and ate pie that we got in Marquette. We could still hear the waves of Lake Superior from about 1/2 a mile inland!
We woke up jazzed to explore some of Michigan’s best known tourist attractions: Pictured Rocks, Tahquamenon Falls, and Whitefish Point. This lead to a series of stops and hikes along the way.
We found a cool campground at Monocle Lake, staked our claim, and went to Sault Ste. Marie to see the Soo Locks. For those of you non-Michiganders, the Soo Locks are between Lake Huron and Lake Superior to manage the 21-foot drop between the two lakes… instead of sending freighters and other ships through the rapids. We grabbed crepes for dinner (savory ones that they roll like a burrito full of deliciousness), Tony poured some Labatt Blue into a water bottle (Cheers, Canada!), and we breezed through “security”, to watch a big ass freighter migrate slowly through the locks.
We returned to Monocle Lake, played some cards and curled up, excited for our next day!
We drove to De Tour Village and hopped on a ferry to check out Drummond Island. We had originally planned to stay on the island, but ran out of time, as we were meeting my family for a mini vacation within the trip. We drove around, checked out a beach, and were disappointed to find out they have tons of off-roading trails, because we didn’t have any time! If there is anything we have learned from this trip, it’s that we simply aren’t going to be able see and do everything. We were meeting my family at 2 pm, so we quickly drove back to the ferry (nearly missed it) crossed back over to the UP, drove over the Mackinac Bridge into the “Mitten”, and continued to Mackinaw City to take a ferry to Mackinac Island (no, that is not a lapse of spelling).
Upon arrival we met my mom and step-dad, Bee jumped into the car with excitement to greet them, we grabbed our stuff from the cars and hopped onto another ferry. Cars are not permitted on the island so Tony and I did are best to consolidate from one organizational system to another. If you haven’t been to Mackinac Island, it certainly is worth it, but I highly recommend staying off the main drag as it is insanely packed with tourists. Furthermore, if you can make it work, I would recommend going when school is in session: for a couple future parents, we sure don’t like kids!
By now some of you are doing the math… they said no hotels, but in that picture there they don’t have that car that has their tent attached to it… well, you win. We checked into Mission Point Resort; our first, and only hotel to date for two nights.
We jumped into Lake Huron, we hiked, we biked, we drank, we ate fudge (when in Rome!), and we noshed on great food. It was so nice to be with my family. After a few blissful days, we split ways and drove to the west coast of the state and made our way to our next stop…
"Purposefully Unrushed" 
My favorite lake ❤
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