Saturday, September 17, 2022
Ms. B. and I loaded up our rental Toyota SUV and hit the road early — after a
quick breakfast stop at McDonald's. Nonstop and direct, it's about a five-hour
drive to drive to
Munising, which was our first overnight destination in
the Upper Peninsula. We had enjoyed our stay at the
Terrace Motel
there on our first UP visit (
"Midland & More in Da Moonlight, Sunday," October 5, 2014), so we decided to stay there again. It's convenient, kind of rustic, and only
a little smelly. A dearth of roaches is also a distinct plus.
On our way UPward, we stopped for several caches, a picnic lunch at a wayside
overlooking Lake Superior, just on the north side of the Mackinac Bridge (a
cache placed at the site of a reported Bigfoot sighting, which made me smile),
and a visit to
Kitch-iti-kipi
on
Indian Lake.
Kitch-iti-kipi (in Ojibwe, "the Big Spring,"
"The Big Cold Spring," or "the Mirror of Heaven," depending on the translation
source)
is a spring that is so cold that the water is clear as glass to its bottom (45 feet) and fallen trees are perfectly preserved.
There's a glass-bottomed raft on a cable that allows you to float out on the
water and view the breathtaking scenery down in the depths. Happily, there's a
geocache
on the raft, as well as a virtual cache and an
EarthCache.
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Some of the fallen trees that are actually deep underwater in
Kitch-iti-kipi, seen from the raft
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View of the spring through the glass bottom of the raft
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The raft on its way across the spring pool
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After enjoying the sights — and caches — at
Kitch-iti-kipi, we took off
for Munising via a few back roads, one of which turned out to be a very long,
very deserted dirt track through what I believe is the deepest, darkest forest
I've ever entered. It was truly gorgeous and a little eerie. This is bear,
moose, and Sasquatch country, and I did really,
really hope our
rental car would behave itself over that stretch of 25 miles or so. It did. Good
car! We did have the pleasure of passing through the one marked town on the map
— Steuben — which turned out to be two houses and a streetlight.
Eventually, we landed in Munising. After checking in at the Terrace, we
turned around and went out to dinner at
The Duck Pond Eatery & Beer Garden over in
Christmas, a tiny
village just west of Munising. I went for the "fresh-caught daily" whitefish
and a couple of Michigan craft beers; Ms. B. had a whitefish taco. All quite
delicious.
After dinner, a little daylight remained and there were a couple of caches just down the road, so we headed out after them. One ended up being at the old
Grand Island Harbor Lighthouse, which is tucked away in the woods not far from
the main road. An ingenious cache lurked here. There was another one a short
distance away near the beach along Lake Superior. It turned out to be hidden
in a veritable cavern beneath the roots of a gigantic fallen tree. The search
took some serious time, as the posted coordinates were off by a
looooong way. Still, it was a gorgeous evening, the settings were
lovely, and we had a wonderful time of it.
We headed back to the Terrace, drank a little wine, and eventually retired for
the evening.
A lovely first day in the very lovely UP.
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Do you suppose there might be a geocache in there?
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Sure is dark in here!
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Evening view of Lake Superior from
"A Walk on the Beach" (GC1HK7Z)
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Sunday, September 18, 2022
Today's plan was to head up from Munising up to the
Keweenaw Peninsula,
to a B&B we'd rented on the shores of
Portage Lake. It's a pretty
long drive, especially given that, in many places here, one Upper Peninsula
mile is the equivalent of about five nautical miles, and with many roads being
two lanes with only occasional passing zones, getting behind a slow-driving
peasant can really rack up the time behind the wheel. So we started out early,
with breakfast at
Falling Rock Cafe & Bookstore, which we'd found delightful on our trip here in 2014. It was again
delightful, though not quite as quirky and off-the-wall as we'd found it back
in the day. Still... we'd go again.
Once on the road, we passed through
Marquette, which we'd visited last
time, and now set a course for nearby
Dead River Falls. The drive to the falls took us down a long and winding backroad through
dense forest land, where we came upon an old, rickety bridge that had once
served as the main road. Here there was a cache — a cool one called "
Brain Box"
(
GC5FEJX), which I stopped to find. The falls lay very
nearby, and there was another cache there to be found — "
Boris"
(
GC66VTC) — which was even cooler, especially since I'd given up
looking for it and Kimberly ended up finding it far from where it was supposed
to reside. Kind of a scary fellow, this Boris.
The falls themselves were scenic, if not quite as spectacular as many of the
waterfalls we visited on our last trip. The hike to them, though, was
memorable for its rugged character and many sheer dropoffs, which required
extreme caution to navigate. We survived it all; even Kimberly failed to
bounce on her butt, as she has been known to do on occasion in rugged terrain.
Most of the rest of the day we spent on the road. We stopped for lunch at a
place called
Skipper's
in
L'Anse, for groceries in
Houghton — at the Walmartz (eek!) —
and snagged another couple of caches. We planned to make chili for dinner this
evening, and we thought we'd done so well by not forgetting anything at the
store. We did have everything — except the ground beef, which Ms. B. remembered when
we were about five minutes from our place. Around we turned and drove twenty
minutes back to the village of
Lake Linden, which was the closest
outpost of civilization to us. Mission accomplished, we hit the road again,
took up residence in the very nice B&B, cooked chili, drank wine, and
watched
Hocus Pocus as a prelude to the
Halloween season.
Despite the occasional pokey peasant on the roadways, I found nothing
displeasing about this day. Over and out, for now.
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Old abandoned bridge on the way to Dead River Falls
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Along the treacherous trail on the way to the falls
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Standing on the precipice
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The provisional Casa di Rodan along the shores of Portage Lake on
Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula
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Monday, September 19, 2022
Today was a day of waterfalls, trails, and very high precipices. After a
light breakfast, Ms. B. and I headed out to find a couple of noteworthy
waterfalls in the area:
Douglass Houghton Falls and
Hungarian Falls, both a relatively short drive from our lodgings (only about twenty UP miles,
which translates to about 100 nautical miles or perhaps 66 country miles).
Houghton Falls was our first destination. To my surprise, when I looked at the
geocaching map, I learned there was a brand new cache near the falls, as yet
unclaimed. How cool is that! At the trailhead, we hiked out about half a mile,
where we had to cross the creek above the waterfall — which, at 110 feet, is the
highest in Michigan. Fortunately, we didn't fall in or get washed over the
falls. However, once we reached the far side... holy cowz... what a view! The
trail took us along a dizzying cliff, sometimes so close to a sheer drop-off of
at least 150 feet or so that I was actually a little nervous — largely for
Brugger's sake because, in the past, she has managed to sit down real hard in
rugged terrain. Sitting down real hard here might just be the end of you.
Douglass Houghton Falls is actually located on private land, and due to people
plummeting, the falls were closed to the public for a time. However, some
while back, they reopened, and now that I've seen them, I'm mighty glad they
did. It's all too easy to understand how someone might plummet from the
summit, though.
Fortunately, not only did we avoid any hard sit-downs (or plummeting), we
managed to get some of the most spectacular waterfall views I have ever
seen. And, to boot, I got a first-to-find on that new cache out there. What
a morning!
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Ms. B. on the edge
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View of Douglass Houghton Falls from the high precipice
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After Houghton Falls, we made the relatively short jaunt into the village of
Lake Linden, where, after some trial and error, we found a usable
trailhead into Hungarian Falls, which isn't anywhere near as large as Douglass
Houghton, but the falls are incredibly scenic and the trail leading to them
runs along the top of a dizzying ridge through the forest. There was another
cache here to grab... so I grabbed it.
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Old dude standing on another precipice, this one overlooking Hungarian
Falls
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Ms. B. pauses on the "bridge" across the stream to get a photo of
Hungarian Falls
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A Brugger's-eye view of the waterfall
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Old dude taking a breather in a handy little alcove above the falls
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By now, Brugger and I were starving, so we drove down to the town of
Houghton, which we'd passed through on our way to our lodgings. We
found a lovely little spot called
Chicago Beefs, where they specialize in Chicago-style Italian beef sandwiches. During my
time in Chicago, those decades back, Italian beef sandwiches rated among my
favorite things on Earth. Make no mistake, Chicago Beefs' are definitely good,
but they lacked just a little of the
zing of Chicago's best.
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Smoke on the water...
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From there, we wandered around town, stopped at a few shops that Brugger
wanted to check out, and grabbed a handful of caches. We found a nice little
restaurant/bar called
The Library, where you can eat, drink, and read in a comfy, book-themed environment. Ms.
B. had a Chardonnay, and I enjoyed an exceptionally good dirty martini. This
hit the spot for some mid-afternoon spirits. Before heading back to our place,
we stopped at
Roy's Pasties & Bakery, where we snagged a couple of pasties to take home for dinner. When you're
in the UP, you eat pasties. No exceptions. These were delicious.
After dinner, just as the sun was setting, we went out by the lake front to
our little firepit and built a roaring fire, which we sat around for maybe an
hour and a half, with a bottle of wine to keep us company (it departed partway
through the fire, which we found rather rude). But what a lovely evening to be
outside! Eventually, we wandered back in and watched
Primal Rage, a killer Bigfoot movie that
both Brugger and I find immensely entertaining.
Tomorrow, we plan to meet one of Kim's cousins for breakfast and then...
another expedition into new territory, at least for us, in the UP. Till then.
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A "Yooperlite™": the minerals in the rock glow under the beam of a UV
flashlight. Ms B. picked up
a couple at a rock shop we visited.
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They also had dinosaurs.
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Darkness falls over Portage Lake
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More to come....
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