Ruth and Alan's Excellent Adventure: Bethany's Super Yuper Road Trip!

Happy Labor Day everyone! We're back at Hurvitz North, enjoying a restful week with Steven, who flew in from Anchorage to Traverse City last night. Before Steven joined us, however, we decided it was time for Bethany to take a road trip with us; we decided to spend a couple of days in the Upper Peninsula, hereinafter referred to as the "UP" (sorry, I haven't used the phrase "hereinafter referred to" in 10 weeks now but old habits die hard). One of the things we like about Charlevoix is that it is a very useful base to explore much of the rest of the state; less than an hour from either Traverse City or the Mackinac Bridge; a little over 3 hours to Munising, and so forth. So we dropped Danny off at University of Michigan (Go Blue, Danny!) and headed for Charlevoix. We could have gone to Munising as a day trip from there, but we have never taken Bethany overnight with us anywhere but Charlevoix, so we decided to stay overnight in the UP and take Bethany on her first road trip.

We wanted to take a leisurely and scenic drive, so once we crossed the bridge we took US 2 West, which follows the Northern shore of Lake Michigan. We're glad we did; we came across a fantastic bridge, known as the "Cut River Bridge". It was constructed during World War II whenever steel was available and spans a river to Lake Michigan. It soars over the tree tops in Cut River Valley in a heavily forested area and there are walkways across and under the bridge, including a boardwalk leading to the shores of Lake Michigan. It is a cantilevered bridge, which accounts for the heavy steel structure, a style that is fairly rare in Michigan.

Really cool infrastructure

Looking down into the Cut River Valley forest

After a picnic lunch on the shores of Lake Michigan we drove to Munising, which is a small city on the shores of Lake Superior and is an excellent base to explore both the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and a large number of waterfalls, all created by the "Munising Formation", a rock structure of limestone and sandstone that extends across a good portion of the Eastern UP. We knew about Pictured Rocks but the waterfalls were a very pleasant surprise. There are well over a dozen of them in the immediate Munising area and even more within a short drive away. They pop up right on the road:

Some are short walks from the parking area through a boardwalk or groomed trail:

Munising Falls

Bethany enjoying Munising Falls

Wagner Falls

And some require a bit of a hike but are well worth it

Miners Falls

Tannery Falls

We took a sunset cruise to view Pictured Rocks. Pictured Rocks was the first officially designated National Lakeshore; it is 15 miles of lakeshore along Lake Superior featuring sandstone cliffs. The sandstone is porous and soft, the water table is higher than the shoreline, and as a result water seeps through the rocks, carrying minerals which create the different colors. Additionally, the crashing waves are constantly sculpting the cliffs, creating "sculptures', caves, and cave-ins. Some of the sculptured rocks truly look like the things they are named after:

Miner's Castle

Indian Head

Chapel Rock

Some of the caves and arches were very dramatic

As beautiful as the sculptures of the cliffs were, the colors caused by minerals seeping and dripping were breathtaking; the colors change depending on the light of day and close to sunset was really a great time to enjoy them

(if you go, try to sit on the right side of the boat towards the center; a guy who lives there told us to do that and he was right)

Between the waterfalls and Pictured Rocks we thought we had seen the real beauty of the area, but we decided that Bethany could use a swim so we went to one of the local beaches on Lake Superior. As much as we love Lake Michigan, Lake Superior is......well....... just superior. The size of Lake Superior is overwhelming; it has more cubic volume than the other four great lakes combined; if you filled a swimming pool with the water from Lake Superior to a depth of five feet the area of the pool would be greater than the area of the United States; it is the deepest, coldest, purest, clearest, etc. etc. It is spectacular and the beach we were at was lovely.

And Bethany enjoyed swimming in the cold, clear water.

We loved Munising, even its self deprecating sense of humor. There are a lot of jokes told by the locals about the 200 plus inches of snow they get every year and the lack of cultural activities. They even have an interesting slogan for their city:

After we left Munising, we stopped at Tahquamenon Falls. We had both been there as kids, but hadn't been back in decades. The beauty speaks for itself:

It was a great couple of days; Bethany was perfect; it may have been her first road trip but we know it won't be her last! She loved the hotel and, of course, the car.