caracolina

We took a short drive at sunrise to find a nice view of the Copper Harber Lighthouse which is only accessible by boat on a tour, which sounds interesting and would be something to come back for. After breakfast at the Tamarack Inn (where I enjoyed the Hangover Hash) we stopped at one of two gas stations in town to fill up and ended up chatting with the proprietor, Jake Anderson, for over an hour. Jake is trying to sell the gas station so that he can concentrate on his other venture, a dive shop. While diving wouldn’t have been the first thing coming to my mind when thinking of the Great Lakes, the clear lake waters and the possibility to find gemstone quality agate sure are convincing arguments.

Our road south took us through the most amazing fall foliage we had seen. It was hard not to stop every few trees for more leaf photos. A few hours and not a lot of miles later we passed Donna, who, near her lakeside house, was looking for something in the ditch by the road. John and I looked at each other: Should we go back and ask what she was doing? We turned around and not only learned that she was picking cranberries for cooking but also found out that the ditch was a great place for picking blueberries! We collected a bag full of berries which we would treasure and enjoy for the next days.

Shortly thereafter we passed through the town of Gay which is named after a person but has since then learned to make best use of the town name by hosting the annual “Gay Parade” on 4th of July. Similarly, the town’s only pub, the Gay Bar, sports a line of t-shirts and souvenirs. We stopped at the Gay Bar for a lunch of hot dogs – I also had a beer, trying to blend in with the locals. 

Something I hadn’t known about the UP is that this used to be and still is to an extent, mining country. There are a number ofhistoric mining facilities that the interested traveler can explore. We looked into taking a tour of the Quincy Mine in Houghton but the timing just wasn’t right and rushing through wouldn’t have done it justice so we decided to put this on our list of things to come back to. We did take a peak at some of the abandoned buildings as well as easily accessible exhibits such as the cars that were used to haul people, ore, and water in and out of the mine.

Outside of Hancock we ran into a “yarn store” sign that seemed to point into the forest but really led us to a shop that is set up through the entirety of a lady’s house. We chatted with the two women running it while I fondled the wares, marveled at the looms and spinning wheels for sale and eventually decided on two skeins of mohair to bring back as gifts.

When we drove through Michigamme on Highway 41 we saw the Mount Shasta Lodge with a big sign that it once served as the filming location for the movie “Anatomy of a Murder.” That and the promise of walleye drew us inside. We enjoyed our dinner and I made a note to get this film from Netflix upon our return. We had dessert at the Jasper Ridge Brewery in Ishpeming where John feasted on an apple dumpling a la mode and I had a pint of October Fest. We found a very reasonable place for the night in Marquette right on Lake Superior, the Birchmont Motel.