Busy Day in Michigan

Good morning, my friends. We have a very weak cell signal here in Tahquamenon Falls State Park, and, as you might guess, I have a lot of pictures to show you. I'm not at all sure I can write a post this morning, but we'll give it a try. Let's just start with this one picture I shot of the beach back in Munising before we hitched up and left. The sun came out for the first time during our visit, and the lake and surrounding area are so much prettier when there is some color.

Okay, well...that was just one picture uploading, and it took some time. Also, I have videos to show you, and so this won't post until I have better internet access. We'll keep going until I get too frustrated to continue. Here's another picture. Before we left, I had some time to finish off another section of my stitchery.

There isn't much to say about yesterday's drive. We drove straight two-lane roads, lined with trees, for most of the day. Our plan was to stay one night in the state park, but we passed it by the first time.

We were headed up the road a piece to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. What an interesting place!

The museum is a constellation of around 8 buildings, 5 of which were open for exploration yesterday. I was most interested in the lighthouse, as you might guess.

Here's a shot of the lighthouse and the lighthouse keeper's residence.

Okay. Well, this is going to take too long with such slow data. It's going to take longer to upload the pictures than it will to write about them...and you know how verbose I can be. We have about a 200-mile drive to Traverse City today. I'll come back later and finish up. 

* * * * *

Pardon me for that interruption. We are 200 miles down the road now, and I have five bars of cell service and good internet access. Shall we go on? 

Okay...so getting back to the lighthouse, I think the reason I enjoy lighthouses so much is that there are always some wonderful vintage quilts inside. Besides, I would have loved being the lighthouse keeper's wife. Mike admits he'd like being a lighthouse keeper too, so it's all good. The kitties have yet to weigh in.

Checking inside, the first thing I noticed was yet another Fresnel lens. 

Here's a little information about the lighthouse itself. It was Whitefish Point's first lighthouse.

Looking inside where the lighthouse keeper lived with his family, this was a sort of all-purpose room. 

Heading upstairs, we could get a look at the bedroom. One presumes this was the master bedroom, with the cradle next to the window.

Here's a close-up of that quilt.

This would probably have been a child's room.

Here's a close-up of that brightly colored quilt.

Here's a little information about what it might have been like to live here as a child.

In yet another bedroom...

Here's a close-up of that quilt.

This next one was hanging on a rack in one of the bedrooms.

Here, you can see a close-up of the hand quilting.

And just one more, hanging on a rack behind the rocking chair.

Here's a close-up.

Finally, the nursery.

Here's a close-up of the quilt in the crib.

Here's what it might have been like to be a part of the lighthouse keeper's family.

Back downstairs, there were a few more rooms.

Looking in the other direction from the image above, there was an organ in the corner. The child sitting on the floor there is a mannequin.

Here's the dining room.

There was a sewing machine in the corner.

Here's a close-up of that.

Here's the kitchen. The woman in the back there is also a mannequin.

Leaving the house, we passed through the lighthouse keeper's office. He's also a mannequin, but he looked so real, we both stood and watched for a moment to see if he would move.

Outside, there was a memorial to the Edmund Fitzgerald that is one of the shipwrecks in Lake Superior.

We could walk out onto an observation deck. Looking left, it looked like this:

Looking right, it looked like this:

And let's just talk a little more about the Edmund Fitzgerald. There was a 20 minute video about its story. Here's a little information about some of the other shipwrecks in Lake Superior.

Here's some information about the Edmund Fitzgerald. And, I was surprised by this. I had the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald as something of a folk story that happened in the 1800's...perhaps because of Gordon Lightfoot's folk song about it. I was surprised to learn it happened in 1975, the year Mike and I were married.

Here's a scale model of it.

The family members of the crew, all of whom went down with the ship, wanted the bell brought up as a permanent memorial. Given that it sank in 530 feet of water, this was quite an undertaking that involved the use of this suit. It's kind of like an underwater spacesuit.

Here's what it looked like.

The bell was brought up, and another polished bell with the names of the crew members replaced it on the shipwreck. The actual bell from the ship hangs as a permanent memorial in the museum.

Here's what the plaque below says:

Okay, and so our last stop was inside the gift shop where I picked up a shot glass and a refrigerator magnet. Oh, and you didn't think I was leaving without more fudge, did you?

From there, we headed back to the campground to unhitch and take a little breather. On our way, we were amused by this mailbox. I was dealing with very bad reflections on the windshield in this picture, and so with a little bit of careful and crappy photo-editing, I think you can see what we saw. This is for winter delivery of the mail. It's a mailbox hung approximately 15 feet high...to get above the snow, doncha know.

We still had waterfalls to visit at Tahquamenon Falls State Park. On our way back to the campground, we crossed over where the Tahquamenon River drains into Lake Superior.

We had to stop to fill our fresh water tank. There happened to be two woodpeckers there, hopping around on the ground nearby, and seemingly, unafraid of humans and trucks towing fifth wheels. This is the Pileated Woodpecker.

I took a lot of pictures of him.

Then, a second one showed up.

Well...I didn't post all 564 pictures that I took, but you get the idea.

We had a nice secluded spot at the campground. 

As you might guess, nothing would do until we got Smitty out for a walk. We looked this way...

And that way...

And up there...

Until, finally, we honed in on some delicious Meowchigan grass.

When he'd eaten his fill, we headed out to the Lower Tahquamenon Falls. It doesn't look like much from across the river. Look carefully, though, and you'll see that the river splits and flows around a small island, and there are two low waterfalls there.

To get a better look, we took a half-mile boardwalk out to the "brink" of the falls.

Tread carefully, my friends.

It was a waterfall cascading from many terraced levels.

Looking left, it looked like this:

Of course, waterfalls are always more impressive when you can see and hear them. I give you this video. If you can't see the video, then click on the title of this post to be taken to the actual blog, where you should be able to see it.

From there, we still wanted to see the Upper Falls, some four miles up the road. There, we found these helpful notes.

And, again, from a distance, it doesn't look like much.

For this, we needed to descend some 96 steps. There was another end to this trail where one could see the "gorge view" of the waterfall. There, we would have had to descend 116 steps. We really just wanted to see the "brink" again.

And there it is!

Looking left, we saw this:

But you really want to see the video again, don't you? Same rules apply if you can't see the video.

Well. Our shadow selves were ready to call it a day, but first, we had to ascend those steps.

Back up at the top, we noticed the North Country National Scenic Trail ran through the park. Remember when we first encountered it way back at Sunne Farm in Fort Ransom State Park in North Dakota? It has criss-crossed our journey ever since.

Nearby, and indeed, in other places, we noticed the blue blaze marking the trail.

Okay...well, if you're still with me, you must be tired. We did a lot of walking and stair-climbing during this post. I congratulate you. You must have been working out to get through all of that and still be keeping up. You're not even breathing hard!

Now we're 200 miles down the road, but I'm blogged out for the day. I'll tell you about today's drive and tomorrow's plans in tomorrow's post.