We are near Munising, Michigan, in a little town called Christmas. I think it's known for getting lots of Santa letters each winter. We are staying in our first national forest, which means no services, but it is much cooler now than it was at the Sault, so we don't have to run the a/c and we are in the shade. It is actually quite lovely, and only $12 a day. We are right on Lake Superior (well, a quick path's walk away--our spot isn't right on the lake, but it is level, more important to us) and Mark and Katie enjoyed the cool lake water while I drove over and did our laundry the first afternoon we arrived.

Below are pics of our woodsy and quiet spot.



Katie took those last two.

Here is our spot as seen from down the street:

There are two spots right on the water; Katie made friends with a couple girls next to us and they nabbed this spot, a choice one, by watching closely who was leaving and when:

I am tempted to drop our reservations at the full-service campground for tomorrow, and stay here another three days. But there is no electricity, no water hookup, no sewer--it will feel nice to have those again. But we will miss the beauty. It is a tough trade-off.

There are wonderful rocks to gather here on the beaches, good skipping stones too. I think Lake Superior has superior rocks. Mark skipped one about ten times the other day.

I bought a book on Lake Superior's rocks. Turns out that this is where the country tried to rip into two, about a billion years ago. Didn't work, but there is a lot of basalt here, which erodes down into good, grey skipping stones.

I am still slowly reading my mom's book, but it is not exactly light summer reading, so to supplement it, I'm reading Around the World in 80 Dates, which is surely light summer reading, thanks to my girlfriend Angie. There is little to do out here in the woods, except read, so Mark is finally reading my last-year's birthday present, Aron Ralston's account of amputating his own arm to free himself on a hike, Between a Rock and a Hard Place. He reads fast, so he'll be done before we leave tomorrow.

Tonight I cook homemade chili, which will be fun. Katie might help. I made her a "baby Bjorn" out of her old overall tops, this morning. She likes carrying her baby in it. Also, we ran the generator, while Mark and Katie bought tickets for us to see the local "pictured rocks" on a nighttime cruise tonight. Can't wait for that.

The evening cruise went great. The rocks were pretty in the sunset, and there were sweet little girls near us for Katie to play with on the boat. Here are the pictures:


The mom and her little girls. They were very nice, the whole family.

You can hardly look both ways along the street without seeing a lighthouse here. Here is one we saw on the cruise:

There were lots of rock formations like these:

This tree is only living because its roots are still stretched across to get to the soil (see them--they look sort of like a rope). There used to be a rock bridge (see the older picture below):

July 14 - 17
Wandering Wheels Campground
Munising, Michigan

July 14

Today we left for the next campground, which is a whopping 8 miles away, in Munising, the town over. It's got electricity, water, sewer, and even cable (Tour de France). It's very shady and we just got here--I'll take a picture later. I like it a lot, but the national forest was prettier and much much closer to the water. on the way over, we mailed some post cards from the Christmas post office, and took a couple pics:

I know what Mrs. Claus is looking at on that sign.

I almost forgot--before we left the last spot, we wandered over to the furnace, an old iron blast furnace. It was built in the mid 1800s and I thought was quite beautiful. I guess there were about 40 of them in this area back then; now just two ruins remain.

There is one spot in Munising with free wireless Internet, and it just happens to be a fabulous used book store & ice cream shop. If we could have just lived in the back...anyway, Mark went there about three times I think. Here it is:

We drove out to see one of the places we rode by on the boat cruise, Miner's Rock. Here it is from above:

And here we are at it, with Mark pretending to horse around with Katie (the shot ain't real):

Then we checked out Miner's Beach, below. It had great sand--big grains that didn't stick to your feet or hands. I pilfered some sand in an old water bottle, while Katie played Barbarella in her Spongebob undies:

For dinner, we bought a local beef & rutabega pasty, and liked it a lot. It is kind of like a shepard's pie, and quite good.

Friday

The largest town in the upper peninsula of Michigan (around here they just call it the UP) is Marquette, and it is only 35 miles away, so we're gonna go check it out today.

Well we wandered around, Mark got his haircut while Katie and I went to the really wonderful local children's museum (apparently the local college's art professor helped design the pieces there, which are jam-packed into their building, and each look homemade but lovingly so.

That cockpit is real, with all the old instrumentation left inside. The kids can press buttons and pull levers, and a few of them are hooked to the lights and stuff. Katie had a great time, and I brought my laptop and was able to get us our Yellowstone reservations for just after Labor Day. When Mark was done, we walked through the old downtown, and found this candy store, which has been in the same family for 109 years:

The old guy running it seemed tired, and said "yeah, it's a lot of work, but we're still around." I'm glad they are. It was sweet looking through their chocolates and candies. Katie chose a candy necklace, I got fudge (finally--they don't let you leave Michigan without it).

Saturday

The local volunteer fire department held a rummage sale and auction / bazaar on Saturday, and Katie and I drove out to it. It was about 100 degrees in the sun, but if anyone fainted, there were plenty of firemen to assist. I bid on some antique? tin baking toys in a silent auction, Katie bought a baby bassinet/stroller for 50 cents, and I enjoyed rummaging through the tables of old kitchen utensils and books. Katie played in a bouncy house.

The live auction wasn't too exciting (when we walked over, they were selling tourist T-shirts and mugs), but we bought a bratwurst and a lemon bar at the bake sale, and then walked back to the silent auction, which was about to end.

A mean-looking woman was bidding up my toys. She was too old to have kids, and too mean-looking to be a grandma (I can't explain it, she just was), so I figured she must be a dealer. I waited for her, then checked. She'd opened initially at $2, (then I had bid $3) and now she was bidding $4. I waited for her to finish and walk off, then I wandered over and raised it up to $5 (a little more than I wanted to pay). It was about 4 minutes till the bidding was over, and I figured she probably didn't plan to bid again. But she must have seen me.

She raised to $6 -- more than the stuff is worth! But I didn't like her, and I wanted that mini cupcake tin in that lot, so I walked over to bid again. She was looking the other way, talking to a man, and the announcer said, "final bids" and I quickly scrawled $7 before the announcer said to lay the pens down. I knew I'd won, and she didn't know yet. I felt elated, but sad I was about to spend $7 for something I'd pay about $2.50 for at a garage sale.

Well, it was an extremely hot afternoon, and the people running this thing didn't know what they were doing. They had about 30 of us waiting to find out the results, and they bumbled their way through 40 minutes, getting about six people taken care of. I was number 38, and didn't want to wait another hour for my overpriced item, so I gave it to mean-looking lady, told her I had to leave early and she could win it. oh well, I left with enough money to do laundry that afternoon.

Next we are off to Wisconsin! more from there...