Day 12 began with another scenic jaunt to the visitors center to try to catch up on the blog and reconnect with the outside world. You can see from this pic what effect the rising water levels of Superior are having on the coastline. It has gotten so bad that there is a $13M proposal on the table to relocate the highway further inland if the current measures prove ineffective.
My office. The WiFi router is about 4 feet away on the other side of this wall.
Based on the signal strength, I believe this is the setup.
After yesterday's jampacked day of activities, today was mostly a travel day, as we turn toward home and head to Fayette Historic State Park.
We took a bit of a meandering route as I wanted to explore the southwestern portion of the UP, where every town is named after Iron. Ironwood, Iron River, Iron Mountain - where, coincidentally, if you have watched more than 1 minute of Detroit Lions football (Superbowl champs 2021), you perhaps have heard ELEVENTY BILLION TIMES that Tom Izzo and Steve Mariucci were childhood friends that grew up on the mean streets of Iron Mountain.
Neither coach has ever shyed away from a camera, so I knew that we were in for a barrage of memorabilia as we chose our lunch stop in the heart of Iron Mountain.
First telltale sign - Spartan S on the entryway.
Front desk - the only known photo in existence of Izzo not crying or berating a referee:
Once we were seated, we perused the menu and were reminded that this town is minutes from the Wisconsin border.
I give you - the Combination Junk Basket.
The next few hours did anything but fly by. The ensuing gutrot and sleepiness that followed the fryer basket dipped in ranch was tough to battle through, but eventually we were greeted by this, after shedding the momentary cell coverage in nearby Escanaba for zero bars and a return to 1989.
We set up camp on our 13'x16' site after trying to understand the interesting layout of the campground (I know what these campers will love - let's have the sites facing each other and put the firepits 6 feet from each other because all travelers will instantly become best friends!), then attempted the 'path to the beach' only to find out that since the water was 4 feet higher than normal, that path now included a 200 yard walk through the lake across jagged rocks. So far, off to a good start.
We trudged back to the campsite, jumped in the Jeep, and drove the mile & a half to get to the beach 200 yards from our site. After walking to the first beach stairway to find it closed for repair, we just laughed and accepted what today had become. We relocated to the south end of the parking lot to attempt another beach entrance, when we walked past the widowmaker of playground equipment from our youth.
Kimberly and I witnessed several kids get crippled on a set of monkey bars very similar to this back in '78, when an open head wound was treated by Mrs. Blouwkamp by applying a stick of butter to it. We told Jordan to wait until she was covered in water and sand before she could play on it to maximize the experience.
The glorious and successful entrance to the beach via staircase #2.
The picturesque reveal, only to realize the water was perhaps 41 degrees and the bottom of the lake included a 20' band of sharpened rocks to traverse while you approached hypothermia.
Once we actually acclimated, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would make the best of this place and chalk today up to a travel day.
Along that line of thinking, and since we had no cell signal or map, we decided to go for a bit of a drive and see what there was to be seen.
We arrived at this little gem, tucked away on a little residential side street with a beautiful view of the bay and a single parking place to take in said view.
Exhausted from the day, we made our way back to the site, people-watched for a while as every new camping family arrived and attempted to navigate the tiny, peculiarly oriented sites. It is a fascinating social experiment to watch people who clearly have no interest in social interaction feign politeness while simultaneously pretending their new neighbors do not exist.
Our solution - focus on the campfire, laugh about today's misadventures, and come up with a loose plan for the next day.
Tomorrow - Big Spring and a return to Manistique, a frequent business travel destination (seriously) for Kimberly in a previous job.
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