Friday, September 30, 2011

I Will Not Let My Backache Slow Us Down

Tuesday, July 27,2010

Around 8:30 Tuesday morning, we finally left camp for the day. Our first stop was the Calumet waterworks city park. No one was around and we had a mile of Lake Superior beach before us.

Dino could romp and play in the water. He wasn’t used to such serious waves and the first one kind of freaked him out, but after that he thought it was great. He had such a good time.

Our next stops were the Lakeview Cemetery just west of Calumet, the spot in the road that was once the mining town of Cliff, the Phoenix Church, and Eagle River Falls. We drove by Jacob Falls, but we did stop at the Jampot which is just past the Falls. Remember this is the bakery owned and operated by an order of monks, and they make fantastic baked goods and jams. Bought some goodies that we just did not need, but it is vacation.

Eagle Harbor was next on the map. I saw a cute old school down a side street and directed Himey that way. Bonus, the old school was next to a park which had nice clean restrooms open to the public.

We had lunch at my favorite place, Essery Roadside Park. Dino actually laid down and stopped panting for a few minutes. You could tell my back was hurting because I didn’t climb all over the cool rocks being beaten by the Lake Superior waves. Plus, it was hot. 86 degrees at that point and humid.

We didn’t tour Copper Harbor or Fort Wilkins, but we did explore Manganese Falls. It is just a narrow creek, but runs through a really deep gorge. You definitely have to get off the trail here and explore to find the top of the falls where you can really see it.From the fence with its warning signs (“deep gorge – caution”), you can’t see a thing.

We headed further up the road in search of Estivant Pines. We got there and started up the trail, until we got to the sign which read that the loop was 1.2 miles. You know that my back had to be hurting at this point, as I gave in and asked Himey if we could turn around and go back to the Blazer.

Back at Copper Harbor, we naturally had to stop for ice cream. Himey even bought Dino a small dish of plain vanilla. Both my guys are so spoiled.

We took the Brockway Mountain Drive back to Eagle Harbor. Wow, what a beautiful drive, fantastic views of Lake Superior and all the surrounding forests when you get to the top. Though it was overcast, we could still see for what was forever.

Dino just loves the water
Essery Roadside Park

View from atop Brockway Mountain

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