Back to Camping in the UP

Wednesday, July 28

I sprung out of bed around five Wednesday, because when I looked out the camper window the sun was just coming up. I raced off to the beach, watched the sunrise along Lake Superior and took way too many pictures. That is the wonderful thing about digital cameras – I can delete half these pictures without wasting a thing.

By 8:30 we were ready to roll and drove back to the Waterworks Park near Calumet, just so the Dino-master could play. Today the waves were much higher, white caps actually. Oh, my gosh, the dog was so funny. He’d wade out to his belly and then try to hold his ground as a wave approached. Just as it was about to hit him, he would turn and run back to shore, but never made it. The water was always faster.

When we left there we went down the road to Schoolcraft Cemetery just east of Calumet. Wow, what a sad place. Most of the burials were from the late 1800s, but the whole place was in total disrepair, trees and brush have taken over. Some of the headstones were fantastic, huge monoliths, but most were tipped over and sometimes broken in half. I just feel so bad when cemeteries look like that. I mean, even if the family is all gone or moved away, there still needs to be respect for their remains. All those people who died in the UP in the 1880s and 1890s made huge contributions to their communities, just by living and working there and keeping the mining industry going as long as they could. It seems such a shame.

Next we tried to find Gratiot Falls. Out of Ahmeek, there is a road called Five Mile Point Road, which is a scenic byway to Lake Superior. Along this road are the Farmer’s Block Roads (north, south and west). Very near these roads, on one of the maps I have, is a dot for Upper Gratiot Falls and one for Lower Gratiot Falls. As we drove along, we found a sign for Gratiot Falls Trailhead, so we thought, hot dog, that must take us there.

Well, we walked and walked and walked. I need to start carrying a pedometer; we had to have hiked a couple miles. Luckily this wasn’t just a trail, but was a logging road in better shape than a lot of the Michigan roads I’ve been on. But you can only wander the forest for so long before you say, maybe this isn’t going anywhere. I will have to try to find this on Google Earth and see if we were anywhere close to anything.