What else perks me up?

August 16, 2009, Sunday

If you read Monday’s blog, you remember I was a bit disappointed at the ghost town of Old Victoria, in Michigan’s UP. We didn’t stay long, but our next stop made up for it. The Rockland cemetery. Nothing perks me up quite like an old cemetery and the chance to grill Himey on his profession. I love it when he talks shop, telling me that he won’t allow this or that in his cemetery or that he would mow this or that over. Lots of old monuments.

We probably got back to Rockland at 1:00 and ate lunch in the car in the parking lot of the Rockland Museum. Had leftover chicken and fries from dinner last night, raw carrots and cauliflower, and potato chips. After we got done eating, we naturally had to go inside, mostly so I could wash my hands. So we had to look at the museum too, which was actually pretty nice, lots of little exhibits, impressive though for such a small town.

As we hit the road, I started pawing through the maps trying to plan my next move and decide if we would try to come back to Old Victoria on the way home, and how we could get there without totally retracing out steps. So we went all the way east to Keweenaw Bay instead of cutting straight up to Houghton. I don’t think I had ever been on that road, Hwy 38 to Baraga, so that was nice, except that the weather was still dreary and rainy off and on. Last we drove up along the water to the Ramada Inn, sitting on the canal next to the lift bridge.

When you don't get the blizzard you want

August 16, 2009, Sunday

The weather was not looking promising as we left home for vacation a little after eight this morning. I couldn't decide where to stop first or even which route to take to our destination Hancock in Michigan’s UP.

I finally made up my mind to go to Agate Falls. It is just off of Hwy 45, on Hwy 28, south of Bruce Crossing. You get to it on a trail from the Joseph E. Oravec roadside park. It is a cute little park, along the middle branch of the Ontonagon River.

From the park, you walk on a paved path, and then a boardwalk for maybe a quarter mile, under the highway and under an old railroad trestle to get there. The trestle is the coolest part. You can’t really get close to the falls; just view it from the observation platform at the end of the trail. But then we crawled up a rabbit path to the trestle, which is now a snowmobile trail. What a view from up there, would probably be even cooler though, if I wasn’t so terrified of heights.

A little ways up the road, Hwy 45 goes through the little village of Rockland. From there we took the Victoria Dam Road four miles to Old Victoria, a mining town from the 1800’s that is being restored. I have always wanted to go there, and didn’t think anything of it when there was a sign on the turn-off that said “Craft Fair Old Victoria today”. We easily found the little spot in the road known as Victoria. There were about four log cabins, a couple sheds, a few ruins, along with 12 or so venders with their canopy tents selling their homemade goods.

I would have been ok with it, because they had some cool homemade crafts and things, but you know how it is when you have your heart set on a cookie dough blizzard and you get a Reese’s pieces blizzard instead? It is just kind of made me sad.