I recently got a new job and quit my old one, and I had several weeks of built-up vacation from my old job that I cashed out when I quit. Since I'd be paid for not working for a few weeks and my new employer wasn't in a big hurry for me to start, Molly and I decided to take a road trip. It's been a weird year for everything, travel included, and we'd been sticking to short camping and cabin trips. At this point in the year, we thought we could responsibly do a longer driving trip to a lightly-populated area where we'd do a mix of camping and hotel stays.
Our original plan was to head West to the Dakotas and Wyoming, but there were enough wildfires and fire restrictions in that direction that we didn't think we could stay warm enough camping. So, our Plan B was to head south through Missouri and Arkansas and back through Memphis and Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. However, as soon as we got that plan roughed out, two tropical storms began their path through the gulf, which would have sent five-plus days of rain to the Ozarks starting right when we were going to arrive at our first campsite. Since Canada is currently off-limits, we decided the U.P. was our best bet. Neither of us had been there before, and Molly hadn't experienced the joys of the lower peninsula, either. It was pretty good! Thanks to everyone who loaned us camping gear and gave advice on where to go and what to do.
Here's the basic outline of our route:
Friday, August 28: Two Rivers, Wisconsin
We drove from Minneapolis to Two Rivers, Wisc., stopping at the Thorpedo Family Restaurant in Thorp, Wisc., for lunch.
We checked into the Lighthouse Inn, walked over to the Hamilton Wood Type Museum and got a great tour from Molly’s friend from college, Stephanie, who is the museum director.
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| Keeping it in perspective at Hamilton |
We saw a pantagraph machine in operation and saw some of the museum’s collection of type from the Enquirer Printing Company. We had drinks with Steph and Molly’s college professor Tom on a balcony with a view of Lake Michigan. We went to Kurtz’s Bar for takeout and took it to the Schwartz House for a surprise Frank Lloyd Wright house tour. It was all pretty delightful.
Saturday, August 29: Marinette to AuTrain Lake Campground, Michigan
We had a very nice breakfast from the Lighthouse’s in-house restaurant and then hit the road for the UP. We got some great Thai food at Thai Express in Marinette, Mich., right after crossing the state line, and ate it next door on the shore of Lake Michigan, behind the Little Caesars and a health clinic. The only town of any size that we encountered after Marinette was Escanaba, where we stopped at a couple of thrift stores. Their school mascot is the Eskymos, complete with slant-eyed mascot on the water tower and everything. Yay.
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| That Eskinaba Mood, distilled |
After a stop for a short hike to check out AuTrain Falls, we made it to AuTrain Lake Campground in Hiawatha National Forest and set up camp. It was a tough night to make a fire, as it had rained earlier in the day and the wood we gathered was pretty wet, plus it was quite windy.
Sunday, August 30: Rock River Falls and Miner's Beach, Michigan
We headed from the campground to the Rock River Falls trailhead, which wasn’t very far distance-wise, but took forever because of some of the worst road I’ve ever driven on. It was more than our Passat wagon with limited ground clearance was expecting, but not more than it could handle. Check it out:
It was an all right hike and a decent waterfall, but all kinds of mosquitoes. It wasn’t a great bang for our buck.
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| Team Zissou audition photo |
From there, we drove to Munising, where Molly got an ice cream cone and some postcards while I zip-tied the plastic shroud on the front of our car back in place, which had come loose while driving through potholes on the way to Rock River Falls. We started at Munising Falls and Miner’s Castle, which were both a short walk from an easily-accessible parking lot, and were therefore very crowded. Next, we went to Miner’s Beach, which was slightly less easy to get to, much less crowded, and very cool.
We waded through a tea-colored stream, sat on a rock and watched a couple get engaged. It was very nice. We bought some firewood on the way back to camp which turned out to be wet, too. Molly made rice and beans, which was very good. The fire was bad, though, and it was a very cool, damp, and windy evening, which I hadn’t packed enough layers to stay warm enough to sleep in.
Monday, August 31: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan
We woke up, disassembled camp, and walked over to the observation deck adjacent to the campground on AuTrain Lake. We drove to Munising, and as soon as we got cell service, I received a voicemail that our kayaking trip along Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore was cancelled because of high winds. So, we went hiking to Chapel Rock instead. It was hard, but the view was worth the climb, metaphorically speaking.
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| Chapel Rockin' |
It was about a 7 mile hike over fairly flat terrain. The views along Lake Superior were great, and I think we got the idea even though we didn’t do the full 10-mile loop. We drove to Marquette, got takeout from Sol Aztecas mexican restaurant, checked into the Quality Inn, and collapsed.
Tuesday, September 1: Marquette, Michigan
We had breakfast at the hotel and went to Salvation Army so I could pick up a couple of extra layers for the nights that we were still to camp. We stopped at Koin King Laundromat and walked to the Superior Dome and through the neighborhoods around Northern Michigan University while our clothes washed and dried. We got lunch at the Fish Mqt food truck (fish & chips and fish tacos) and stopped at the St. Vincent de Paul on the way to Presque Isle, which is I believe a Marquette city park. It's a peninsula into Superior, close to town, and gorgeous.
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| Black Rocks from afar |
We scrambled on the Black Rocks and sat on a rocky beach. We took a rest stop at the hotel and went back to town and found a patio at Ore Dock Brewery after some looking. We got some ice cream at a local drive-in and talked to a friendly dad, and then we stopped a the food coop and got some cold-bar dinner, which we took back to the hotel and ate after we had some time in the hot tub.
Wednesday, September 2: Sugar Loaf Mountain and Hungarian Falls, Michigan
I got up and headed to the Econofoods across the parking lot from our hotel and found some Karo pancake syrup -- which is apparently extinct in Iowa and Minnesota grocery stores -- to bring back for my parents. After breakfast at the hotel, we checked out and headed to Sugar Loaf Mountain, which is just a few miles outside Marquette. It wasn’t a very long hike from the parking lot to the summit, maybe 25-30 minutes, but the view was really fantastic.
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| Atop Sugar Loaf |
You could see downtown Marquette, Presque Isle, the adjacent peak of Hogback Mountain, and a panorama of Lake Superior. It’s highly recommended. We stopped for lunch at Ralph’s Italian Delicatessen in Ishpeming, and it was fantastic.
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| They have a sign outside so you can tell where they're located |
We learned what a cudighi is (“a spicy Italian sausage seasoned with sweet spices that can be bought in links or served as a sandwich on a long, hard roll, often with mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce”) and ordered an Italian hero and an antipasto salad. We ate at a picnic table in the Al Quaal recreation area, which was a really nice city park with some of the tallest swingsets you’ll ever see. We tried those out and were satisfied. We drove to Houghton and Hancock, home of Michigan Tech, and stopped at their St. Vinny’s, which was weird. From there, we proceeded to Hungarian Falls, which was also excellent bang for our hiking buck (maybe 2 miles total of hiking got you views of three very solid waterfalls).
Our destination for the night was McLain State Park, and we drove through the faded copper mining towns of Laurium and Calumet on the way there. Some of the old buildings in Calumet were very cool. We were camping pretty close to the highway at the state park, but fortunately (?) the wind and sounds of the crashing surf from Lake Superior drowned out the traffic noise. Molly was an excellent tarp engineer and kept us dry, even though we had to get up in the middle of the night to re-pound one of the tarp stakes that had blown loose.
Thursday, September 3: Keeweenaw Peninsula, Michigan
Molly ended up sleeping in the car part of the night, which was quieter and better for her. We got a later start, but it was raining until 9:30 a.m. anyway, so we weren’t going to be able to do a whole lot outside anyway. We had breakfast at the campsite and headed north up the west side of the Keeweenaw Peninsula, Our first stop was at Jampot, a pastry and preserves shop run by the Society of St. John, where we met the nicest monk. The power was on & off while we were there, but we were able to get some pastries and jams without difficulty.
We drove on the Brockway Mountain Drive, which is supposedly the highest paved road between the Rockies and the Adirondacks. It was exceptionally windy the whole way, and at the overlook parking lot, there was a sign hanging by a thread.
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| We somehow angered the sea gods. |
After passing through Copper Harbor, we reached the end of U.S. Highway 41, and stopped at Ft. Wilkins Historic State Park on the way back into town. We bought some postcards in the gift shop and tried without success to find an old printing press in the restored barracks.
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| Very honest signage |
A few miles outside of Copper Harbor (after mailing some postcards at the Copper Harbor post office), we hiked the Estivant Pines loop, which featured gigantic 500-600 year old pine trees.
Very important: we saw a turtle crossing the gravel road while driving back after the hike. We tried to find the Mandan ghost town, but couldn’t locate anything other than a few old houses that were well-maintained and obviously occupied. We stopped at the Central Mine ghost town, where we saw the powder building and schoolhouse ruins, and Molly’s Appalachian dream house.
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| Powder Building at Central Mine |
We bought some firewood and headed back to camp for some tuna melts; our attempt to watch the sunset on the Superior beach adjacent to the campground was unsuccessful because of what had to be 40 mph winds and 50 degree temperatures.
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| Stupid Sexy Smokey |
Friday, September 4: Ontonagon and Lake of the Clouds, Michigan
We had breakfast and broke down the camp at McLain State Park and hit the road. We drove back through Houghton and stopped at Goodwill (where Molly did pretty well) and Econofoods for a grocery and water re-up. We took a slight detour to Old Victoria mining ghost town. All the buildings were closed per COVID, but there were cool old log cabin-type buildings. We stopped for lunch in Ontonagon and tried our first pasty of the trip from Syl’s Cafe. It was dry and bland, so we didn’t feel like we’d really been missing out on much up to that point. We ate our food on the Superior beach, and it was -- wait for it -- extremely windy. Molly scored at the St. Vinny’s with some sweet vintage sweaters. There were lots of ATV folks derping around on main street in Ontonagon. From there, we drove on to the Porcupine Mountains, where we summited the Lake of the Clouds overlook after an epic 5-minute walk from the parking lot.
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| No one had ever photographed Lake of the Clouds before; you're welcome |
Molly was super burned out on hiking by this point, and with it being the beginning of the Labor Day weekend, all the trailheads were very packed with mostly jerks, so we opted out and headed to a beach near our campground. Molly went agate hunting while I read before we retired to Site #79 at the Union Bay Campground for some beans and rice goodness.
We got up and broke down camp at Union Bay and headed to the camp store to ask about the canoe rentals that were advertised. It was the first time in several days that the winds were anywhere near calm, but they weren’t renting today because of either “weather” or “possible future weather.” The Porkies were getting more crowded by the minute, so we drove to Berglund instead, where it was rumored that there were businesses that would actually rent canoes. This turned out to be false, but they sold gasoline at least, which we needed. We finally found a canoe rental place in Watersmeet, Sylvania Outfitters, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Even though they weren’t located on the water, they rented us a canoe for $28 for the whole day, which included blocks and straps and help to load and unload it off our car.
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| Blocked, chocked and ready to rock |
After some fruitless effort to find a boat launch on Sucker Lake (should have seen that coming, I guess), we located a launch on Bass Lake and had a nice paddle for a couple hours, including some lunch on the water. After returning the boat, we headed westward on U.S. Highway 2. We stopped to see a cool old stone arch railroad bridge in Ramsey (the Keystone Black River Bridge), which is now part of the Iron Belle Bicycle Trail, which I believe had just opened that day.
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| Some sweet bridge-in-bridge action |
It was adjacent to a very nice city park in a town that otherwise wouldn’t have looked out of place in West Virginia. After a grocery stop at Super One Foods for bourbon, mint, and a chicken thigh (don't ask), we had a beer at Cold Iron Brewing in Ironwood. Based on the bartender’s recommendation, we grabbed a pizza at Pizza King Joe, which was a super weird building, but the pizza and junk salad (very little lettuce, mostly tomatoes and pickled vegetables and mushrooms) were both excellent. We checked into the beyond-excellent Cedars Motel and settled down with some mint juleps to watch the Kentucky Derby, as one does on Labor Day weekend. It was an odd, good time.
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| Much respect for the UP never putting the area code on any phone numbers |
Sunday, September 6: Cornucopia, Wisconsin and Points Southwest
After some breakfast in our room, we checked out and headed out for Cornucopia, Wisconsin (“The Northernmost Village In Wisconsin” per the sign -- near the Apostle Islands) for some kayaking on Lake Superior. Lost Creek Outfitters proved my no-one-has-actually-ever-rented-a-boat-on-Superior theory wrong and actually let us kayak, which was very nice. The 3-hour tour took us along some beautiful near-vertical sandstone cliffs near Romans Point and through an arch, but the water was too high to get into any sea caves, which was fine. The wind picked up on several occasions, making it hard to make much progress when we were going into it or in a crosswind, but we weren’t ever nervous about tipping over. It was also 10-15 degrees warmer than it had been most of the rest of the trip, so we stayed pretty warm even though we got splashed with water quite a bit. I was pretty much spent by the time we got back, and I was glad that the half-day tour had been sold out. We drove back along the rest of the south shore of Superior to Duluth, where we got sandwiches at Northern Waters Smokehouse and headed for home.
