Picture Rocks

While up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan we stayed in a small campground with all hookups in Gwinn, Michigan. It was $10 a night. The weather has been in the 60s with spotty showers on a few days. It is windy most days in Michigan. Wow! Some summer weather! You should see all of the ATV and snowmobile trails leading off through the woods.  I love all of the green trees. Lots of Christmas trees grown up tall. Although we can tell it has been dry throughout Michigan. I was surprised to see oil well horses(I will refer to them as) drills in the fields of Michigan as you see in Texas, but I wasn't able to get a picture. You will also see farmland, hilly in places and flat land in other places. They also have capped off natural gas in some of the fields. Of course there are many different kinds of minerals found in the rocks.  I have added pictures of what they call Picture Rock. We took a 2 1/2 hour tour out from Munising, Michigan onto Lake Superior to see them. There are over 42 miles of coastline on the northern side of Lake Michigan that portrays these cliffs.  The cliffs are over 100 feet high and the colors or pictures depicted on them are caused from glacial upheaval and erosion over the 10s of thousands of years. To give you an idea of how big Lake Superior is, we were told it's the size of South Carolina. I have no idea how big Lake Michigan is because we have driven on highway #2 across the upper peninsula from east to west and back again and north and south beside it for miles and miles. We ddecided not to travel back down to get to Indiana through Wisconsin because we didn't want the hassle of passing around Chicago. Another time.

All of the colors depicted on the rocks are from the different minerals-iron ore, copper, magnesium, calcium, iron oxide,etc.  You may also notice the color of Lake Superior-a beautiful blue-green almost like the colors of the waters in the Carribean. I was also very surprised that all of the shores in the different areas we visited of Lake Huron, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior were very clean.  However, our guide told us they were getting the fish back because they have had a problem with Lamprey(a parasite fish that attached itself to the fish and kills them.)  There were three beautiful waterfalls and you may be able to see where some of the rock formations have broken off. We even saw many hikers up on paths at the top.  Swimmers were even in the water and lots of kayakers were paddling around the cliffs. The outside temperature was 69 degrees and I'm sure the water temperature was even colder. In one of the pictures you can see a boat, like the one we traveled on. It held 150 people and as many as four boats would go out on as many as 5 trips a day. But you have to consider they can only work in the summertime. Inside the gift and ticket shop they had pictures of the waterfalls in the winter and they lookedlike frozen curtains.  That reminds me, I don't remember if I mentioned, we saw pictures of Lake Huron in the winter and they travel across the frozen lake to Mackinaw Island. I believe it was 16 miles across and of course, with no bridge, the fulltimers have to wait for the lake to freeze or fly to get supplies from the mainland in the winter. If you like the blustrying cold, as one of our waitresses said, there are many outside winter sports to partake. Oh, I also wanted to tell you, they eat what they call pasties up here. That is meat and vegetables baked wrapped in a pie crust. We didn't try them, but I bet they are good.

This is the oldest lighthouse on Lake Superior that is even older than the township of Munising. At one time the lighthousekeeper his wife and their 11 children lived in the lighthouse. I think this lighthouse was located on Grand Island and there are no bridges over there, but there are a few homes-some cute log cabins that have no running water, no sewer, and no electricity.

This is the Up North Restaurant located about a mile from Gwinn. Just to let you know, Munising is about 37 miles from Gwinn, Michigan where our campground was located.I also, wanted to tell you, on the way back from Munising, a bear crossed the four-lane highway. Well, anyway, I got to see a bear.  Of course, a deer ran out in front of Charles Irons' truck when we were driving back from Sleeping Bear Dunes. It broke the headlight and dented the driver's side door. Lucky it is still driveable and no one was hurt. However, I wanted to let you know there are all kinds of wildlife-stuffed that is, in the rangers Welcome Center for Sleeping Beat Dunes. A must see when you visit around Traverse City, Michigan.