Our final stay at Lake Superior before heading inland. This was the first mess up of the trip. The plan was to get a ferry north of here to Isle Royale which is in Lake Superior, off of Minnesota’s coast, but the only National Park of Michigan! Well, apparently, even though everything we’ve seen so far is barely open for the season – this books up MONTHS ahead of time. We tried to get there by ferry, water taxi and even seaplane and everything, and we mean everything, was booked and there was no way to this island. Jerry even tried to find a local flying lesson or private flight to get us there! We were gonna have to swim if we wanted to go and we didn’t want to go that badly. So, instead, we chose some neat things along the north shore and it turned out splendid. Your loss, Isle Royale, because we are fun folks!
Our campground was feet away from Lake Superior and Jerry got beautiful pics along the shore. We’ve seen cottonwoods in just about every state so far, and it’s safe to say that we like them more than the locals do!
Apparently from research, these trees aren’t that great! They are one of the poorest wood fuels and they rot quickly. They are mostly used for low value things like pallets and crates because they grow fast and are cheap but strong.
Beautiful stones at the lakeshore.
Grand Marais is a little town with a little harbor and a little lighthouse that is about 40 miles from the Canadian border
Covered bridge from our campground into town
This lighthouse is at one end of the little peninsula, Artist’s Point is at the other
Grand Marais Lighthouse. Thanks to the sailboat for making our picture prettier!
Lighthouse from the Coast Guard station
Exploring the opposite end at Artist’s Point
View of Artist’s Point
Temperance River State Park was a pleasant surprise. We hiked up next to Hidden Falls. This was a perfect name because these falls were hard to see! You can hear them the entire hike but it’s hard to get close and only a few spots jut out so you can see up or down the falls.
Gitchi-Gami Bike Trail Bridge
Black Beach in Silver Bay – the most beautiful pollution we’ve ever seen. Haha! They say this is the only black sand beach in all of Minnesota and that it is not natural but resulting from taconite being dumped into the water by mining companies and washing ashore. Kristi isn’t sure she believes this. This supposedly happened many decades ago, so why hasn’t some of the black left here, migrated other places, why hasn’t other colored sand arrived. It’s very questionable in her opinion but we absolutely loved it!
It was burning hot! We loved it! The lake is cold, the air is cold, the whole trip has been cold, this sand was amazing and felt SO good!
It was foggy and a little otherworldly when we were there
Kayakers in the mist
Several nearby tiny islands appeared and vanished in the changing fog
