10/7/09 (Wednesday): Well, I've been so lazy about blogging that I'm afraid I'm not going to remember half of what we've been doing! We're at the Boone, NC, KOA now. It was like a homecoming, greeting all our dear friends from last year. We're in a gorgeous site with a mountain view and great satellite and WiFi reception. We even have a nice deck! But let me catch you up.
When I last blogged, we were in Gladstone, Michigan. Here's a link to a
map of our route from there to the Keweenaw Peninsula at the northern tip of Michigan on Lake Superior.
Our first adventure was a visit to
Pictured Rocks National Seashore. Check out the link.
Unfortunately, we chose a really rough day and went on the first tour in the morning. So not only were we contending with the big waves and spray, but the sun was wrong for taking pictures. We really enjoyed the trip, even though we didn't get good photos. Here's a link to some better pictures than we got due to the rough water:
Pictures of formations.
This is Munising Falls, which is just a couple of miles from the Pictured Rocks visitor center. The falls aren't very high, but they're at the end of a horseshoe shaped canyon and an easy walk on a good path. You can also climb some stairs and see the falls from above.
Another really fun day was spent at touring a real iron ore mine. The Iron Mountain Mine is in Vulcan, and you get a guided tour through 2600 feet of underground drifts and tunnels to 400 feet below the earth's surface. At one time, this was a very profitable mine that produced high quality ore.
This video is sideways (still haven't figured out how to rotate a video), but it'll give you a taste of what the tram ride down into the mine was like.
Another really interesting thing about the mine was that it supports a healthy colony of bats, one of which flew right by us!
After a short ride through the countryside, we visited Piers Gorge State Park on the Menominee River. The Menominee River is a border river separating Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and Wisconsin. It's close to Iron Mountain and Norway, Michigan.
This stretch of the river is very fast moving with some small waterfalls. We had a nice hike.
Our final campground in the Upper Peninsula was Sunset Bay Campground, right on Lake Superior. We hit the first bad weather of our trip on our way there, and when we drove into the campground, we almost turned around and drove back out. Our site was just a few yards from the edge of the lake, which had 6-8 foot waves, high winds and rain. We had a restless night, but were so glad we stayed. It was a lovely campground and we had it almost all to ourselves.
Our major outing in this last leg of the Upper Peninsula trip was a visit to the Quincy Copper mine. As with the iron mine, we actually got to go down into the mine. This mine had a cog railway to take you down into the mine. I didn't get any pictures in the mine itself (very dark), but it was an extremely interesting tour.
Check out this site for some really interesting
history of copper mining.
While in the area, we also visited Copper Harbor, a little town right on Lake Superior that was originally where the copper ore mined nearby was shipped out. It had lots of little shops, but we decided to forego them and take the Brockway Scenic drive and get a look at the town from above. It was a good decision. What a lovely part of the world this is!
Our last days in the Keweenaw Peninsula just flashed by. We took in several waterfalls, including
Jacobs Falls
Eagle River Falls
and a little cascade right on the Brockway Scenic Drive.
As the sun set on our last day in the Upper Peninsula, we were sad to leave this gorgeous part of the U.S. What a wonderful tour we had of a part of the country many people have never heard of! We'd definitely recommend it for a family vacation.
My next blog may have some leftover pictures from Michigan and, hopefully, some new pictures from Boone. Hope everyone is doing well. We'll talk to you again soon.
We woke up to a tiny bit of snow on our deck, but the real news was the higher peaks surrounding the campground. Of course, we had to go check it out.
This is Snake Mountain, which we see from our campground. 
It was really neat to see the beautiful autumn colors backed up by snowy mountains.
Over toward the town of West Jefferson there was less snow, but more color. This is a view of Long Hope Mountain (don't you love the name of some of these hills?!). 
