Miscellaneous Summer Stuff

I can't believe it's Labor Day weekend already. This summer went by much too fast for me!

Not much going on right now. I have been working some overtime these last few weeks because I've been so busy so I am so glad to have the next few days off!

The birds are loving the birdbath!

This house on one of the routes that I walk has tons of rose bushes planted around it. Besides lining the driveway that you can see here the also go all along the front and the side. They were all in bloom and looked so pretty!

A couple weeks ago we got lots of rain in a short amount of time, and there was flooding all over the place! The worst of it was Northeast of us but we had our share!

 

I slowly drove through some pretty deep water at about 4 miles per hour. I was determined to get home and all the roads leading to my house had floods at various areas. This picture is at the end of our street!  The water was running past our house and to a lower spot down the street. Those houses had flooded basements. Thankfully, our basement didn't flood!

The reward for our troubles was this beautiful rainbow!

 

I've never seen one so bright!

Hope you enjoy the rest of the weekend! 

Until the next time!!

Vacation Day 3, Part 4 Presque Isle River East River Trail

So now that we made it to the end of the West River Trail, it was time to go back up via the East River Trail.

Here on the other side you can see part of the boardwalk and observation deck.

But the East River Trail is just that..a trail. No more boardwalk or observation decks. Just a dirt trail.

And not a easy one, either!

 

It meandered over tree roots, down into little ditches  and along the cliff.  Marked only by blue dots on the trees.

 

But there was great views on the other side of the river. 

And here is that better view of the first falls that I promised you in the previous post.

 

It took us a good hour and  a half to hike up this side of the trail. Of course, we kept stopping for pictures, and to take a little rest here and there, too! By the time we got back to our car we were both exhausted and hot and sweaty! But it was worth every minute of it!

That was pretty much our vacation.

On Wednesday we drove from Ironwood  to home without spending the night anywhere. Approximately 605 miles.

I hope you enjoyed my vacation recap. I can only stress that if you ever, EVER have a chance to come to this area, or anywhere in Michigan actually, please do! I promise it will be worth the trip!

Thanks for coming along!

Until the next time!

Vacation Day 3 Part 3 Presque Isle River West River Trail

Next and final stop on our visit to Porcupine Mountains was the Presque Isle River. We wanted to walk/hike the east and west river trail where there was rapids and three waterfalls.

We started out on the west side of the river where there is the best view of the rapids and waterfalls. There is a bunch of observation decks, boardwalks and stairs all along the river so you can get the best views of the falls and rapids.

There are three large waterfalls along this point of the river. Nawadaha Falls, Manido Falls and Manabezo Falls. I took so many pictures that I can't tell which one is which so I'm just going to post some pictures so you can see the beauty.

Actually,I know this one is Nawadaha Falls. We'll get a better view of it later.

Interesting the way some of the trees grow right on the edge of the cliff.

After Nawadaha Falls is a long stretch of  flowing water with tiny little waterfalls along the way.

Then there is two waterfalls close together with rapids between them .

 

I love the way hundreds of years of swirling water carves perfectly round areas of the rock. 

 

 

Eventually we came across this bridge and were able to cross the river.

 From there we were able to get down a little closer to the water. 

Perfect place for a little rest. Good thing because we needed it for the next half of our journey.

Coming up: The East River Trail

Vacation Day 3 Part 2 Lake of the Clouds

So our first destination in the Porcupine Mountains was Lake of the Clouds.

The sign from the parking area pointing the way.

The paved path to the viewing area.

Cliff warning!

Yes was pretty high up there!

But look at this view! I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves for a moment!

 

 

You can kind of see why Native Americans named these the Porcupine Mountains, because they looked like crouching porcupines!

We climbed up these rocks to get a even better view.

Which it was!

You can't see it in the above picture but the girl in the yellow shirt was building a house of cards and her friend was taking pictures of it with the lake in the background! I have no idea why. I should have asked them!!!

 Some hikers taking a rest. Can't think of a better place!

We stayed there for about a hour or so...just hanging out and taking pictures. I was reluctant to leave because it will be a long time, if ever, that we get back to this place again! But we had waterfalls  to see so eventually we made our way back to the car and took off.

Coming up: Presque Isle River

Vacation Day 3 Part 1 Porcupine Mountains

After spending a night in Ironwood we headed out in the morning to the Porcupine Mountains. It was less than 50 miles from Ironwood so compared to how much we already drove, it was a short ride!

It's pretty hilly in the UP and was getting even more hilly as we got closer.

Getting close to our destination and we reached Lake Superior.

And drove along it for a while:

Until we saw this!

 

Finally, after living all of my life in Michigan getting to see this area was so exciting!

Made a quick stop in the visitors center to get a map and to make sure we knew where we were going and then headed to the right..to see the Lake of the Clouds!

 Next time: Lake of the Clouds

Vacation Day 2; Part 2-Ironwood

Ironwood is a small town in Western Upper Michigan right on the border of Wisconsin. Rich's mom was born and raised there. Her father worked in the Iron mines.

Even though she had dementia, she clearly remembered things from her childhood. One time when we were visiting her in the nursing home we were talking about Ironwood and she rattled off her address, 510 Bundy Street. I wrote it down and figured if we were ever in Ironwood we would see if the house is still there.

Well, when we got to Ironwood we had some time to kill after dinner so with the help of the navigation system on my phone, we found Bundy Street

  
and were delighted to find that the house is still there.

It looks pretty unkempt though, but the address clearly showed so we knew it was the right place. Too bad we didn't have the nerve to walk up to the door and knock!

There was a school right across the street built in 1921 and although Rich doesn't remember his mom talking about it, his sister Jackie does.

We also saw the huge hill at the end of the street that she told us her brother, Uncle Jack used to sled down and one time went under a car and almost got himself killed!

Although Rich's mom was raised here, she left Ironwood when she was a young woman and traveled 650 miles all the way down to Detroit to work.  That's where she met Rich's dad who was a streetcar driver and the rest is history!!!

The main road through Ironwood, Hwy 2 was all tore up on one side. We asked our waiter in the restaurant what they were doing and he told us they were replacing the water pipes, which had broken over the winter because it was so bitter cold. He also told us that they didn't get the usual amount of lake effect snow because Lake Superior was frozen over.  So basically, they only got 290 inches instead of the usual 390 inches! Yep, I'm understanding why Rich's mom bailed!

One other thing we learned was that Ironwood is home to the worlds largest Indian statue!

See for yourself:

See little me standing there in the blue shirt? We were impressed, if not a little intimidated!

Coming up: Porcupine Mountains

Vacation Day 2-Part 1 Bond Falls

On the second day we left St. Ignace and headed west in the upper peninsula.  We definitely were not in a hurry and knew that once we got to the small town of Ironwood there would not be much to do.

There is a lot of wilderness up there and we drove sometimes for miles and miles without seeing so much as a single house! We got off-course in Escanaba and ended up taking some back roads to get back to where we needed to be. We saw a doe and her fawn cross the road in front of us. That's pretty much it as far as wildlife goes!

Stopped for lunch at Fumee Falls Roadside Park. We've been here before and it's a nice place to have lunch!

There is another falls behind this one that you can barely see in this picture.

After we drove a few more hours we veered north to our first destination:

I've been wanting to come here for years and was very excited to see this.


It's just a short walk on a paved trail to the falls, and you can hear that rushing water as soon as you get out of the car. Music to my ears!

This is what you see as you are walking up.

They were as beautiful and majestic as I knew they would be!

You can take stairs all the way to the top of the falls and the river leading up to them is just as beautiful with mini-falls along the way! It goes way farther back than we could go, too!

I literally could have stayed there all day!

 

See that happy smiling face! Ug,.. never mind...don't look at me..look at the beautiful waterfall behind me!

We also went to Agate Falls, which is another waterfall that is supposed to be very scenic.

I'm sure it's very beautiful but this was the best we could see of it because it was kind of a steep slide down to the river and we didn't want to risk of life and limb! I've seen pictures of it and it is beautiful. Looks a lot like Bond Falls.

Unfortunately we still had some driving to do so we got back on the road after a hour or so.

Next stop: Ironwood