Tuesday, August 2nd - Munising & Picture Rocks

 First, remember a couple of days ago when I was so proud of myself for washing our  car? After pulling it through 140 miles of drizzle yesterday it ended up  dirtier than it was before I washed it. We hardly got to drive it when it was clean.

Weather was beautiful today. It was sunny, breezy and the highs were in the mid 70's. The low last night was 45. 

Today we went to Munising and did the boat trip to see Picture Rocks. The drive to Munising takes about an hour. The boat trip takes a little over 2 1/2 hours. We did the same trip when we were up here in 2011. I didn't take many photos this year, only one of the kayakers. (The boat trip was nice, and Picture Rocks was interesting, but the hoodoos of Bryce Canyon are more interesting rock formations.) 

"Picture Rocks" is caused by stains that leech through the sandstone. As I understand it, creative people can see "things" in the stains, sort of like cloud watching and seeing a cloud that looks like a dragon. I see stains on sandstone and some beautiful rock formations. If you come up here, and if you are in reasonable physical shape, please take one of the tours where they take people out to the area, put them in kayaks and let them get up close and personal to really see things. We saw over 100 people in kayaks. There are sections of sandy beaches where kayakers pull in to rest on the sand, or climb some of the formations. Another option might be to rent a pontoon and take the family along the coast, again, so that you can get closer. The captain said the water on the surface was around 67 degrees this time of year, cold but the kayakers looked like they were having a great time.

One of the reasons I didn't take pictures was because I thought I could refer you to blog posts from our visit here in June/July 2011 which would have had a bunch of photos. I can't access any posts before Sept 2011, maybe I erased them.

When we got back to the campground there was a sign out front that the campground was full. Below is a campground map. It isn't a small place and it isn't somewhere people just drive by and decide to stay here.

I wanted to go up to Copper Harbor, at the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, this trip but don't know if we are going to make it. I've been trying to find campgrounds that can handle our 40' coach and that have vacancies. So far I have had no success. We have to be out of here Thursday morning and the only place I've found to use as a base is in Ishpeming. We have stayed there before and its fine, but it  135 miles from the campground to Copper Harbor, a LONG day trip for us old people 😀. Maybe I will have to wait until next summer to see Copper Harbor, and get reservations made much earlier.

It is storming here now. TV weather people keep interrupting programming to tell about hail and 60 mph winds that are very close to us. We are getting rain and some wind, but nothing bad. On or way to our coach this afternoon we saw people setting up camp with just a tarp for shelter. The surface under the tarped area looked like it was just dirt. My guess is that they aren't having much fun right now In a few years it might be a fond memory, but I can't imagine it being much fun right now.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.