Day 4 - Final day in the UP

I'm posting this tonight as I'll be on the road early tomorrow - next post from Mackinac Island (link)!!

I wanted to go to Copper Harbor (link) today but it's 3 hours away and they have had significant flooding recently.  So, instead I decided to go back to Marquette and do some of the things I missed.

I started the day at The Dead River Coffee Roasters...it smelled amazing in there!!  They had a French language radio station playing.  English language jazz, but ads and announcers in French.  Totally cool!

I went to the Marquette Maritime Museum and the Marquette Light house tour (link).  The highlight of the museum was this antique lighthouse lens.  The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald display was interesting too- Yup it's a song too (link)  Tour guide said that the line in the song about the lake never gives up her dead is because Lake Superior is so cold and deep that the bodies don't decompose.  

 

On a lighter note...For navigation purposes all lighthouses have a different light pattern.  The Marquette lighthouse is a white light every 10.5 seconds.  I also learned that the deepest part of Lake Superior (1,332 feet!) is just off the coast at Munising...where I took the boat cruise. 

 

I tried to go to the local art museum but as it's on the college campus and parking was nonexistent...and it was too cold to walk far.  So I found a lake side park to watch the waves, read and eat the last of my farmers market finds.  Those were the best peaches I've ever eaten!

I went back to the Presque Isle Park and wow was the lake different from the day I walked out to the lighthouse to enjoy the view.  Very rough today.  It was pretty cool to watch the kayakers, surfers and what I've learned are kite surfers (link) battle the waves.  Surfing in the UP!  Kind of cool...or rather very COLD.

 

While I've been in the UP I've seen people out constantly; running, walking, hiking, sailing, kayaking and now surfing.  The Yooper's (as people from the UP are apparently called) really seem to love the outdoors.

Tonight is my last night in the UP.  Tomorrow I have a 3 hour drive to catch the ferry to Mackinac Island.  If I get up early I can catch one of the few ferries that goes under the Mackinac Bridge for pictures.  But, I'd need to be on the road by 7:30 and I've sworn off alarm clocks so that probably won't happen.  Oh well, they have ferries every 15 to 30 minutes.

This Airbnb (link) has been a good one even though I've still not meet the host.  The entries in the guest book make me think this is not unusual.  It also appears, from the guest book, that this place has been almost fully booked for several months.  I bet he gets lots of bookings during the winter for skiing, snowmobiling, etc. 

That's it for now - next post from Mackinac Island!  I'm excited to be on the island and in a hotel for a change!