Moving Along to Munising

Munising, MI  High: 64  Low: 54.  AT&T service excellent  Site: 49 back in

It only took us an hour and a half to drive from Grand Marais to Munising, to the Munising Tourist Park Campground. Eldo likes those short drives! We are in a very nice site, but not on the water. That's ok. You'd have everyone walking in front of your rig walking up and down the beach. We are here for four days. There is so much to do in this area, that four days is not enough for sure. This is our second time here, so we thought we could get 'er done in the time we were here. Nope!

Tons of waterfalls, more than ten, visiting the beautiful Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore area, kayaking the Pictured Rocks area, which the true amazing beauty of the rock formations are best seen from a  boat tour, or a glass bottom boat shipwreck tour, hikes through the Hiawatha Forest, visiting the Grand Island National Recreational area by ferry, seven lighthouses, short hikes, long hikes, art murals downtown Munising, mountain biking trails, ATV adventures, the scenic drive along Highway 58 from Munising to Grand Marais, and Kitch-iti-kipi and Manistique. It's all here and no way can we begin to do justice to the area in four days. So Sparky has listed the highlights, and we are just going to have to come back to the area again! Be sure to get the 2021 Guide to the Wild Places, Munising, Home of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. 

 Our site is off to the side in the park and is VERY spacious. We have water and electric but no sewer. It appears to be a newer site as it has a brand new electric post with 50 amp service. Many of the sites at the Munising Tourist RV park do not have sewer, they are just water and electric, but some of the sites do have sewer. You just have to pay careful attention when booking. This is a park that you have to book WA-A-A-Y out in advance to get a site on Lake Superior. We booked in May and couldn't get a waterfront site then. There's more driftwood here, and somebody built a teepee! Sparky is in there somewhere...

There is a LOT to do here, lots of hiking trails, mountain biking trails (Sparky doesn't have the right kind of bike for that) and anywhere from 10-13 waterfalls, (Sparky keeps seeing a difference in the number) most of which we've seen years ago, but of course, Sparky wants to revisit! Tomorrow it's going to rain all day, so Sparky has her work cut out for her, time for planning!

We ate at the Dogpatch Restaurant in Munising this evening....VERY old and quaint restaurant, great burgers....There's an old jalopy out in front of the restaurant...missed a photo of it! The inside of the restaurant is all about Lil Abner and Daisy and characters (cartoon strip from many many years ago) and a very folksy menu tops out the theme. Sparky barely remembers Lil Abner! That was a cartoon strip that ran from 1934 to 1977.

On our rainy day, we explored some back roads where Eldy used to go snowmobiling over 30 years ago. Some places had really changed, some had not. We ate supper at a place called the Buckhorn Resort, an updated restaurant that dates back to the 1930's. The food was all right, nothing amazing...They have bird feeders in front of the glass windows overlooking Hovey Lake, a beautiful lake. Woodpeckers and finches visited the feeders while we were there. Sparky wished she had had her nice point and shoot camera, which she didn't. This big chair reminds Sparky of Lily Tomlin playing Edith Ann, talking in that funny nasal voice, was that the Laugh In show? 

If you are in Munising, be sure to check out the art/mural displays all over town. Interesting snippets of history and representations of life in the Lake Superior/UP area.

Time for some waterfalls (there are FOURTEEN? of them in the Munising area!)....and a hike. Sparky tried to drive to the  Chapel Rock/Falls Basin loop hike. It's 15 miles east along H-58 to Chapel Hill Road, then a sandy dirt county road for 5 miles to park at the trailhead. The road disintegrated very rapidly from heavy rains the day before, especially after the county road responsibility ends. After a bone jarring, tooth shaking severe bumpy ride with deep hidden water filled potholes, with 2.8 miles still to go and the road getting worse, Sparky bailed and turned around. The potholes were HUGE and even with a 4 wheel drive big Ram truck, the amount of bouncing around in the truck was concerning. Sparky was also worried about being able to 

park in usually small trailhead parking lots with the big dually. On the way back, was Miner's Castle Overlook and two trails--Sand Point and North Country Trail. Sparky stopped there and got a couple of photos and did a short hike on Sand Point. The photo at the left is Miner's Castle. 

Sand Point is mostly just a pretty walk thru the forest, a little on the boring side. Sparky likes uphill and down, tree roots, boulders, stuff like that! (Until she takes her first spill, which I hope never happens, explains E. She's a trooper, that's for sure!) North Country Trail might have been the better choice. Then she tried to stop by Miner's Falls parking lot to see the falls and couldn't find a spot for the big truck to park. It was noon and very crowded.

Rainbow Cave

Back to the rig to reassess other possible hikes and let's take a Pictured Rocks boat tour! About two hours for 48.00 a person if you want to go all the way to Spray Falls, and 40.00 for a slightly shorter ride. Great boat cruise, you learn a lot about the geology of the rocks and learn some of the names of the rock formations--Chapel Rock, Battleship Row, Indian Point, Lover's Leap and more. Our guide was interesting and humorous. But we feel the extra 8.00 for the slightly longer trip just to see Spray Falls was not worth it, and the shorter, cheaper one would be just as cool. 

The best time of the day to go for the lighting and photos is the later times of the day offered. We took the 5:00 cruise. It was a wavy, choppy day, so sit in the front of the boat for less rockin' and rollin'. BUT--wear a raincoat because the front of the catamaran boat front seats gets spray from the bow plowing through the water! We got pretty wet! It was a lot colder on the water this time of year (mid September) so wear warm layers as well. 

On our last day at Munising....We drove back to Miner's Falls and managed to get in the parking lot. That was THE most beautiful walk, .6 of a mile one way through the most beautiful forest to see the falls. They did not disappoint!

The Miner's Falls are pictured below....

We also hit Au Train Falls which wasn't much of a falls at all this time of year...rather, cascading water down a series of shale rock shelves.

Then, we decided to go find Kitch-Iti-Kipi, (an Ojibwa word) also known as the famous Big Spring in Manistique, MI, about an hour from Munising, and off we went. What a great choice that was!

The Big Spring, is located at Palm Book State Park in Manistique. It is an amazingly beautiful spring that is constantly being fed to the pond water which is the coolest teal green you have ever seen. 

Sparky's photos do not do it justice. The reflections of the pines bouncing off the water just add to its beauty. The views below the glass bottom of the raft are incredible, with the fish swimming below.

It is right inside the park and a short distance from the parking lot by the gift shop. There is a glass bottom raft that is people propelled across the short spring. It is so rudimentary, that the park doesn't man it with anybody who works for the park, at least they didn't at this time of day or year--5:00 PM, mid September. A bunch of people show up, walk down to the raft entrance, get on, (the maximum is about 35 people), then someone offers to turn the ship wheel which starts the pulley moving the raft very slowly across the spring, which takes about 10-15 minutes depending on how steady the wheel gets turned. 

You know there are people waiting back at the start to get on, so you don't dilly dally so everybody gets a turn at the wheel if they want to, or stand and take in the views at the railing in the middle of the raft. It's really a very efficient sharing process. Everybody sort of takes turns turning the wheel, at least they did when we went. It is not easy to turn it! Then the rest of us gawk at the amazing greenish blue beauty of the 45 foot spring and as soon as we reach the other side, we head back again, each of us taking turns turning the wheel. Look at the color of the water! WOWZA!

No park ranger telling you to keep your arms and elbows inside the raft, nobody warning you not to drop your phone in the spring, etc. etc. It's really pretty amazing that the park just expects you to do the right thing and take turns helping each other enjoy the little trip and a brief moment of spectacular views. Sparky couldn't decide which views were the most spectacular, so she put lots of them in the blog.

You can see about 40 feet down, and a variety of fish (trout, perch) swimming underneath. The water temperature is a constant 45 degrees year round.

There are bubbling springs underneath on the bottom that you can see as well. The spring flows at a rate of more than 10,000 gallons A MINUTE! So cool. We saw herons in the spring area, a duck who meandered close by for quite awhile, who just kept watching us, probably amused at this funny looking craft that keeps going back and forth all day long. "Don't they get tired doing that?"

And with the day drawing to a close, we headed back home to our RV park in Munising, to pack things up and get ready to leave tomorrow for some more hop, skips, and a jump-(she means short driving trips, explains Eldo) to get back closer to Indiana. The next time you hear from us, we will be in "crack donut" country--Howe, Indiana and home of Sparky's favorite fabric stores...Yoder's and Lolly's, and the Rise and Roll Bakery which has the most amazing caramel cinnamon donuts. (Uh-oh, and here I thought we were going to get rid of some of our extra weight, worries E.) Hey, all's fair in love and war. Eldo just bought his 4th rocking chair from Camping World, as the three previous ones all broke in the same place. And this new chair, is a HEAVY one! We are trying to watch our weight with the items inside the RV as well as on our physical persons, haha, but it's a losing battle all the way around....See you next time!

Another Pictured Rocks boat tour

A Fungusamungus

A what? A mushroom to be exact---we saw LOTS of mushrooms on a hike today. We wanted to go exploring Eldy's old snowmobile stompin' grounds that he remembered from 30 years ago...we explored by car for quite a while today on old 94, on highway 13, and other areas. We found an excellent restaurant that Eldy remembered from years ago called the Camel Rider. You had to go into back roads in the national forest on the way to get there. By the composition of the roads, you think you are going into the backwoods, going to nowhere, or to somebody's rustic cabin with the outhouse outside, it's THAT rustic!  DEEP into the backwoods where there's BAR (that's Yooper talk for bear--naw, just kidding!) But you would be correct on one thing--you are in the deep backwoods of God's country. The foliage on the trees was breathtaking, all the way there and back. (If you've always longed to go to Vermont, and it's too far, we'd say the U.P. in late September has to be right up there (haha) with New England's fall display. At any rate, the restaurant is only open on Fridays and Saturdays so we're saving that one for later this week to see if the food is as good as he remembers it.

colors of the woods at Colwell Lake

Coming back we hiked 2 miles around Colwell Lake, a gorgeous lake surrounded by trees of scarlet, fiery orange and yellow color, and umpteen different kinds of mushrooms. It was a beautiful hike along a packed cinder trail, so easy hike for us. Eldy was actually disappointed it was only two miles! There is a campground there with sites and four of the sites have electric hookup--about the only national forest campground in Michigan with electric AND roomy enough for us to park a 40 foot RV. We are going to stay there Friday night. We can stay with a senior park pass discount for ten dollars! (electric only)  After we got done with our hike, we went looking for another tavern Eldy remembered that had an old wooden Indian down in the basement. The tavern was called Jack Pines, a small cabin bar and restaurant. The wooden Indian had his own name--Elija, or something like that. Well, Elija has to stay in the basement because he has something that parents don't want their children to see. If you pull Elija's arm down, something else pops up out of the blanket...and it's big enough that in the old days, Eldy remembers the women would shriek in shock at the sight of it. Well, we found the 80 year old restaurant, and we found the equally old wooden Indian down in the basement of the tavern. The tavern has been remodeled, it looks really nice and lodge like inside.  The Indian has been through so many repairs, that we didn't dare pull his arm. After all, he's almost as old as the restaurant! We just peeked under the blanket. Yup! It's still there! Eldy wouldn't let me put the photo on the blog, but here's the next best photo. You'll just have to use your imagination! Tomorrow, out for another hiking or biking trail. We saw one today called Bruno's Run along Moccasin Lake, we might try that one, it's only 10 miles ("WHAT??!!!" says Eldy)...but that is only one of many, many beautiful trails in this area to explore in what we feel is the best season in the U.P.--fall! No mosquitoes, and no black flies AND stunning fall foliage!

Small town, BIG entertainment!

Late Saturday afternoon, we picked up a delicious pizza at the local pizza shop in Munising, population about 2600 people. On the pizza board was a sign for local entertainment Saturday night at 7:00 PM at the Falling Rock Cafe downtown.

Falling Rock Cafe

Jeff Nelson & Friends at Falling Rock Cafe

The Falling Rock Cafe is an interesting, funky, eclectic bookstore/internet cafe/coffee shop. (Check out their website for more photos of the store) They serve flavored coffees, homemade food, sweets and gourmet teas. They sell over 30,000 new and used books AND they have live entertainment! So Saturday night we went and heard Jeff Nelson and Friends--Jeff was the lead singer and he has a passion for many different kinds and styles of music--he played contemporary music, folk music, and along with his bass player, who did the backup/harmonizing vocals (I'm sorry I didn't catch his name) together they played toe tappin', guitar pickin' music to a nice crowd. Jeff has a fabulous voice and his talent and guitar picking and playing abilities were amazing! His bass player had just the perfect voice to complement Jeff's and the skill to match Jeff's guitar playing. It just goes to show that just because you are in a small town, doesn't mean there will be a lack of talent on a Saturday night. You never know what you are going to find walking into a local bar, tavern, or coffee house. These two musicians were VERY talented local people who love to sing and play music. Jeff played a mean Stevie Ray Vaughn song among many others during the night and the talent  and versatility of these two guys was just amazing! Jeff sounded a lot like Gordon Lightfoot and even did one of his songs. He did great justice to a Roy Orbison song as well. What was even more amazing was they didn't have a future schedule, website or business card, nor a CD to sell anywhere in sight! (I would have gladly bought one!) They just play for the enjoyment of playing and pleasing anybody who wants to stop by and listen (and for a small donation at the counter)....If you ever get to hear Jeff Nelson and Friends, GO! And if you are ever in Munising, be sure to stop at the Falling Rock Cafe and enjoy the free wi-fi, buy a specialty coffee drink and just hang out with the locals.  It's a cool place to hang out!

Sunday we decided to go water fall sight seeing and hiking...four waterfalls in one day! When Eldo gets rollin', there's no stoppin' him! We visited Chapel Falls (60 ft. drop) which is about 45 min. from Munising. It's a 1.4 mile hike to the falls, so we walked 2.8 miles total, got back in the car,  then hit three more on our way back to town. These other three falls are located within short walks about 10-15 min. and a little bit of a climb over rough tree roots and very narrow paths. It actually surprised us how narrow the paths were without any cautionary rope boundaries or fencing. You are really up close and personal to these falls. The rock formations hung WA-A-Y over our heads as we explored the falls. The geology of the area is really amazing...how these "ampitheatre" formations carve themselves out over millions of years is truly awe inspiring when you see them. There are mini sand "beaches" under the rock outcroppings where erosion of the sandstone cliffs has made sand underneath the overhangs. Munising Falls has had rock slides in the past close to the falls, so it is more protected than the others. We saw the MNA Memorial Falls (you can walk behind the falls!) and it has a 30 ft. drop, the Munising Falls (50 ft. drop) located across from the hospital, then the Tannery Falls (40 ft. drop)--also in the same vicinity as the Munising Falls.  These three falls are all in town..Check out the slideshow tomorrow (Monday evening) for the falls photos....we've also got a cute story to share Monday evening from a couple we met next to our site at the Munising Tourist Campground who had a special Prevost, custom made from Angola, IN (my hometown for the last 7 years!) --their names were Wayne and Holly, nice couple!