July 6-30, 2021 Portage Lake, Upper Peninsula of MI

Months ago, maybe almost a year earlier, Doug had been very lucky to find a VRBO house on Portage Lake about a mile from cousin Geri's place & what used to be his Grandma's cottage. Doug grew up driving up north every summer with his parents & siblings to stay at his Grandparent Plante's cottage. Needless to say, he has fond memories of the lake and fun times with his cousins and siblings. 

Reliving Memories

We arrived at the rental late afternoon, after stopping to provision in Marquette, MI which is on Lake Superior and also where our good friends Jeri & Craig went to college. The 2 bedroom/1bath house was very nice with a big kitchen and a great view of Portage Lake and the sunset. It had a dock with the owners boat tied to it. The owners lived right next door-a very nice arrangement. Like when the smoke alarms go off in the middle of the night-they are right there to help. 

During our 3.5 weeks there, we biked, kayaked, rock hunted and drove around. When you are so far away from most everything, it takes a lot of driving to get anywhere. Biking wasn't practical-when we explored a few miles from the cottage we ended up on unimproved dirt roads. So unimproved, one day we were forced to drive on one due to an accident & we got a chip in our windshield.

Part of the reason we used the van a lot was because Doug wanted to do some in-depth research of his families roots here in the U.P. We made some progress. We visited the local cemeteries, the local historian and the county trustee. Our toughest challenge was finding Doug's maternal Grandparents gravesites. Doug persisted and it paid off. We found their gravestones in the LaPlante burial plot. At first, we thought an error had been made but after more research-thank you Dennis, the County Trustee/Treasurer, we found out that Doug's maternal Grandfather's mother was a LaPlante and she married a Plante. The LaPlante's had money and a big cemetery plot so they gave Emil & Blanche 2 gravesites in the LaPlante Plot in Mt Calvary Cemetery. Dennis, had as an adolescent delivered newspapers to Doug's Maternal Grandparents & his great Aunt. Small town wonders! We also found Doug's paternal Grandparents gravesites in Lakeview Cemetery in Calumet-(although we didn't see any lakeview from there). We also found Doug's Maternal Great Grandparents gravesites and a Great Aunt named Beatrice, who we didn't know about but obviously is the namesake to Doug's Mom & had died very young.

We visited some of our oldies but goodies, like downtowns Calumet & Lake Linden. We ate & drank @ Dreamland. Copper Harbor was a day trip where we ate fresh Whitefish, walked through the gift shops & hiked around the point. There were so many rocks-I was in heaven!

Hungry Beavers

Doug's cousins Claudia, Geri & her husband Rick were @ their cottage on Portage Lake for part of our visit. They took us out in their SeaRay along the Keweenaw Waterway to the south entrance and cruised east in Lake Superior to Jacobsville where we anchored & jumped in the cold, clear water of Superior & swam to the private sand beach. Of course, we hunted for agates along the colorful sandstone cliffs. We picnicked along the waterway in Houghton where we tied up on the seawall. Speaking of cousins, we found out that another cousin owns a cottage 3 doors down from our rental. We were able to visit with Dale & Carol, what a nice surprise. 

Another day, Doug & I drove out past Eagle Harbor on the Keweenaw Peninsula to Agate Harbor on Lake Superior and paddled in our inflatable kayak across to a small island. We saw eagles and heard our "Up North Bird" sing her enchanting song. Sadly, we haven't seen too many loons, I've read that all these people vacationing in the states these last 2 years & doing more outdoor activities due to the pandemic has hurt the loon population. 

Our weather has been nice, some cooler days & some actually hot days.  We often went exploring, we found an interesting gorge & hiked around it, finding a few pretty waterfalls in the Hungarian Preserve.

Geri, Rick & Claudia treated us to a day trip to Bete Gris Beach on Lake Superior. The area is sand & rock and of course we walked the beach.  Geri found a pretty agate & gave it to me-how sweet she is. It was too rough to put our kayaks in Superior so we drove over to nearby Lac LaBelle. In 2013, we had anchored with Day Dreams in this lake. We all put our kayaks in here and paddled around for an hour.  We found a pretty little park in the Bete Gris Preserve along Superior and enjoyed a picnic of hot pasties from Toni's that Geri had kept warm in the Yeti on hot bricks. Pretty cool & delicious local custom. 

An Agate puzzle

Our friend, Lisa whom we had visited in Harbor Springs, came to visit us for a few days. Her guy Bill, who we know & love too, has family in the area & here @ Portage Lake. Bill couldn't come with Lisa because he was in Maine on his new to them Krogen 39, Lima Bravo. Lisa has been in the UP before with Bill so she knows his family well and wanted to visit them. Bill's cousin has a cottage on Portage Lake also, just a few miles from our rental so we stopped & Lisa introduced us. We took Lisa hiking, rock hunting, kayaking & of course we fed her Pasties. We also tried out our new big UV light and the 3 of us went Yooper light hunting in the dark on Agate Beach in Stanton Park. We did find some glowing Yooper light stones-how exciting & fun. 

We drove to beaches & hikes. One day, we drove the dirt roads to White City where Portage Lake empties into Lake Superior. There is a nice sand beach there and people were enjoying the nice weather picnicking & partying. The city itself is a ghost town-completely gone. 

Another great hike was out at Eagle Harbor. We hiked a total of 6.8 miles in a Nature Preserve to the top of Mt. Baldy where we were rewarded with a spectacular view across Lake Superior. We could see Mt. Bohemia, Agate Harbor, Lake Bailey & even the hazy outline of Isle Royale from our vantage point. 

McClain Park & Beach became one of our frequent stops. It has a great rock & sand beach plus an anchorage. Not that we need a protected anchorage because we don't have our boat here but it's nice to see boats anchored. Doug made us a long handled strainer/scooper for our beach rock hunting and we used it here. We also stayed one night till after dark with an approaching thunderstorm to hunt for Yooper lights. We were the only ones on the beach-loved it! 

When we drove to the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, we stopped at the top of Brockway Mountain. There is more of Doug's family history here. When his maternal grandparents returned from mining copper on Isle Royale, they homesteaded on Brockway Mountain. It holds a special place in his families heart. Below is a pic of Doug's Mom at the same place Jan is sitting at least 80 years later.

We also think we found a photo at the Historical Society's Museum of Doug's paternal grandfather. He was the manager of the town's printing company. We think he is the man in the middle of the photo, sitting at the big desk.

Our rental came with kayaks & a Stand-up Board (SUB) so it was very easy to put them into the lake and go paddling. Most of the time, I would use the SUB & Doug would kayak. The lake is large as you may have guessed since everyone we know who lives in the area has a cottage on it! We watched the sunset over Portage Lake almost every night & enjoyed a few campfires. A nice spot with a beautiful view. 

July 3-6, 2021 Munising MI

 

We checked into our B&B in Munising late afternoon. The owner, an older widow met us and gave us a tour. This place was deceiving on the outside. It is located on a residential street and the house looks like a family home. The owner told us that her daughter & son-in-law live with her. The son-in-law built the owner & her husband this apartment on the water side of the house. After her husband died, they decided to rent the apartment out as a B&B. Also there is an additional rental apartment downstairs. The place is fully decorated and well stocked with food in the freezer and refrigerator that is not for us to use. We think the owner still lives in this space when it's not rented. We paid for a B&B but they informed us due to COVID that they would not be supplying breakfast but that we were free to buy food, cook our own breakfast & use the kitchen. We think that is a poor excuse for not serving us breakfast. The house is located on the protected harbor of Munising. The view is awesome from the wall of windows in the living/dining room. 

There was another couple renting the downstairs room and sharing the common space with us. 

We ate dinner outside on the patio of Tracy's @ The Roam Hotel in town. A few years ago, we stumbled across this place and had a great dinner at the bar. This year, due to COVID-we needed to dine outside on their deck which didn't have quite the same feel. Also the menu was more limited than what we remembered and very pricey. After dinner, we drove to the Casino in Christmas, MI. We had stopped here on that same trip a few years back and had fun playing the Willie Wonka slot machine. This visit, the Casino had removed all name brand machines and replaced them with cheap generic digital slots. We spent $20.00 and about 20 minutes there, leaving disappointed. It appears things have changed, maybe due to the Pandemic. 

The next day, we drove to nearby Munising Falls and walked all the steps to see the pretty waterfall and surrounding forest. 

Down the street from the B&B, is Sandy Beach. We put our kayak in and paddled through the harbor. The water & weather were beautiful. We reached Grand Island on the far side of the harbor which has beautiful cliffs, secluded beaches and even a small waterfall coming down the steep cliff. It was hot enough (90 degrees) that we actually were able to wade into the cold, clear water of Lake Superior. Unusual for early July. 

After cocktails, we drove down to the Municipal Marina for the 4th of July Celebration. There was a festival, music, drinking and Chicken Shit Bingo. They really know how to party in the UP. While we were perusing all the local activities, we saw a Kadey Krogen approaching the marina. We walked down to help them with lines and met Nache & Lisa. They had just bought the used KK42 in Silver Bay, MN. They were not able to stay at the dock because the Fireworks were being shot off from there. Doug told them where a protected anchorage was located where they could stay the night. We left the festivities to watch the fireworks in our air conditioned B&B. 

Our last day in Munising, we checked out the town and then went hiking 4.5 miles along the Pictured Rocks National Shoreline. We were awarded with spectacular views of the cliffs, water and forest. That night, we found some Muldoon Pasties for Doug to add to his list-they received a thumbs up from Doug.