Tahquamenon Falls

While touring Michigan's Upper Peninsula we wanted to stay in a state park and we chose Tahquamenon Falls State Park near the town of Paradise. It is the second largest of Michigan's State Parks (45,000 acres) and has many walking trails to the Upper and Lower Falls. The park and camping areas were nice, but the cost was ridiculous. We were required to pay $21 a night for an electric only campsite, plus $8 a night for the motorhome and $3 a night for the Honda CR-V, for a total of $32 a night. Michigan charges $8 a day for a motorhome even though it is driven to a campsite, parked, and never moved until the campers leave. We thought it might be less expensive if we bought a Michigan Season Pass, but we were told we would have to buy two season passes - one for the motorhome and one for the car. Michigan has the highest campground fees of any state and we will NEVER visit a Michigan State Park again. Since we were already there we bit the bullet and stayed two nights for $64.

A hike to the Upper Falls of the Tahquamenon River took us through 1,500 acres of pre-settlement old growth forest. Upper Falls is the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi River. At 200 feet wide and nearly 50 feet of vertical drop with a maximum spring flow rate of 50,000 gallons of water per second, the only larger falls in the eastern U.S. is Niagara Falls. The Lower Falls four miles away is actually a series of falls that flows around an island so we took a rowboat ($4) to the island and walked its' perimeter watching the water's flow and falls. The river drains Tahquamenon Swamp and picks up a golden color from the tannic acid produced by decaying vegetation.

Whitefish Point

North of Paradise is Whitefish Point, the Graveyard of the Great Lakes. There have been approximately 550 ship wrecks on Lake Superior and over 300 of them were near Whitefish Point. The complex ($8.50 per person) consists of Shipwreck Museum, Whitefish Point Light Station, Whitefish Point Lifeboat Station, a museum store, a Coast Guard quarters (overnight lodging available) and a bird observatory. The Shipwreck Museum houses artifacts from the first ship wreck, the Invincible to the famous Edmund Fitzgerald (1975). Artifacts and exhibits from thirteen of the worst wrecks are on display, plus a 2nd order Fresnel lens and other historic diving and maritime artifacts.

The theater has an excellent video on the Edmund Fitzgerald and the attempts made to collect relics form it. Whitefish Point Light Station is the oldest active light on Lake Superior and it was constructed in 1861. Two lightkeepers' families were housed in separate quarters which have been restored, one to the 1890 period and one to the 1920 period. It is little known that the shore at Whitefish Point is one of the best places in the nation to collect agates that wash ashore. We collect a bag full and some day, if we have time, we'll polish them and give them away as gifts.

Christmas

Christmas in the month of June? Well, in Christmas, Michigan we found Kewadin Casino that welcomes RVers with a free parking sites on pavement with electric so we spent three free days in Christmas. Four miles east in Munising we picked up our mail and found a spot to connect to free WiFi, so every day we drove to Munising and connected to the internet and made phone calls since there was no cell phone service in Christmas.

The reason we stopped there was to take a boat ride to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Lake Superior is the largest of the five Great Lakes with a shoreline of 2,880 miles and the deepest lake with depths up to one-half mile. Large Munising Harbor freezes to a depth of three feet in winter so the boat tours are in summer months only. A two hour and forty minute, 31 mile cruise, took us to Pictured Rocks ($29 per person). (The tour's brochure says 37 miles but we took our Garmin Quest GPS and it logged 31.1 miles.) The tour was narrated by the captain and as very informative and educational. We cruised near the shore's green and blue clear water for close-up views of formations such as Grand Portal, Miners Castle, Lovers Leap, Indian Head, Rainbow Cave and more. On the shore of Grand Island still stands the first lighthouse on Lake Superior and it was built like a church in the 1830's as were the first lighthouses.