UP Adventures: Day 1

Sunday morning we all slept in until after 8.  The adults enjoyed some coffee and we all ate some donuts while we discussed our itinerary for the day.  We were out the door by 10 and headed about an hour away to Tahquamenon Falls.

It’s so fun to me that the simplest things are ‘cool’ to kids when they aren’t what they do daily.  We passed a train station in Newberry and my daughter thought THAT was cool.  And remembered her trip on the train to Chicago. 

We got to the state park where the Upper Falls are located and before we hiked out to see them we hit up the gift shop and bathroom.  There were so many good looking books about local history, but I refrained from purchasing any.  We did get the kiddo a shirt and she spent her own money doing a penny stamp thing.

We hiked out to the falls and I felt surprisingly good for 35 weeks pregnant.  I did not go down the stairs and get the closer look at the Falls, but I have done it before as a kid.  We then went back to the Brewery where we split some nachos and my husband tried their Blueberry Ale.  I tried a sip and it was okay.

Then we got back in the car and went to the Lower Falls.  My body protested a bit here and I offered to go back to the car and read but the 8 year old didn’t want to hike around the river to get a closer look so we decided to drive through the campground and see if the bathrooms had been updated since my last visit to the park which was sometime in the late 90s! It did appear that they had been updated and the rest of my family found a little trail that they hiked down and saw some mini waterfalls while I waited in the car.

After that we headed up to Whitefish Point for the Shipwreck Museum.  I had been in the early 90s but neither my husband nor kiddo had been there before.  It was a really fascinating museum.  I really enjoyed it and think that if you haven’t been there it is a good investment.  Not some place you’d have to go to yearly, but it has some really interesting information about shipwrecks in the Great Lakes.  We did not pay the extra money to go up in the light house, but after we toured the different buildings we did plant ourselves on the beach for about an hour.  I did not put my feet in Lake Superior this trip because the air temp was pretty cool and it was a rocky beach, so I didn’t really want to have any pregnant lady injuries.  I read my book, while my husband enjoyed a beer on the beach, Edmund Fitzgerald, in honor of the museum, and the kiddo played in the rocks/sand.

We decided we should head back to our resort because it was getting close to dinner.  We enjoyed that we got to drive through lots of different places/roads because of how we plotted our trips.  We kept telling the kid ‘THIS is the middle of nowhere’ over and over again.  Beautiful views though.

When we got back our steak was not thawed so we hit up the heated pool and swam for about an hour and then we enjoyed a lovely feast.  We walked down to the beach to catch another amazing sunset.  When we got back we decided to have a fire.  The sky was so clear and we saw a lot of stars! Then I read my book while my husband plotted out a plan for the next day’s adventures…. Grand Maraias to Munising to see the Pictured Rocks.

Have you ever visited one of the Great Lakes? Which is your favorite? Do you have any family favorite vacations from your childhood?