Or as Doug titled our itinerary: "Epic Lake Superior Road Trip- One Man, One Woman, One Sweet Baby August". We took our last 2017 vacation by taking a family road trip around Lake Superior. It was actually really great, altho like most of our vacations, too much packed into each day!
Skipped the first official part of the loop by Munising and the Pictured Rocks as we had both been there and had limited time. We started our loop by driving up to Marquette and then heading West around the lake.
nursing break at a park somewhere in the UP
sunset at Presque Isle Park outside Marquette
August trying on Halloween costumes at the Walmart as I realized I had packed too much summer stuff and not enough warm stuff for him. Off to the store for some long-sleeved onesies.
Da Yoopers souvineer shop. Funny story, we stopped in there it was a real cute shop with quirky little souvineers and stuff. The front of the store was a separate rock store. So we head in there and the store owner sees August and says "oh look at the little butt munch." Me: *pause*, "nope, no butt munches here". And I didn't hear him respond as frankly I was kind of irritated by that comment, but Doug says he said, "I guess I'm the only butt munch here" as he walked back to his office area. Haha! We laughed for a long time about that later. Yup, you sir are a true butt munch whatever that might mean, but please don't call my son one!
hiking at Canyon Falls Wayside Park in MI
Bought jam and bakery goodies at the Jampot a bakery ran by monks. This is a waterfall near there.
Brockway Mountain Highway and Lookout
some old mine we found while exploring the Keweenaw peninsula in Copper Harbor. We never did make it to the bay of the peninsula, there was a backroad and SO many huge water filled potholes and then one of our tires showed a warning it was losing pressure, so we gave up and headed back into town. I did not want a repeat of our honeymoon being on back roads with no cell service and being trapped!
After an awesome dinner at Mariner's North, where Doug had this super tasty homemade bean and rice burger, we drove back out to the Brockway Mountain Lookout to see the sunset
A chilly sunrise the next morning over Copper Harbor. Then we headed back to Houghton-Hancock and on our way to the Porcupine Mountains and on to Ashland, Wisconsin.
hiking thru the Porkies
family picture at Lake of the Clouds
Lake of the Clouds, Porcupine Mountains
The next day we took a cruise around the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin
The next day was kinda rainy. We did a hike, can't remember wherebouts, it wasn't super fun because I was on high bear alert.
It was really pretty by the beach
As soon as we entered Canada the search for Red River began. The first grocery store was like a Canadian version of Aldi so they didn't have it, but we found it at Safeway and stocked up. And I enjoyed some for breakfast today :)
Touristy stuff in Wawa, Ontario
High Falls outside of Wawa, Ontario
We then saw the Pictographs at Lake Superior Provencial Park
you can see those 2 orange smears on the rock of 2 canoes done by Native American Indians of old
That walk was super beautiful with the sun streaming in through the leaves
The next day we took the Agawa Canyon train leaving from Sault Sainte Marie, Canada. It goes 155 miles through the canyon and back. It was a beautiful journey. It was an all day thing which made me a little nervous about traveling with August, but he spent some time napping in his carseat, and then we made "grandparent" train friends who were happy to hold him and Doug and I got a little free time to talk which was great.
After that we had dinner in Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario and then drove into Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan to stay in our hotel. We enjoyed the wonderful continental breakfast with those delicious make your own hot waffle stations. I had wanted to see the Soo Locks operating, but apparently there's a number you can call to see when the boats are going to go through, and none were until the afternoon, so we headed down to the lower peninsula.
We drove through the "tunnel of trees" in Petosky, and then had lunch with my cousin in Charlevoix who is a priest and he showed us the church where he works, and my dad (re)built the organ.
We had dinner with a couple of Doug's friends in Traverse City, then headed over to my aunt and uncle's where my Grandparents now live. We visited with them into the night, and then had breakfast and lunch with them, and my cousin Sam came over to see us too.
August and Great-Grandpa Ken
August and Great-Grandpa Marie.
These are the only "greats" he has left. My grandma has dementia so she doesn't really know him. To me she actually seemed a tad better, once I heard her say "baby" and then she was watching him and said "lookit" and was trying to get my aunt's attention to look at him. It was nice to see them.
After lunch we headed home, and arrived safe and sound. It was a great trip!
Anyway, it turns out Zoo Boo is just going thru a sectioned off part of the zoo and stopping at trick-or-treat stations along the way. The only things open were the reptile house, the camels were still outside, and we saw the beaver in his habitat. So we were actually kind of disappointed. August did seem to like to see kids running around, and they did have this really good juggler that we watched for awhile, but I wouldn't go again. There were lots of Halloween blow ups and decor along the path, they did have a display of pumpkins and squashes that were made to look like animals and painted, which was kind of cool, but again, Halloween isn't really our thing anyway, so not for us.
It was a nice day though and it's always good to get out and do stuff as a family. We love our little pumpkin!
