Craig Lake Hike

This week I was supposed to celebrate the end of the museum's season by going on a three day backpack in the Pictured Rocks with my friend, Helen Riley.  However, the weather did not cooperate so we had one day to go on a hike.  Neither of us had ever hiked Craig Lake, so we went for it.  This park is one of the most isolated in the state's park system.  It is located a little over an hour west of Marquette and is accessed by a seven mile long dirt road off of US41.

Fall colors on the drive from Marquette as well as in the park were near peak.  Just beautiful!

The previous night we had a tornado watch.  Nothing developed, but the wind did knock trees down.  We had to move the tree shown below off of the access road ourselves.

Getting started....to begin the temperature was only 34 degrees!

Awesome shelf fungi that looks like a carnelian agate!

The forest floor was almost as colorful as the forest canopy!

First rest stop of only a few minutes.

Thankfully there were some fairly new bridges over some of the rivers crossing the trail.

There were boulders of all sizes!

Weird fungi....

 

Lunch spot.....

Lunch included sandwiches made by Helen's husband, Jimmy, as well as Fritos and cookies.

Craig Lake views....

End of the trail....

Lake Superior Storm

Last Friday we had one heck of a storm in Grand Marais.  Power was out for several hours.  Trees were down everywhere.  I'm not sure how big the waves were, but some had to be over 15 feet.

The out houses at Agate Beach could not withstand the wind.

Next we drove down to the end of Coast Guard Point...

Finally we checked out the waves from the end of Cemetery Road....

Twelve Mile Beach Sunset

I cannot believe I have not posted for almost a month.  I must admit that I can no longer work the 12-15 hours per day I have done during the past 20 summers.  I had to eliminate some of the tasks, so the blog took part of that hit.

The other day I was invited to share a campsite at Twelve Mile Beach with friends, Marsha and Denise.  We had a great dinner and enjoyed a wonderful sunset.

Grand Sable Dunes adventure

Yesterday I went on a longer than expected hike on the south side of the Grand Sable dunes. We accessed the dunes via the Masse Homestead trail. After walking down the trail around 12 minutes, there is a path into the dunes. We then circled east and tried to walk along the edge of the dunes back to a dune above where we parked. I've done this hike many, many times. However, since we were limited in time, we tried to take a short cut through a finger of trees. We were never really lost since we knew what direction we were hiking, but we got caught in a very rugged, densely forested old dune formation with lots of steep ups and downs. An hour hike turned into a 2.5 hour hike. We finally just headed south back to H-58 and exited the forest less than a quarter mile from our car. A quick hike turned into a tough challenging adventure. Thanks to Marcia O'Brien for having a positive attitude about the adventure.

Fall colors have started....

This was the last photo I took before we tried taking "a short cut."

A summer of golf

As some of you know, this summer I changed the museum hours on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to 6:00 to 8:00 at night so I can play golf twice a week.  My game was progressing, but then I found out from watching YouTube videos that my grip was "weak."  I corrected the grip and now I've changed my swing, so my scores have been inconsistent.  However, my drives have been much better overall and I'm continuing to work on the rest of my game.  Golf is difficult, but I am enjoying it a lot.  Thanks to all the women in our Wednesday league as well as to the Grand Marais guys who have encouraged me on Tuesdays.

An injured coyote crossed the cart path in front of us, stopped in a clearing, and headed into the woods.  He was limping.  My camera was in my golf bag, so it took me a few minutes to retrieve it and get a picture just before the coyote disappeared into the woods.

Gorgeous evening in Grand Marais

I am sure some of you who have followed my blog are disappointed in my lack of posts.  This past week I have been having modem problems.  Before that -- just a busy summer.  Thanks to Doug and Susan Moore, who visited this past weekend, I was able to get out and hike to the end of the breakwall.