Now all of my downtime has not been spent at home. This past week I met up with Erich, a friend of mine from the lab, and we took off for Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Lake Superior near Munising, Michigan. We had been talking about this trip for several months prior to this date and since Gina was spending the week in Appleton for school, it was perfect timing. The plan was leave from Milwaukee early Thursday morning, head up 6 hours or so, check in to a camp site before 4:30pm (originally we wanted to backpack, but with the colder weather we were forced to bring too much gear), quickly set up camp, and head out for a short hike before nightfall, hike all day Friday, hike part of Saturday, pack up and head home. That sounds like a great plan if you ask me. Well, naturally the actual events deviated from the plan.
I woke up nice and early (before the alarm went off) Thursday morning so that I could meet up with Erich and get on our way. I rushed through a shower and breakfast and then sat down for a few minutes to enjoy a nice warm cup of joe. As I was sitting there I started to realize I did not pack as well as I should have the night before, and so I had a little bit of work to do before I could leave. Not a big deal, but it pushed me back about 30 minutes. With our first plans, Erich was going to provide the tent which was a small 2 person tent for backpacking, but as I stated earlier that idea went out the window with the temperatures hovering right around freezing. Therefore, I was going to bring one of my tents because it was larger and we would have more room to throw down bedding and keep dry if it were to rain at all. Had I got more of my packing done earlier, I would have discovered that I did not have my tents stored at our new apartment. When we moved, I stored some stuff at Gina’s sister and brother – in –law’s house. Two of those things were my tents. No big deal, when I met up with Erich (a half hour late) I let him know before we hit the interstate that we would need to go a little out of our way and pick up the tents. Plus, while we were chatting, I saw a hatchet in Erich’s garage, which would later on turn out to be a lifesaver. I figured picking up the tents would only set us back about another 10 minutes (it turned into about 25 minutes as my 2 ½ year old nephew had to put on a little song and dance show that we couldn’t pass up). While looking for my tents, we also notice my Pudgy Pie irons, which would also turn out to be lifesavers. Alright, we’re finally on our way. False, we needed to stop and fill up the gas tank (10 more minutes behind). Alright, now we’re finally on our way for real this time…a camping we will go!
A few hours into our trip and we were now up by Marinette right on the boarder of Wisconsin and Michigan’s upper peninsula. As we were driving through the city I was admiring the downtown and how it looked and felt a lot like my hometown of Merrill. That’s when we noticed it, a small shop called Blue Bike Burrito: Marinette Wisconsin’s finest organic Mexican restaurant and music venue. Of course we had to stop in since as I failed to mention, Erich has an insatiable appetite for burritos. We were very surprised to see what this small shop had to offer. The two guys working the counter (who we had assumed to be the owners) looked like road cycling, microbrew drinking, Frisbee tossing transplants straight out of Madison. How this place ended up in Marinett, I have no idea, but we were right at home. They had a small selection of specialty beers I would never expect to see in an area where the majority of people probably drink Pabst Blue Ribbon or Hamm’s. Not to mention, the food was pretty damn good too. Alright, back on the road (only 20 more minutes behind schedule). False, just remembered, we need to get a few groceries if we planned on eating anything over the next couple days in the woods. While in the grocery store, which was the nicest store I have seen anywhere in northern Wisconsin (well done Marinette), Erich and I noticed that there was a loud popping sound coming from another aisle. This sound was comparable to a shot from a .22 caliber rifle. As I approached the apparatus making the sound I saw a sign that said “Magic Pop”. Not that it takes a whole lot, but I was amazed! This machine takes grains, smashes them down under immense pressure, puffs them up, and then like a cannon fires them out at a clear plastic window in front of the machine. The end result is a multi grain snack similar to a rice cake. Alright, back on the road (20 more minutes behind schedule).
Moving along a few more hours and we are now arriving the beautiful Munising Michigan with a lovely view out to Lake Superior. We found the information center where we thought we had to pay for our campsite. We pulled into the parking lot at 4:04pm, 26 minutes before they close…perfect! I called Gina to let her know we had safely arrived at our destination. While I was on the phone Erich pointed out that the sign on the door said, “closed”. That couldn’t be the case since they were supposed to be open until 4:30. Gina confirmed for me that the time was 4:04pm and that’s when I looked at my phone and noticed that it said 5:04pm. It turns out that along the way we had passed into the eastern time zone and never noticed…we were now too late to pay for a site. I jokingly told Erich that we could just campout in the parking lot and wait until the info center opened in the morning. Perhaps other people have had the same idea because Erich pointed to several signs in the parking lot that said in very bright red “NO CAMPING”. Crap! Now for those of you paying attention and doing the math, we were probably about an hour and 45 minutes behind when we should have arrived to our destination. Double Crap!! Damn you Blue Bike Burrito and Magic Pop!!!
After some deliberation and sign reading, Erich and I decided that we would just go to our intended camping area and see if there was any way we could pay for a site there. Away we went. As we got within a few miles of the camping area we started to notice a lot of residual snow on the ground and suddenly I really started to second guess our decision to go camping on the northern boarder of the United States on the coast of a Great Lake in APRIL! Oh well, we’re committed, no turning back now. Down the bumpy dirt (slightly ice covered) camp road we went to our spot on Little Beaver Lake. There wasn’t too much ice on the road, only as we headed down and around a sharp curve at about an 18% grade on a road about 3 inches wider than our vehicle. To my side was a 60 foot dropoff, but don’t worry there were a couple yard sticks pounded into the ground so if our 2,000 pound vehicle started to slide of the road, it might give the illusion of slowing us slightly and maybe give us a little hope before we plunge to our final resting places. This trip is going to be great…I can feel it already!
Finally we arrived at Little Beaver Lake…victory is ours! Next order of business, who and how do we pay for our site. I saw a sign that said we could pay at the information board. We went over to the information board and there was no sign of anything to collect money in. I did however find a sign that said the campground was going to be closed from November to May. Hmmm, well that’s no good because it just so happens to be APRIL! Well, there was hope, another group of people who appeared to be college kids had 4 tents set up at another site. What the hell, we decided to stay…FREE CAMPING! We claimed our site and set up the tent in no time at all. We decided to get a fire going and maybe eat a little something before heading out on a short hike.
HAHAHA, guess what…in April just after the snow melts it just so happens that all the wood in the forest is absolutely soaking freaking WET! Even better is the fact that wet wood burns like sh*t. And by sh*t, I mean not at all. Luckily, I was still riding the high of not having to pay for our campsite and we decided to try and find some dry wood. It took about an hour to collect some wood that most would classify as damp. We also found several logs that people had left behind that were not too wet in the middle, but the outside layers were very wet. Good thing we had the axe. Erich and I spent another hour or two taking the axe to the outside of all our wood pieces in order to get to some dryer inside pieces. We even sacrificed Erich’s wooden ice scraper. After about 3 hours with nightfall quickly approaching, we finally had something that resembled a fire, at least it gave off a lot of smoke and smelled of fire. Once we had a bed of coals we had the ability to keep throwing small damp sticks into the fire to keep it going. Our large logs were still being pretty stubborn and would not burn. Since we had a bed of coals, and no idea how much more burnable wood we would find, we decided to quick make some Pudgy Pies. The pies would turn out to be one of the best tasting and well deserved meals I’d had in a long time. With the last bit of sunlight still peaking out across the lake, we went to the shoreline behind our tent to take it all in and catch a few moments of the reason we were up north in the first place. After a while of chatting with a duck and one another, we came to the conclusion that it was time for bed. We stocked the fire with a little bit more wood, took a few pulls off the handy dandy bottle of Jameson I had packed (for inner warmth reasons), climbed into our sleeping bags and went to sleep (or so I thought).
Long story short, I did not get much sleep at all because I was not camping with a proper sleeping bag. It was only a half hour or so before I started to shiver and shake. Right around that time was when I also saw the warm red glow of our fire disappear through the tent door. It was a rough night as I tossed and turned trying to create heat in my bag. The morning could not come soon enough. Eventually I saw a few rays of sunshine peaking through the back side of the tent. It was time to get up and start moving around…maybe the sun would warm me up since everything else had failed miserably. After a few cups of hot green tea (Erich packed a Jetboil) it was time to start prepping for our first hike of the day. We thought a short 2-3 mile hike around Little Beaver Lake would be a good way to warm up. The hike was so peaceful and enjoyable. The scenery was unbelievable. My favorite parts of our trek were the giant sandstone caves along the trails. During our hike I got to thinking a little bit about the previous night and how I wasn’t quite sure if I could handle another one like it. I mentioned this to Erich, and we decided that when we returned to camp, we would pack up, go for a nice hike somewhere else, and then head home.
Upon returning to camp we remembered that Erich had packed a special treat for the trip. A treat we had talked about for 10 months or so since Erich got it in the first place. The special treat was a bottle of Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout from 3 Floyds Brewery in Munster, Indiana. This fantastic beer has been rated by many as the best beer in the world. It is a limited release beer, and they sell a certain number of tickets in advance for a one day event where everybody with a ticket can get a bottle. It just so happens that Erich had one. We cracked the bottle open and thoroughly enjoyed the beer by the shoreline. Let me tell you, I have never experienced a beer quite like this one. The taste is nearly indescribable. The only words I have are that it was the best beer I have ever had, and there are few other beers that have come close. It also happens to be the case that this beer is about 15% ABV and we were a little buzzed up when it was gone…my watch read 9:40am. After our meeting with the Dark Lord, it was time to pack up, which we did very quickly because there was a park ranger on the property and we didn’t want him to try and ruin our free camping trip. So off we were…
(3 bottles of Dark Lord....h'mmmm a man can dream can't he)
We went back towards Munising a slight ways so that we could find the amazing Pictured Rocks shoreline that is so famous and we heard so much about. I had no idea what I was in for. When we arrived to the shoreline, there is a lookout point to look out over Lake Superior. I thought the lake was about 10 feet below…wrong! There was about a 100 foot sandstone drop off with beautiful green water slamming up against down below. The rock formations jetting out to the lake were simply breath taking. I felt like I was on a coastline in Central America…I never imagined anything like this could exist in the U.P. Imagine that der, eh. Then we walked down a path to what appeared to be a long white sandy beach by the shore. We were right except we noticed right away that about an inch below the sand was none other than ice. It was a total paradox. I was standing in the sun on a warm sandy beach with this amazing water that looked like the ocean. I was ready to put on my shorts and flip flops, but really the sand was literally cold as ice and the water wasn’t much warmer. I didn’t care. I let my mind think I was at some faraway island. It was exactly what the doctor ordered. The whole trip along with the freezing cold and lack of fire was completely worth it. I am so glad we made this trip and I would recommend it to anybody (go around June when it gets warmer/greener and before the bugs come out).
I arrived back home completely refreshed and ready to tackle anything the world wants to throw at me for a while. Not to mention it was extra nice to cuddle up with my wife together in our nice WARM bed for the first time in a week.
I am aware this post is a little long but I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed remembering my trip and writing about it. Again, I will be starting school in a couple days, so I hope to write another post soon to let you know how the first few days go.
Cheers,
Derek
Best beer in the world: Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout by 3 Floyds(duh)
Favorite song right now: Icky Thump by The White Stripes
Things I’m looking forward to:
- My nieces baptism this weekend (and seeing my mom and grandmothers on Mother’s Day)
- A new niece or nephew arriving soon (hopefully this weekend sometime)
- Starting school
- Celebrating with Gina’s younger sister this weekend in Madison for her 21st birthday. Also, happy 21st birthday to Gina’s brother on the same day (they’re twins)
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