Porcupine Mountains

It was another beautiful day in the U.P., a great day for exploring and adventure. Where to today? Cherrie had found information at the Visitor Center for Bond Falls and other area water falls. So....we were off to Bond Falls, if we saw something interesting along the way, we of course stop and check it out. Once on Highway 2, we headed towards Watersmeet, the scenery is beautiful in the U.P. and we found ourselves finding back roads to explore.

We did make it to Watersmeet and found the Ottawa National Forest Visitor Center, its located at the intersection of Highway 2 and 45.  The Center had exhibits of native animals, tools and other artifacts, which made it an interesting stop.  After spending some time at the Visitor Center, we continued up Highway 45 to explore Bond Falls, twenty minutes later we were there.

There weren't too many people there, mainly some motorcyclist touring the area. Bond Falls is probably one of the most beautiful cascading falls. Cherrie and I explored the areas around the falls and were fascinated by the areas beauty. There is a small store along the road at the falls entrance that we stopped in before heading down the road.

We headed out from the falls and found some back roads to explore, even before making it to the highway.  We found other rivers and lakes along these back roads and also primitive camping with RVer's enjoying the peace and quiet.

After we made our way back to Highway 45, we headed north towards Bruce Crossing.  After arriving at Bruce Crossing we headed west on Highway 28, toward Lake Gogebic.  I knew there was a state campground on the west side of the lake, so we took a little tour of the campground and returned to Highway 28 to head back to camp.

It was another great day in the north woods. 

In the video there are pictures of damage on trails from the bad storm we experienced and you can see how muddy Lake Superior is because of the storm.

"Happy Trails"

Cedar Breaks Park

This was a Saturday in October 2009, David, Heather and family drove up for the day.  The weather wasn't the greatest, but when my son and family come to visit it's always a sunny day.  Cedar Breaks is a Army Corps. of Engineers park on Georgetown Lake in Georgetown, Texas.  It is a nice park.







"Happy Trails"

No Room At The Inn

As we arrived at Wakefield we started looking for a motel, we traveled west along highway 2.  We didn't pass any motels in Wakefield so we continued to Bessemer.  Bessemer had a good number of motels but all were full, we could tell by now people from campgrounds were all doing as we were, trying to find a room.

We passed motels where there were motorcycle groups filling the motel and all in front drying off.  Cars were going from one motel to another trying to get there before the next guy, but what they ignored was the "No Vacancy"  signs at all the motels.  Our plan was to push on to Ironwood which was a larger city and for sure they would have a room.  "Right?"

The rain had subsided by now and wasn't as heavy, but the roads in Bessemer were flooded, so we crept along trying not to get water in the engine.  Ironwood was less than 10 miles and it wasn't bad after we got out of Bessemer.   When we came into Ironwood we made an unexpected discovery, all the motels were full, at this point we didn't know how far we'd have to drive.

We came to the last motel in town and we drove up to the front door, Cherrie jumped out and ran to the front desk, I followed after I parked the car.  There was one person in front of us that got the last room, we offered to pay him twice as much for his room, we were kidding, but he declined, smart man.  At this point Cherrie and the desk person were trying to find us a room, by this time a family with small children had come in and they had also been looking all night for a room.

The next motel was 50 miles away and that was just too far to go, so we along with the other people were resigned to fact we would have to sleep in our cars.  Just as we were going to leave the desk person and another employee remembered a place back toward Bessemer, it was a small resort with little A-frame chalets.  The man called and they had two chalets open, WOW!  They gave us directions, we thanked them and we were off back to Bessemer, the other family right behind us.

We followed the directions and eventually found it and pulled up to the office and hurried inside, expecting them to say "Sorry your too late", but no, they indeed had two openings, GREAT!  At this point we weren't taking any chances and took the chalet for the rest of the week, we weren't much in the mood of camping in the tent for awhile.

We took care of paying and they told us where to go.  We parked the car in front of the chalet and went inside, it was actually pretty nice.  It had a living room, fully furnished kitchen, full bath two bedrooms, a loft and it also had a nice gas fireplace.

After we got all our things out of the car, cleaned up and changed our clothes, it was time to relax.  We sat on the couch, Cherrie was laying against me as we were watching t.v. and listening to the rain and then it happened, a big drop of water landed on Cherrie's forehead.  No it couldn't be, but yes it was, the damn roof was leaking.  We just looked at each other and started laughing...... and laughing .....and laughing, what are you going to do, it's an adventure.


We moved the couch over a bit and put a pot down to catch the water, problem solved.  We had something to eat, watched a little t.v. and it was time for bed.  We made our way to the bedroom in the back and as we were getting the bed ready we noticed the floor was wet by the bed, now what.  Someone had left the window open a few inches and got the floor and part of the bed wet, no worries, it was Cherrie's side.

After we got the carpet and bed dried up the best we could we climbed into bed.  We were just laying there and Cherrie beat me to it and said.  "Doesn't it feel like we're going down hill?"  "No S#@T" we were, all the blood was going to our heads.  What was going on now, the whole damn place sinking into the ground?  I didn't want to get up, I told Cherrie to just try and go to sleep, but the ringing in my ears started again.  "Know what I mean?"

I got out of bed and looked under it to see what was going on, yup it was screwed up.  It appeared the frame was connected to the headboard too low, I wasn't going to redo that, so I took the casters off the frame, problem solved.  We did mange to get a good nights sleep, which made for two happy campers in the morning.

The next morning things didn't start out any better, all was fine until it was time to take a shower.  I got in the shower which was a challenge because this place was an A-frame and the shower was on the sloping wall and if you were over four feet tall your head was hitting the ceiling......... wall......... whatever.  Once in the shower standing at a 45 degree angle I tried to adjust the shower head and it fell apart in my hands.  Now I'm standing there at a 45 with a stream of water coming out of this pipe in the wall, hitting me in the chest, because this place was designed for midgets, good water pressure though....uh-huh.

We did manage to shower and get out of there before something else happened.  We went to talk to the managers and we were able to change chalets.  Right now we were headed back to the campground to get the tent and get a refund for the rest of the week so we can continue our "North woods adventure." 


"Happy Trails"

Luck or Intervention

Cherrie and I were on an adventure in Michigan's Porcupine Mountains.  The Porkies  are a group of small mountains spanning across the northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan in Ontonagon and Gogebic counties, near the shore of Lake Superior. We were camping at Presque Isle Campground, those were the days we were camping in a backpacking tent.

It was an unplanned destination, we were going to be camping in Wisconsin but since the campgrounds were full in the area we planned, we decided to head to the Upper Peninsula.  I'll cover that part of the adventure some other time.  We arrived at the campground early afternoon, we set up camp and did some exploring of the campground.  The campground was a primitive campground, meaning there were no electric or water hookups.  That never bothered us because we were tent camping, we didn't need hookups.

The campground is located on Lake Superior and has great hiking and waterfalls in the area.  Our first night we built a campfire as we usually do and as we were sitting by the campfire, the wind kept blowing smoke and embers toward the tent.  Cherrie was poking at the fire and I decided to move the tent up wind of the fire, not a big deal with a backpacking tent.  The rest of the night was relaxing and we later turned in for the night.

The next day we set off to do some exploring, Cherrie being the planner as she is, had some suggestions and we were off.  Later in the afternoon we returned to camp and relaxed until dinner.  The skies were getting dark and it started to rain, so we secured the tent and headed to the picnic area to cook and eat dinner under the shelters that were there.

We never got a chance to get out of the car when the skies opened up and just poured.  We sat in the car hoping it would let up, it didn't, so we decided to make a run for the shelter.  The shelter was probably 50 feet from the car, sooo.... we ran for it and got soaked in the process.

At the time it seemed like a good idea, because it was getting hot in the car and where else were we going to go, back to camp and try and get in the tent, maybe.....  The wind started blowing and the rain was horizontal now and we were getting wet again, we were standing on a picnic table in the center of the shelter looking like we were on this tiny island.  By now it was a full fledged bad ass storm with thunder and lightning strikes close, too close.  While standing there we heard this loud crack that came from the direction of our camp.  Cherrie said, "Did you hear that?"  We thought it was just thunder that was close.

We realized there wasn't going to be any dinner and we needed to do something besides holed up under a picnic shelter.  The plan was to go back to camp and wait out the storm in the tent, so back to the car.  We got back to camp and all was not good, the whole camp was flooded and the tent sat in six inches of water.  We then noticed the source of that loud crack we had heard, as we looked at a huge tree branch that had snapped and landed right where our tent had originally been pitched and where we had been parking the car.

If we wouldn't have moved the tent the night before and we had been in it during the storm, well..... I wouldn't be telling you about it now and at the very least that would have been the end of the car.  That definitely would have been a bad thing.  After seeing all this, Cherrie was scared and I sure the hell was just a bit anxious, So we grabbed our things from the tent and got the hell out of Dodge.

By this time the sky was black as if it were midnight and the rain continued to pour along with the thunder and lightning, that seemed to be right above us.  We headed out of the campground and stated down county road 519 toward Wakefield, luckily we've been down this road a few times so I knew the lay of the road and landmarks to know where I was.  Wakefield was 18 miles in front of us, the windshield wipers didn't make a difference, we could only see a few feet in front of the car, the windows kept steaming up because we both soaked and the defroster had little affect.

The sky to the west was a haze gray and where we were it was pitch black, it looked as if someone had painted half the sky black, it was a sharp separation, straight and sharp.  Cherrie was scared spit-less and was bracing herself for the inevitable accident, I was trying to concentrate on proving her wrong, but I was having difficulty doing that because of the ringing in my ears and my head throbbing, but that went away after I told Cherrie, "Sit back and shut up."  If you know Cherrie the ringing in my ears returned shortly.

We made it safely to Wakefield and the plan was to find a motel for the night, that shouldn't too hard.  Right?  I'll let you know in my next post.   

TO BE CONTINUED.......................


"Happy Trails"

How would you like to run into this?

A man who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska was out deer hunting last week
when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away. The guy emptied his
7mm Magnum semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him.
The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head.















The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12' 6" high at the shoulder,
14' to the top of his head. It's the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world.
Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy,
but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport
to remind tourists of the risks involved when in the wild.

Based on the contents of the bears stomach, the Fish and Wildlife
Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the
past 72 hours including a missing hiker.

The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated,
found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied. Not far from the pistol
were the remains of the hiker. The other body has not been found.

Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with
four shots (the Service ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along
with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear's dead body), it only wounded the
bear and probably angered it immensely.

The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear's own
death by the gun of the Forest Service worker.

Think about this:
If you are an average size man; You would be level with the bear's navel
when he stood upright. The bear would look you in the eye when it
walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this
particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average
single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story
house and look in the bedroom windows

"Happy Trails"