June 25, 2017 Day 5 Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore to Home

  • Jul 04, 2017
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Scott made some delicious French Toast for breakfast.  While the kids waited for breakfast the created some more hearts and artwork out of wire.  Cody wasn’t feeling the picture mode this morning.

 

Our campground was named the Bay Furnace Campground and on our way out of the campground we decided to finally check out the blast furnace ruins that are the namesake of the campground.  The furnace was destroyed in a fire in 1877. Liquid iron ran across this area through channels and into sand molds where it hardened into bars and they called these bars “pigs” because the rows of channels and bars looked like baby pigs laying next to their mother.

The furnace was given some structural support with the wood beams in the 1990s.  While we were at the blast furnace the kids spotted a tiny rabbit.  There’s no way you can see the rabbit in the picture, but Scott like their determination to get him to take a picture anyway.

Next stop was the ranger station for the only junior ranger badge the kids earned on this trip.  Brooke completed another book, but we need to mail that one in since we missed the open hours of the visitor’s center.  We saw Ranger Cheryl again.  She had told us all about our hike and sites to see yesterday.  She was determined to get us to pose for a picture with a ranger for FB.  The kids didn’t fight and gave great smiles.

After the Visitor’s Center in Munising we headed to the Miner’s Castle Overlook.  It was a bit foggy from the cold and rain.  Once again we were thankful that we had gone for the Pictured Rocks Cruise on Friday night as the view was a bit impeded this morning.

This display depicted evidence of erosion and collapse of the features in the park. The interesting part of the location choice of this display was that Miner’s Castle was also altered less then twenty years ago, before the sign was created, when one of the two towers collapsed into the lake below.

We wanted to get a few more overlooks and mini hikes, but we needed to get Brooke off to camp a few hours away.

Scott found us a picturesque roadside picnic area.  Notice Cody and Brooke have on winter coats and there is a dad going in Lake Superior in Marquette gathering water for his daughter’s sandcastle.  The temperature was in the forties when we woke this morning and it was probably in the high fifties/ low sixties at this point in the day.  That’s the air temperature.  Lake Superior didn’t seem to be calling swimsuits to us.  We still enjoyed its beauty from a warm distance nonetheless.

Scott got some great pictures of the animals at our lunch stop.  Alone, on a short walk I had been trying to get a picture of the seagull on the no parking sign and had no luck and gave up my silly picture creativity until Cody sat down to lunch and said, “Hey look!  That seagull is parked on a no parking sign!”  I laughed and said, “I was trying to get a picture of that!  I thought it was funny too.”  Scott hopped up from his lunch and got the picture and really multiple shots.  Its like the gull was asking him which angle was the best lighting for his figure.  My title for the picture, “Why literacy is important for all.”

Not only was the gull posing for Scott, our lunchtime visitor/ hopeful vulture posed in multiple directions for Scott too.

So this was it.  The moment the entire trip was planned around.

Dropping Brooke off at an overnight camp for the first time.

I can’t talk about it too much because just looking at the pictures makes me emotional all over again.  Missing her is hard enough, but the girls in her cabin were already saying some not so nice things with us there.  Scott says it is good for her.  Standing anxiously outside the cabin, a set of grandparents who were dropping off their granddaughter said their own daughter many years ago cried when they dropped her off and then cried when they picked her up because she didn’t want to leave camp.  I’m hoping Brooke will fall in love with the camp too, but it is hard to forget her anxious look fighting back tears as she said to me, “I’m not sure I can do this.”  I’ve already mailed Brooke a card and hopefully she will get it tomorrow or Tuesday.  This week will be a week of growth for both of us.

It has rained all night the last two nights and then rained almost all of today.  The rain stopped long enough for us to drop Brooke off, but seemed to intensify just as we left her. I suppose it matched the intensity I felt at leaving Brooke and it may have rained in the car for a little bit too.  The mood was lightened by two complete rainbows side by side.  We didn’t stop to get a full rainbow picture, I found it interesting that the rainbow on the left has the red on the right side and the outside rainbow has red on the left side.  While the storms were still rolling on the left side of the highway the right side of the highway provided an intensely satisfying and warming sunset.

Cody at nine pm, “Dad, knowing me, I’ll probably fall asleep ripping duct tape,” and, “Mom, duct tape is my favorite material in the whole world.”

Boy Scout camp will thankfully keep Cody and I busy this week and then we head back up north to get her.

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