Camping and Boat Riding

Well, I went camping! Haven't been camping in years and years! I think its been about 30 some years since I slept in a campground. I now have the feel for it and I think I'll go again. I camped at the Munising City Campgrounds among the big boys and the smaller boys and the even smaller boys and even close to some tents! My Grand Caravan is a bit tight but I lived in a Volvo cab for 10 years so I can make it in the minivan parked next to a picnic table and a fire pit. Parked is the word I like! I watched the kids playing, cooked over an open fire, read some of the current selection; yes, you read right, I read! Hadn't done that for a long time either!

The black in the middle is the Grand Caravan at our campsite! The Munising City Campgrounds comes highly recommended by me. It has lots of room, and its clean, and quiet and Munising Bay and a nice beach is only a few steps from any of the campsites.
First I played in the sand for awhile! It was fun! Actually that is not me! Fooled you though didn't I! I forgot my sand pail and shovel so I just watched the young man having fun with his!
Then I decided to take a boat ride to the Pictured Rocks. The east coast of Munising Bay and further north the coast of Lake Superior proper is a national park. It's the Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore and extends about 42 miles from Munising to Grand Marais. If you would like to hike there is a trail running the entire 42 miles for you to enjoy! Here is an example of the "pictured" rocks. The colors are caused by ground water seeping out of the cliffs which are about 200 or more feet high. Reds are caused by iron, greens by copper, white by limestone and black by manganese. The basic formations here are sandstone.

See the two eyes peering at you? Actually, if you look hard you should see two sets of eyes, one large set and one small set! Some folks have even seen Elvis! Julia would have a great time checking this out!

A couple of arches are major attractions. Here the story goes that an Indian maiden (poor Indians are in all the stories) jumped to her death from the arch after her hunter didn't return from a hunt! The boat captain narrating the tour wondered why any woman would do that for just a couple bucks!


Below is one of natures oddities and demonstrates the true grit of survival. You see the tree perched on top of the rock formation and wonder how it survives up there with little or no nourishment from the stone on which it lives. Look closely and you can see a series of roots extending from the rock the tree sits atop to the mainland! Many years ago the roots were actually in the ground but time has washed away that ground to leave the roots exposed.
Eventually the sun set over the water and the west shore of Munising Bay. As with any adventure it signaled that it was time to return home to toil again!