Most travellers reach Michigan's
Upper Peninsula (familiarly known as "UP") by crossing the 8-km-long
Mackinac Bridge, and we were no exception. The bridge opened in 1957 and is nicknamed "Mighty Mac"; it is the longest suspension bridge between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere.
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| Mackinac Bridge at sunset, looking south from the UP |
Once across, we stayed two nights in Saint-Ignace, the small town on the UP side of the bridge. Dusk was quite atmospheric with mist rolling in off the Straits of Mackinac.
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| dusk at Saint Ignace |
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| dusk at Saint Ignace |
On our second night there was even a firework display!
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| Firework display. |
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The reason for spending two nights in Saint-Ignace was to visit car-free Mackinac Island, a short ferry ride away. We didn't want to stay on the island itself as accommodation is overpriced (prices were bad enough at Saint-Ignace!). Viewed by Americans as a "nostalgic haven", Mackinac Island is a big tourist attraction in the area. While it was undoubtedly pleasant, we found it extremely busy (we were visiting in the summer and our day trip fell on a Saturday), and the main town especially stank of horse poo (as cars are banned, horse-drawn carriages are a popular way of getting around for people who can't/don't want to walk).
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| Main Street, downtown Mackinac |
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| Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island |
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| Arch Rock, about 15 metres wide |
We managed to escape the crowds and walked along the side of the island and back through the centre.
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| 80% of Mackinac Island is a state park |
After leaving Saint-Ignace we headed further north to Sault Ste Marie, Michigan's oldest, and second-largest city. One of the main attractions there is
Soo Locks, which allow the passage of massive freighter ships between Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes. Managed by the US Army Corp of Engineers, it's the world's largest waterway traffic system. A few stats: visiting ships travel up to 3,769 kilometres; the locks allow boats to traverse a 7-metre drop; more than 64 million tonnes of cargo passed through the locks in 2018; 7,000 passages are completed each year; and the navigation season is 297 days (the rest of the year it's ice-bound).
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when we visited Soo Locks no freighters were passing through,
only this tourist boat |
We then headed west, stopping at
Tahquamenon Falls, one of the largest waterfall systems east of the Mississippi, before spending the night at Buckhorn Resort just outside of the town of Munising.
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| Tahquamenon Falls |
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| small lake that the restaurant of Buckhorn Resort overlooks |
Our destination the next day was
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, a narrow 60-km stretch of sand dunes, desolate beaches, sandstone cliffs, and shady forests beside Lake Superior. The area was heavily logged in the 19th century and one of our first stops in the park was "Log slide", a high sandy groove where loggers would slide timber down the dunes to waiting ships.
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| Log slide |
Lake Superior is the largest of the
Great Lakes, and contains an estimated 10% of the world's surface freshwater: enough to cover all of North and South America with almost 30 cm of water. Its surface area is 81,103 sq. kilometres, making it the largest lake in the world based on surface area (
in 2009 we visited Lake Baikal, the largest lake in the world by volume). The shoreline of the lake itself is about 2940 kilometres, 4,380 km if the lake's islands are included. It is 560 km from east to west, and 260km wide at its widest point. Its average depth is 150 metres, and its deepest points 400 metres. Its average temperature is only 4.4°C!
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| view over Lake Superior from the log slide |
The name Pictured Rocks is somewhat misleading in that the latter are only a small part of the park near the southern boundary. You would really need to take a boat trip to see them properly.
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| Pictured Rocks, seen from Miner's Castle. |
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| sign in the park |
We spent our next night in the university town of
Marquette, on the shores of Lake Superior. Its population is only just over 21,000 but it's still the largest town in the whole Upper Peninsula. One of its most striking features are the
ore docks (most of which seem abandoned) that carry and load iron ore onto ships.
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| an abandoned ore dock at Marquette, Michigan |
I would have liked to visit the
Keweenaw Peninsula, site of the first copper boom in the US, but time was short so the next day we headed south. Just before we left Michigan we stopped at
Escanaba and had a
pasty. They are now part of local eating traditions as they were originally brought over from Cornwall by copper miners but have now been adopted by all the ethnic groups in the area.
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| a pasty at Escanaba |
We then headed into
Wisconsin, the state which borders
Lake Michigan to the west. We stopped to visit a museum of the
Menominee tribe, a Native American nation.
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representation of the tribe's ancestral bear
carved from butternut wood |
We then spent the night at
Green Bay, Wisconsin's third largest city and the third largest city on Lake Michigan's west shore after Chicago and Milwaukee.
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| Lambeau Field stadium of the Green Bay Packers American football team |
Our next stop was the university city of
Madison, Wisconsin's state capital and the state's second most populous city. The State Capitol is the largest building of its kind in the US.
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| Madison state capitol building |
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view of Lake Monoma from the Frank Lloyd Wright-designed
Monona Convention Center |
Every summer Wednesday between late June and the end of July Madison holds free concerts in the grounds around the Capitol building. People sit on rugs and picnic.
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| free concert attendees sitting in the grounds around the Capital building |
Wisconsin is famous for its cheese, and makes about 500-600 different varieties. Below is a cheese platter with (from L to R) 15, 10 and 5-year-old cheddars.
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| Wisconsin-made cheddar platter |
Our next (quick) stop was on the shores of Lake Michigan again at
Milwaukee. We stopped at Harley Davidson's world HQ but didn't take the time to visit the museum.
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| Milwaukee is the home of Harley Davidson |
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| Milwaukee Art Museum |
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| Milwaukee City Hall |
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| Milwaukee has a large population of German origin |
We then continued down the lake shore and into Illinois. Just north of Chicago we were surprised to come across this seemingly out-of-place building: the
Baha'i House of Worship for North America.
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| Bahá'i House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois |
We had several days in Chicago, enough to do some exploring but not to see all the city has to offer !
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| view of downtown Chicago arriving from the north |
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| Trump tower, Chicago |
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| Tiffany dome, Chicago cultural center |
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| The Rookery |
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| Alexander Calder sculpture: The Flamingo |
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| Millenium Park |
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| Anish Kapoor's Cloud gate in Millennium Park, nicknamed "The Bean" |
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| view of downtown Chicago from Millennium Park |
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| view of downtown Chicago from Millennium Park |
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| view of downtown Chicago from Lake Michigan |
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| view of downtown Chicago from the Chicago River |
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| Sunday morning yoga on a stand-up paddle board on Lake Michgan! |
On leaving Chicago for the drive back to Plymouth, Michigan, we stopped off in pleasant
Oak Park, which – amongst other claims to fame – is where
Ernest Hemingway was born on 21st July 1899.
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| birthplace home of Ernest Hemingway |
Architect
Frank Lloyd Wright and his wife settled here in 1889 and stayed until 1909.
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| Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio |
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