Michigan sights - back in the US

Arrived back in the US and a suspicious US Immigration official renewed our visas for a further six months after giving us the third degree.  Of course we want to return to Australia, you bozo, but we want to finish our year's road trip!!!!!

Perhaps starting off with another, lesser waterfall after the mighty Niagara Falls, is inappropriate but we like them both big and small and Michigan has plenty of them as well as numerous lakes, like Canada.

People can bathe in these falls at Tahquamenon Falls State Park.  The lower falls are shown above. Below are photos of the upper falls in the park.

These tea-stained amber-coloured falls are a major attraction and the upper falls are 50 ft tall and 200 ft wide.  The unique colouration of the water  is due to the presence of tannic acid in the river which leeches naturally from the dead trees and plants within the watershed.

Below is a photo of a moose head at the park entrance.  As it seems unlikely that we are going to come across a live one (though we did see one crossing the road but too late for a camera capture) I thought I would use this one.

The cliffs below the sandstone outcrop are known as the Painted Rocks due to the minerals staining them.








Miners Castle is what remains of a sandstone cliff rising 75 ft above Lake Superior.  The lake is the largest of the Great Lakes by surface area and second largest lake on earth by volume.  When we reached its shores, it was a pretty hot day and we tried to go for a swim in it but recoiled from the coldness of the water.  And this, after swimming in hilltop lakes and rivers all over the world.  This was THE coldest water we came across.  Since then, we read that except for shallow areas, Lake Superior's temperatures rarely reach above 17 degrees and hypothermia can occur in less than 15 minutes if one falls in while kayaking.

Camping at Baraga State Park in Upper Michigan.  It is one of the nicest parks and very reasonably priced camping with great facilities.  The campground is rapidly getting filled up as 4 July approaches and people set out to camp and enjoy the sunshine.  Lake Superior is across the road.  If only the water was more inviting for a swim :-)

The Pine Mountain Ski Jump is the largest artificial ski jumping hill in the world and home to the longest running competitive ski jumping tournaments in North America.  Jumpers travel over 55 mph at take off and fly over 400 ft to their landing place.  What puzzled us is how the skiers get up there as there is no lift.  We were told they had to carry their skis and walk up?????

As you can see, in summer people like to climb up it.  Guess what?  Andrew did as well.