Another alarm clock malfunction this morning—I didn't wake up until 8:20 a.m. and we had to meet Carolyn for breakfast at 9:00. Very fast showers etc. and we made it. My room mate is threatening to fire me from my alarm clock job. My travel alarm decided to croak, so we've been depending on the light to wake me up.
OK breakfast—dinner here last night was very good. We have leftovers for sandwiches today.
Started off around 10:30—had hoped to get gas at the place next door to the motel, but it appeared to be out of business. No gas on the road to Porcupine Wilderness, so we decided it was not a good idea to head up there with only a quarter of a tank and backtracked to Ontonagon and filled up.
Then off to Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. First we went to Lake of the Clouds—great views after only a reasonable climb up a nice, graduated ramp.
Things got a little trickier after that. Many stairs and steep inclines. I made it almost to the top of Summit Peak—to the viewing lookout. Had stopped to rest and some people coming back down the trail said it wasn't far and only about a dozen steps. Ha! Try a dozen times 8 or 9! Needless to say, I did not proceed up the next bunch of steps to the tower at the top—the tower, no doubt, having its own set of stairs. The view was expansive but somewhat disappointing from a color perspective. The colors were great where we were driving.
We then enjoyed our picnic at that area and then headed for Presque Isle where there are two waterfalls and lots more stairs! We made it down to one of the falls, skipped the other one, and decided not to hike the trail to the bridge to the island, reasoning that that would also involve lots of stairs since it was probably down at water level.
Then on to Ironwood and goodbye to Michigan and hello to Wisconsin. And we gain an hour! Yeah! I'd never been to Ashland before, we always bypassed that on our way to Madeline Island because we were coming from a different direction. Appears to be a very nice good sized town.
Then the swing up the peninsula to Washburn and Bayfield. Stopped at Coco in Washburn, a bakery/restaurant I had read about and purchased all sorts of good looking stuff for breakfast. Then we noticed they had pasties which had just been baked this morning, so decided to get some for dinner.
Then up to Bayfield to our home for the next two nights. We have rented a 3-bedroom house at the Seagull Bay Motel. Right on the lake. We have a lovely deck overlooking the lake and there's a path into town, but it's about a mile. Heidi and I explored it a bit before dinner, but we'll probably drive. Give our old legs a break. Discovered the Apostle Islands cruise we were thinking of taking doesn't operate in October and the only one leaves at 10:00 a.m. Nobody seems to be too enthusiastic about having to get up tomorrow. We also suspect it will be somewhat the same scenery as we enjoyed at Pictured Rocks, so we'll probably skip it and just wander around town and enjoy the run up to Apple Fest.
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