2017.08.30-Grand
Marais, MI
Driving
around this small town we found another lighthouse. Not too much of note here, but it is one of
the interesting sights of the town.
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| Lighthouse at Grand Marais harbor |
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| Grand Marais MI harbor |
There is a
plaque in town commemorating the creator of the old Teeny Weenies cartoon
characters. I think he lived in Chicago,
but somehow ended up here for a while. The
giant pickle barrel where he and his wife lived for a time is evidence of that. Amazing things are found in small towns.
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| Teeny Weenies Pickle Barrel House |
We have
enjoyed our campground. Just a few steps
away from our rig are steps leading down to sandy beaches on Lake Superior.
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| Steps to the Lake Superior sandy beaches |
Seney
National Wildlife Refuge is about 30 miles from here. We drove ourselves around the water “pools,” built
in the 1930s, looking for birds. We saw graceful
white trumpeter swans, some with signets, and several bald eagles, loons and
wood ducks. We also saw mergansers,
mallards and pied bill grebes, oh my. A
few days later we even went back to take a guided tour of the refuge. Our guide from the fish and game service did
an excellent job spotting birds and other wildlife for us to enjoy, as well as explaining
the refuge and answering our varied questions.
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| Loon and chick |
We found another
waterfall and visited the back side of Pictured Rocks National Park which is
primarily huge 150-foot sand dunes right on Lake Superior. This part of Michigan was established because
of logging white pine and some areas of these dunes were used as giant chutes to
roll the cut logs into Lake Superior so they could be shipped on to market.
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| Sable Falls within Picture Rocks National Park |
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| Sand Dunes at Picture Rocks National Park |
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| Remaining evidence of historical logging |
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| If you look very closely at tip of the land there is another lighthouse |
Looks like you had much fun here! We have picture in our office of a loon wit a chick on its back. Don't want to rain on your parade, but Pictured Rocks is not a Natioal Park. It is a Natioal Lake Shore (1 of 4) managed by the NPS there are only 59 Natioal Park, but just over 404 parks managed by the NPS. Includes Nat Lake Sores, Nat Seashores, Nat Historic sites, Nat Monuments, Nat Battlefields, etc. This was explained to us in a group by at Park Ranger many years ago in North Cascades National Park. Love you blogs!
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