Houghton, MI

I went back to one of my favorite places the month of July – Houghton, MI.  This is my 4th time here since I have been full timing.  I really love the cooler weather and I enjoy the 4 mile paved walking/biking path that starts at the RV park. 

The thimbleberry is a berry that is known in the Upper Peninsula and other parts of the country, but I had never heard of it before visiting the U.P.  There are a good many bushes in the RV park and several miles down the path that I walk/bike. 

Early in the month they were blooming and just starting to show the berry.  Towards the end of the month I would pick and eat some each day.

The above picture is some thimbleberry bushes beside the bike path. 

I went back to one of my favorite places several times, Canyon Falls.  This is about a 45 minute drive from the RV park, but goes beside a great produce stand so not a bad drive! The falls are only a 10 – 15 minute walk from the parking lot, but continuing on leads to great scenery in the small gorge and a few places where the locals hangout for fun.

Above shows some folks jumping off a 10 – 15 foot cliff. 

Exposed roots and trees that live even though it looks impossible always interest me. 

One day I drove a couple of hours to Porcupine Mountain State Park.  I had hoped to also visit the Black River Harbor area where there are some great waterfalls but we had a lot of rain in the last few days and a small tornado hit that area so it was closed for cleanup of the trails.  But I enjoyed my trip to the Porkies.  There was more water going through than I have ever seen. 

The first picture is a picture from this visit – 2016.  The next 2 are pictures of the same area taken in 2011 and 2012.  Many people come to see the circular holes the water has worn into the rocks, but they were not visible at this time.

2011

2012

I don’t know if this damage was from the storm just a few days ago or past storms, but there was a 3 – 4 foot gap in the trail.  I thought I could step across, but luckily I had brought my hiking poles and where I thought I could step was just debris covering more of the hole.  It looked like some people had jumped across, but I decided since I was alone it wasn’t something I wanted to attempt.  So I backtracked a bit and went up the small hill/cliff on the side and went around it. 

Have you ever wanted to go to the end of the earth?  As you can see below I was close!!!! 

One day I drove into Marquette to do some shopping in a larger town.  On my way I wanted to go to a waterfall close to Ishpeming.  I don’t think I would try it again because the road was close to being a 4-wheel drive road and I never found the falls, even with the few directional signs I found.  I found what I thought was the parking lot, but there were 3 – 4 trails that lead from it and I could not figure out which one lead to the falls.

I went to Coopers Harbor a couple of times.  One of my favorite places up there is Hunter’s Point.  I love the rocks!

I walked and/or biked most mornings.  One of my favorite things to do was bike the path a time or 2 and stop at Nara Nature trails before heading back to the RV Park.  This year the really need to cut the plants along the boardwalk. 

There were many Cedar Waxwings.

The photo below was taken from a bench at the end of one of the boardwalks ( a nice resting place after biking and walking). This is not a black and white photo, just taken very early on a grey day. 

From Houghton, I headed down to Iron River where I currently am.