Sunday, August 17, 2008

Have Hairspray Will Travel

We left early Wednesday morning and spent 4 days in Michigan's upper peninsula.

After two hours of travel, we stopped to walk through a few tourist shops. It gets us in the "tourist" frame of mind.

We thought this garden sculpture in front of one of the shops was really cute.


Within 30 minutes of walking about, my hair rebelled against the early morning humidity. One glance at myself in the fudge shop mirror and we were off to the nearest rest stop/tourist center park.

I just don't do flat hair.


A bit of finger tousling and a couple of quick sprays and I was good to go. Thank goodness I didn't forget the helmet spray!

The red spot marks the furthest North we went-- Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore-- in Munising, MI.

We arrived in the small town of Munising an hour and a half early and decided we would walk around town to kill time. We were totally surprised to learn that all the downtown shops close on Saturday! Imagine that.

This is Miss Superior, the boat that took us on a three-hour tour of Pictured Rocks.
We chose to sit up on the top even though the sky hinted of rain. (Yes, my hair blew in the wind and a couple of raindrops fell on it. Every now and then I decide that some things are worth having to endure flat hair.)

Pictured Rocks are mineral stained sandstone cliffs that rise majestically for over 40 miles of the Lake Superior shoreline.
Lake Superior is the largest, deepest, and most pristine of all the Great Lakes.
Here are a few of the more notable named rock formations that were all naturally shaped by the powerful waves, ice and wind:

This one is known as the "Flower Vase".
The trees on the top represent the flowers in the vase.
This is "Indian Head". Can you see the profile of the Indian head?
This is the "Pirate". It takes a bit of looking to see where that name came from. The hole is one of the pirate's eyes. Just under the hole, is the moustache. The darker top rock forms the pirate hat.
"Lover's Leap" - It seems that every place where there is tall cliff there is a legend of lovers jumping to their death.
"Battleship Row"

It was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. After seeing these, I will never look at rocks in quite the same way.

You may have heard of Pictured rocks. Recently the area made national news when a man was convicted of murdering his wife by pushing her off the cliff. Dateline did a story of the tragic event . You can watch the highlights of the story on this video.

5 comments:

  1. Looks like a wonderful getaway Zoey!
    Loved seeing all the photos of the rocks and the stories with them.
    That sculpture of the kids on the water pump is so cute!
    xo

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  2. A nice little holiday for sure. Glad you had a good time and thanks for sharing the pics of the rocks..amazing!

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  3. What a lovely area! I love water spots as you can tell by now. Thanks for sharing your trip and wonderful photos!!

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  4. Hi Zoey,
    It was lovely to hear from you today. Believe it or not I was thinking of you this morning. I saw a Tropicana Canna which brought you to mind :) I haven't been around much this summer either, and just got my repaired computer back yesterday after 2 weeks plus. Hubby has been more than generous with his, but I missed my 'old friend'.
    What a great vacation spot! I loved seeing the rocks and learning a little about them. Thanks for sharing those great pics.
    That sculpture is delightful, isn't it? I'll be you'd like to have taken it home :)

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  5. That's supposed to say I'll bet you'd like to have taken it home :)

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