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Old 18 Sep 19, 08:51 PM  
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CrispyA
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Great Lakes Grooving: Day 9 Mountains in Marquette

Monday 15 July

We slept very well, even despite the skylights which I was worried might let early morning sunlight in. Once we were all up, Paul cooked sausage and eggs and we had a nice breakfast in the cabin.

Once we were ready to go, we set off for Hogback Mountain which was just outside Marquette. We managed to annoy Hannah by continually referring to it as HogSback - in fact, we can still irk her on a regular basis by adding that "s".

It was a good walk up - a tough trail with very humid weather but once we got to the top there was a cooling breeze and some amazing views.



I love Hannah's hair in this photo



Evan getting his groove on



Once we were back down again, we drove the short distance to Sugarloaf Mountain and set off upwards again. There were two routes and we chose the more difficult one but it wasn't really very hard. It was a lot busier than Hogback though.

There were amazing views at the top again and we loved looking at Lake Superior - the water was such a gorgeous colour blue and looked just like the Caribbean.



Paul even managed to relinquish the camera for a rare family shot (and resisted the urge to give the photographer detailed instructions of exactly the angle they would need . . . )



We found a quiet spot and ate our lunch at the top, enjoying the wonderful views for a while, before heading back down the car park. We had fancied a walk to Dead River Falls but the route took us along an unmade road, which was getting more and more "unmade" so we decided to give it a miss and head into Marquette instead.

There was a State Park, Presque Isle, which has white-tailed deer and good swimming and sunset watching spots. We didn't really fancy a drive around to find the deer, so parked up for a little while and had a short wander around.



There were some very "free range" children chasing geese near the water. I really don't like it when parents just let their kids chase animals and frighten them like that, and was kind of hoping one of the geese would get fed up enough to take a good nip out of one of the kids. That probably makes me sound like a right grumpy old woman but I don't agree with scaring animals for fun. *shakes walking stick*

We then drove into Marquette itself, listening to the (very) local radio station. It had a feature on local restaurants which consisted of the presenter reading out the menus. It was bizarre and quite hilarious, before becoming pretty tedious so we searched the airwaves for something better.

In Marquette, it became very necessary to drive round and round to find some free parking because ain't nobody paying for parking if they can avoid it. Fortunately for Paul, he found some before we all exploded in frustration at him. The joy on his little face when he found a free parking area . . .

We were ready for ice cream by this point and found a place called Donckers where they had lovely ice cream. The guy on the counter was super friendly and wanted to know what had brought us to Michigan. As an aside, the UP isn't that well known as a tourist destination even in the USA, so people were very interested in hearing British accents and wanting to know why we were there. I don't think we heard another British voice the whole time we were there.

On the way back to the cabin, we stopped at the Made in Michigan store where Paul got a t-shirt, some beers and a coozie that read UP Yours. I got a fridge magnet in the shape of the UP. We did stop for petrol but annoyingly, the Halifax card wouldn't work in the garage.

We wanted to call Halifax when we got back but couldn't get a signal at the cabin. We headed to the beach, planning a quick swim and even quicker getaway once I'd spoken to the bank. The kids headed down while I was on the phone; Halifax confirmed there was no problem with the account but that their security will now reject the card being swiped as they want chip and pin. This was a relief but we did have to keep asking people not to swipe it but to insert it instead. Why they don't have chip and pin all over the USA, I don't know.

After this we were ready for a swim but met the kids scrambling back up from the beach, telling us that the water was too cold and that it was Bugmageddon down there!

Back at the cabin, we relaxed with cold beers and Paul met the cabin owner, who was visiting to do some work on the basement, and who was unable to understand his name. This reminded us of the time in Wendy's when the server thought he was called Pole . . .

We grilled some burgers for tea and then, annoyingly the WiFi stopped working. We all managed to cope, hoping it would be back on by the morning, and spent the evening playing Post Its - where you write the name of a famous person on a post it and stick it on your chosen family member's forehead and they have to ask questions to work out who they are. You can only answer "yes" or "no".

It was good fun and a reminder of how much nicer it can be to play games rather than just watch TV or mess about on devices. There was also a fairly spectacular rain storm which we quite enjoyed watching before going off to bed.
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Old 18 Sep 19, 09:17 PM  
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Melbatb
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The hikes look fab - got to love views like that!

I can never understand why the US card use seems so lax! I try to use cash to avoid my card getting refused 😂

The bugs seem to like the water. Shame the kids didn’t get a proper swim. Dodgy wifi seems to be a common issue in cabins!
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2016 Quebec - Kuala Lumpar - New York City 2017 Dubai - Eurocamps France - Ontario and Quebec - So-Cal 2018 Montreal - Bangkok - New England 2019 Argentina - Quebec City - Hong Kong - 2020 Switzerland 2022 Arizona - Costa Med Cruise - Oslo 2023 Hong Kong - Gothenburg
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Old 18 Sep 19, 11:33 PM  
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DisneyDaffodil
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2 mountains in one day! I’m sure I couldn’t have managed the one, but it looks worth it for those beautiful views 😀

I agree with you about children being allowed to chase animals without parents stopping them, it makes me so mad 😡 so I’m a miserable old stick waving lady too 😂

Such a shame the bugs won’t leave you alone 😔 We often don’t have WiFi when we are on our caravan holidays in the UK so we then spend the evening playing card games, we love it and it’s really nice to be ‘unplugged ‘ for an evening or two 😀
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Old 19 Sep 19, 07:40 PM  
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smithlane
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Wow those views are beautiful! I can't believe you climbed 2 mountains in one day, hats off to you all.
I can't stand free range children either, in fact most small kids annoy me now...
I'm cracking up at the owner not knowing Paul's name as I can remember reading about the Pole incident from Wendy's. It's not like he has an overly complicated name like mine
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Old 19 Sep 19, 08:22 PM  
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CrispyA
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Originally Posted by Melbatb View Post
The hikes look fab - got to love views like that!

I can never understand why the US card use seems so lax! I try to use cash to avoid my card getting refused 😂

The bugs seem to like the water. Shame the kids didn’t get a proper swim. Dodgy wifi seems to be a common issue in cabins!
The hikes were really good and it was great to be able to see so much from the tops.

Originally Posted by DisneyDaffodil View Post
2 mountains in one day! I’m sure I couldn’t have managed the one, but it looks worth it for those beautiful views 😀

I agree with you about children being allowed to chase animals without parents stopping them, it makes me so mad 😡 so I’m a miserable old stick waving lady too 😂

Such a shame the bugs won’t leave you alone 😔 We often don’t have WiFi when we are on our caravan holidays in the UK so we then spend the evening playing card games, we love it and it’s really nice to be ‘unplugged ‘ for an evening or two 😀
The bugs were really bugging us! To be fair, they weren't huge mountains but worth the walk for the views.

And I'm glad it's not just me waving sticks at children!

Originally Posted by smithlane View Post
Wow those views are beautiful! I can't believe you climbed 2 mountains in one day, hats off to you all.
I can't stand free range children either, in fact most small kids annoy me now...
I'm cracking up at the owner not knowing Paul's name as I can remember reading about the Pole incident from Wendy's. It's not like he has an overly complicated name like mine
So glad I'm not alone in being irritated by other people's kids!

The Pole incident has gone down in history and still makes us absolutely crack up now!
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Old 21 Sep 19, 08:48 AM  
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katiebaz
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Loved the views from the top and shame about the bugs again hampering your swim.

Always great to get a reminder of the Pole incident - we had a similar one this year with Stove...
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Old 21 Sep 19, 09:04 PM  
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WileyCoyote
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What gorgeous views but tsk tsk on the feral children. They certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if they were being chased in reverse !

Ha ha Andy applauds Paul on the free parking ... got to be done apparently .

Ooh no WiFi. Glad you had a nice evening but was there a riot the following morning ?
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Old 22 Sep 19, 03:58 PM  
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CrispyA
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Originally Posted by katiebaz View Post
Loved the views from the top and shame about the bugs again hampering your swim.

Always great to get a reminder of the Pole incident - we had a similar one this year with Stove...
Those bugs were just evil.

You need to tell me of the "Stove" incident!

Originally Posted by WileyCoyote View Post
What gorgeous views but tsk tsk on the feral children. They certainly wouldn’t appreciate it if they were being chased in reverse !

Ha ha Andy applauds Paul on the free parking ... got to be done apparently .

Ooh no WiFi. Glad you had a nice evening but was there a riot the following morning ?
I'm glad it's not just Paul that has to have a free park if at all possible. I'd have given up and paid the $2 fee, but clearly I'm a fool!

There was no rioting but it was clear that it was not acceptable to be unconnected!
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