Tim and I wrapped up our three-Great-Lake tour today with a boat tour of the Pictured Rocks shoreline on Lake Superior. (Previously we took the Sleeping Bear Dunes tour on Lake Michigan and the ferry back and forth to Mackinac Island on Lake Huron.) I do have a vague memory of having done a similar tour in '91, but it was totally worth doing again. For one thing, the weather was just about perfect for a boat ride and the lake itself, according to the ranger, unusually calm. There was no swell at all to speak of, and apparently there are "often" swells up to 8’. Twenty-five foot waves are common in winter. (I’m thinking no boat tours in winter!) We took the first tour out in the morning (10 a.m.), which has the advantage of sending two boats out at once (less crowded) and one of them carries a Park Ranger. The drawback is that the shore is to the east, so we’re looking into the sun, which reduces the chances for really good photos. I’ve posted a few of the better ones.

After the tour, we headed north through the park to visit the various sights we did not see yesterday . Much of this park is accessible only to serious hikers (or via boat), so there are only a few places where you can pull out and make short hikes in to the scenery. The main one of those is the Miner’s Castle Overlook, which we did yesterday. It was a good thing we did, actually, as by evening the activity has died down. From the boat this morning, all shots were marred by the presence of hordes of swimmers, boaters, and kayakers. No chance of getting a good photo of just scenery there. We went to the visitor’s center at the north end of the park where we picked up no less than FIVE additional passport stamps (a bonanza!), two of which Tim legitimized by hiking the mile and a half (one-way) to the Au Sable Lighthouse, where he also paid the three bucks to climb up to the top. I stayed behind, writing postcards and finishing my book. (The book was An Obsession With Butterflies, suggested by my friend Sandra. I really liked the content and really loathed the style. If you want to know a lot of cool stuff about butterflies, though, the facts are well-presented.)

We also took a walk back to the Logfall, a cleared place down the side of the cliff where the 19th century loggers used to roll logs down to waiting transport . It has now become a dune of the sort we declined to climb down at Lake Michigan. This one, the sign warns in stern terms, is about 500 feet down and VERY steep. Figure a few minutes down, an hour or more back up. People periodically have to be rescued because they can’t get back up. We declined to try. Instead, we headed to the last stop of the day: Sable Falls, which required a descent of roughly 160 stairs. Down, of course, is easy; up is the hard part. An extra payoff though: we saw an American Redstart—a first for both of us. He was busily eating berries off of a tree right by the stair-path.

Tim got a couple of really nice photos of a White Admiral, cousin to the Red Spotted Purple we have at home. (According to the book I mentioned above, this is because where we live, the RSP co-exists with the Pipevine Swallowtail, a particularly nasty-tasting morsel; thus, the RSP mimic the Pipevine.) This is a new butterfly for us, as well.

Finally made it back to camp at 8:00 to be greeted by hordes of mosquitoes . (When we woke up this morning, the tent was surrounded by about 15 of the buggers just waiting for us to emerge. These mosquitoes are about the size of Volkswagons, too; it looked like something out of Stephen King. (The consolation for not being able to take a shower while we’re here is that however many showers one took, one would have to immediately slather oneself with sunscreen and a full soaking blast of Deep Woods Off, so there is no such thing as clean.

It’s about 9:20 right now, and I can see the sun going down over the lake behind the campsite across from us. Full dark around 10:30. I think we’ll sleep pretty well tonight—both of us got enough sun and exercise to be quite tired. The guy across the way who was playing his music too loudly last night was decent enough about turning it down when I asked him to, and tonight he has turned it on at the lower level, so all is looking well for a peaceful night.

An observation: there are apparently no crickets in northern Michigan; we didn’t hear any at Sleeping Bear Dunes and haven’t heard any here, either. Crazy.

Tomorrow we head out—about 500 miles to Cleveland, then home on Monday.