South Shore of Superior

     We have driven through Wisconsin and for a few days were "Yoopers," the name given to those who live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. (U.P.ers...get it?)  Wisconsin was short and rainy.  We had one day of sun that we took the kayaks out a bit by the Apostle Islands, Wisconsin, but a NNW wind prevented us from seeing the sea caves on the western shoreline.  We found some good cheese at a local food co-op, some crumbly Parmesan type with a cheddar like smooth finish, some creamy brick cheese, and some plain cheddar.

It was very brisk and we bundled up in several layers!

     The water was so beautiful-speckled greens and blues, clear enough to see twenty, thirty feet to the lake floor-that we decided we definitely want to come back in the warmer, calmer months of June and July to do kayak-specific trips and some overnighters on the outlying islands.

     In the U.P. we stayed mostly in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.  Here, again, heavy winds from the wrong direction prevented us from doing the premier kayaking trips, but we found a great campsite by an inland lake and saw some loons there.  We caught a glimpse of the "pictured" rocks, cliffs hundreds of feet high with colored striations, via hiking trails.

This is Chapel Rock, typical of weather-created rock formations at Pictured Rocks.

Moderate waves along the Superior coastline, one of the few beaches interspersed between miles of high cliffs.

A ranger told us that a week earlier a storm had created 20 foot swells on the lake.  Glad we weren't kayaking then!

Kinda hard to see, but a woodland stream runs down to the beach and into the lake, dark brown from the tannic acid created from forest decay.

  Above, our campsite.  The two nights we stayed there, we heard coyotes howling.