Welcome to Paradise

We woke up early on Friday the 30th of July and took a shower for the first time in a couple days! After we packed up our campsite, we proceeded to get sweaty all over again by embarking on our 9 mile round trip hike from Lower Tahquamenon Falls to Upper Tahquamenon Falls and back. The morning hike was beautiful and very leisurely. For the majority of the hike we were completely alone with nature and only passed on fellow hiker. The 4 mile hike to the Upper Falls is ranked as a medium difficuly, rugged trail, and Katie and I both agreed with these rankings. The first and last miles of the trail hike up and down small mountains away from the river valley and seem to bring you that way only to make the trail a medium difficulty trail. The middle 2 miles were relatively flat and basically ran right beside the river. We took our time on the way there and enjoyed the

scenery and wildlife. When we got to the Upper falls we hiked down to 2 different viewing platforms, one 116 steps down and the other 94 steps down. Both offered an amazing view of the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi, but after a 4 mile hike, they were a little tiring. Once we had our fill of the waterfall we went in search of restrooms before making our way back to the Lower Falls. What we found was more than we

could ask for: another brewery!!! This was Brewery 33, located at the site of an old logging lodge (lodge 33) at Upper Tahquamenon Falls. We sat down for a beer and shared a meal for lunch. Unfortunately, I did not bring my wallet on the hike, so we could only try one beer a piece, but it was a pleasant break all the same. Our return hike was full of older couples and little kids at every turn. This took away from the rustic feel of the morning hike and left us trying to get back to our car as quick as possible. When we got to the Lower Falls, there were about 10 people swimming in them and jumping into the falls! I wanted to run and grab our suits to join in, but Katie had her heart set on seeing Oswalds Bear Ranch, which would be closed in an hour, so we hit the road instead. When

we got there, the bears, all of which are black bears, were just done getting fed. This was a bonus for us! Because we only had a half our until the ranch closed, them all being in the same place and close to the entrance, made it easy for us to get the most out of our time there. We even got to feed and pet a cub while the rancher took our picture! From there we headed to Munising, to take the Pictured Rocks Boat Cruise sunset tour. The cruise was amazing and got us a great, all encompassing view, of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. It

reminded me a lot of my trip to the Isle of Capri. I took nonstop photos the same way I did when I was there. It seemed like everything was picture worthy. When we got back from the 3 hour boat ride it was 10 p.m. We originally had planned to eat at a

brewery in Marquette, but we found out they only served food until 10 p.m., so we were forced to eat at McDonald's for dinner at 11 p.m. We drove through the rain for a few hours until we got to Menomonee MI, where we pulled the van over and spent our second night on the luxurious air mattress :) This morning we used the Burger King across the street as our washroom, then headed south to Wisconsin's Door County to meet up with Josh, Paul, Jay, and Dante for the night. They rented an RV and took a weekend trip which worked out perfectly in our plans. Katie and I are excited to see some friendly faces from Chicago! It's been too long!