Marquette

Moving day

Wednesday was moving day. I only had water and electric hookups in Munising, so the first stop was the campground dump station. I’m still learning about managing the tanks (i.e. how much I can shower, do dishes, etc.), but I was happy that I could make it the four days in Munising and none of my holding tanks were more than 3/4ths full. I didn’t even do much to conserve water usage, other than Navy showers, so there is still room for improvement if necessary.

It was another smooth and easy 41.6 mile, 56 minute drive to the Marquette campground: This was the first time I’ve had to do a passenger side back-in to a camp site, it wasn’t too terrible since I rely pretty heavily on the backup camera on the trailer anyways, but it does add a little more challenge with the reduced visibility. I am getting more comfortable backing up with the trailer, just need to remember to take it slow now that I have some level of comfort.

For dinner I went to the Iron Bay Restaurant & Drinkery, the food was excellent and they had about 30 local beers on tap. They also had a lot of Mackinac Bridge memorabilia, including sections of the original bridge. I would recommend it for anybody visiting Marquette. I had a long conversation with the bartender and another patron about my trip, they were both very helpful with recommendations for hikes, restaurants, and breweries not only around Marquette, but some other stops on my trip too.

I did learn a hard lesson last night: make sure the water heater is on well before you want to shower and go to bed. A cold shower when it is coldish outside is not why I bought a trailer to tow around.

Presque Isle Park

Thursday was a pretty slow day. I started with grocery shopping (it was nice to have a supermarket again), and then went to see Top Gun: Maverick. I really liked it, especially for a sequel to a movie that is older than I am. After dinner I went over to Presque Isle park, a smaller park on a peninsula here that was really nice. It had a good view of the ore dock, which is apparently pretty cool to see in operation when a ship is getting loaded: There is a lighthouse on the end of a long break wall, that surprisingly (to me at least) you are able to walk out on: The concrete wall was about a quarter mile long, and then there was still several hundred feet of rock to the lighthouse.

There is a a one-way road that does a 2.2 mile loop around the park, but during certain hours of the day they close the road to cars so only pedestrians and bikers can use it. Since it was rainy and the sun was setting, I just drove through pretty quickly tonight, I think I’ll go back tomorrow and walk it to see more of the views, but here are a couple pictures I got tonight: