Pico’s Pictures: Northern Michigan Vacation
It is family vacation time and we traveled to Traverse City and Marquette Michigan. This trip is a little bitter sweet as my daughters are both legally adults and this may be our last trip all together before the family becomes extended (or they move away).
My girls were interested in doing some rock hunting. On the search list was Leland Blues, Petoskey Stones, and Yoperlite so we made it part of our our travel plans. I was hunting for interesting photographs.
The first stop was in Leland, MI where there was a lot of ore processing resulting in colorful slag ranging from green to turquoise and they are known as the ‘Leland Blues’. They are limited to this specific area as this was back in the day where industrial giants thought the best place to dump their waste was in the water. The rock hunt wasn’t very successful, but it was a nice evening. I spent quite a bit of time trying to capture the waves.
After Traverse City and visiting with family we crossed the bridge and headed to the Upper Peninsula “da, U.P., eh”. To get there you get to take the magnificent Mackinac Bridge. There is a nice scenic overlook on the north side where I captured this scavenger looking to steal my chips.
We next headed to Marquette where the goal was to find Yoperlite. Yoperlite is not interesting to the naked eye, but if you shine some UV light on it amazing things happen. My daughter inquired with a local for a good place to go rock hunting and they pointed us in the right direction. There is some interesting architecture in this town and an abandoned ore dock. If you head up the coast you can see an operational ore dock that still had trains that ride above it to drop their payloads into shipping vessels.
Northern Michigan is a beautiful place to visit. I have found for myself that I like to only spend two nights in each place. On the first day, you drive in to get some dinner and make a plan for the next day. On day two, you do all the touristy things, and the next morning you drive on. If I spend three days I tend to find that I have done all the touristy things but am not going to spend long enough to unwind and relax.
