Arrival in St. Ignace

 We are here! The annual North Country Trail Celebration for 2024 has begun in St. Ignace, Michigan. The whole weekend will be crazy good. Lots of hugs and back slapping from "my tribe," discussions, hikes, programs, and workshops.

The very first event was a roundtable with the National Park Service staff. Here is our superintendant Chris Loudenslager answering questions.

And the Trail Manager Ken Hendrickson, with other staff behind him, explaining more about what he does.

We got here just in time to check in and get to the NPS Roundtable. Then we went out to dinner. Diane and Marie split a wet burrito. This is memorable due to the fact that what you see here is HALF of the wet burrito!

Then we went to the state park and set up our campsite. St. Ignace is a nice small city. Their street plantings are exceptional.

And it's the one place on the trail where it follows Lake Huron. It was a beautiful day, and the whole weekend is supposed to be nice. Blue water, and a free view of one of the ferries on its way to Mackinac Island.

OK, I'm still working on the program. Glad it's not until Friday!

See The Slave Driver

Ocqueoc Falls and More

 
Ester and I went on a road trip today. It was a lot of driving, but it was a place I really wanted to explore. I'll show you a few pictures today, and probably some more tomorrow.

We went to the northeast corner of the Lower Peninsula, to see the only waterfall in the entire L.P. It's name is Ocqueoc Falls (say AH-key-ahk), on the river of the same name. It consists of about five small tiers of drops. I wouldn't put it on my list of most spectacular places in the state, but it was nice, and I like how unique it is.



Of course, on that side of the state, the big lake is Lake Huron. It wasn't looking much different from Lake Michigan at this location. Of course, you'd have to watch a sunrise over that lake instead of the sunsets on the water that we enjoy. In fact, one of their ad slogans is "Visit the Sunrise Side."



Just had to prove that both of us were there. With Whitey. That's Ester's "new" dog.



The autumn colors still haven't hit their peak. That was a surprise, because we were quite a bit north from where I live. But there were some leaves that were quite nice. This was a spectacular maple; unfortunately, most of the top had died out, but still worth a WoW!



This was my favorite leaf. The dark colors appeal to me.



Our final stop was a complete surprise to me. I had no idea that the world's largest gravel pit is in Michigan. It has been mined since 1912. We stopped at a viewing platform, and it looked really big. Then we found an interpretive sign that told how far it was to some features we were seeing. I did pull this picture in with the telephoto, but it is two miles to the far pit wall in this picture!



Long day in the car, but we had an amazing time. The weather was blue-sky October perfect! Will show more tomorrow.

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