The sun fades into the vast of night so quickly. And it seems to fall faster when there is a last minute destination at hand. Approaching late afternoon I recalled a suggested place to visit. Chris and I had stayed at Kampvilla Camp Ground (on my Passport America list--50% off!!) a week or so before and had visited with the owners Ken and Becky. Genuine, and more than willing to suggest where to visit they had mentioned Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Curiosity rises when locals suggest somewhere to visit!! The journey we are on mostly leads us so to go off track but we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere so you must think of things like, where will we stay, do we have enough gas, etc. Deciding YES!! we went right on H58 heading towards H51, the sun loomed overhead reminding us night would be soon. Seeing a sign for Pictured Rocks, we turned down a gravel road, we drove 5miles to come to a sign that said "REST OF THE ROAD CLOSED, PARKING TO THE LEFT". We walked the rest of the way down the road, and when we reached the end there were only trail heads. To late, to dark, no Pictured Rocks, saddened we headed back to the truck. As we walked back up the now darkened road we turned off our flash light as the road became naturally lit before our feet, the Super Moon. On the way out we saw Beaver Lake Campground, part of the National Forest, some campgrounds in National Forests are not in season yet, so they haven't started charging. Us seeing Pictured Rocks really depended on free camping or not, we took the chance and headed down one more really dark now, dirt road, instead of heading back to the main road to find the closet Walmart (about an hour or more away).
Reaching the bottom there were other campers, and no registration cards to register for the nights stay. This camp spot didn't start charging until the 15th and it was the 13th...yay!! Our little detour had once again turned into an adventure with everything being taken care of and falling into place. This seems to happen to us a lot, having faith proves to work out.
We picked the perfect spot right by the lake, the Super moon eventually showed itself to us once again. I awoke to birds chirping and a curiosity that dragged me from the bed to outside. I sat to read but the wildlife just wouldn't let me. Chippie (our chipmunk) ran tree to tree approaching me then running away eventually he disappeared before sneaking up behind me, coming right up to me to check me out, then taking off again. Finches russeled in the bushes, and a Robin found me curious. The roots of the trees stretched over the banks and down into the water overlapping one another's roots, four trees that had grown into one. Packing up we set out to find Pictured Rocks Lakeshore...
On the way out heavily wooded forest, that was less
visible to us last night, I wrote the following in my journal:
5/6/12
We are in the U.P. and I find it difficult to describe how utterly beautiful this place is,
trees that stretch as far as the eye can see, endless amounts of age surrounds us, untouched, and unseen by so many, too many.
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