Happy Anniversary to us. 38 years. What a great way to celebrate: to take a road trip and spend time doing the things we love.
After a leisurely breakfast we hit the road towards Rogers City. No real agenda in mind, other than reservations at the Hoeft State Park for tonight. We took the alternate route suggested by Google Maps, as we had been up and down US-23 four times in the last two days. This led us through some beautiful farmland along minor roads in the middle of nowhere.
We were cruising along at 55, on a deserted road when I heard the familiar words from Deb: Let’s stop here.
Here was already hurtling by so I suddenly had the task of bringing over five tons of vehicle to a controlled stop. I found a driveway for turning around and then approached Deb’s desired stopping point. A small sign read “Mystery Valley”. I was immediately thinking of the Mystery Spot, a tourist trap in the UP, but this turned out to be something legitimate, something that any geologist would geek out on.
There was no place to park a big vehicle (or any vehicle, for that matter) as the sign on the gate said “PARK NOT”.
Unlike a valley carved by a river, Mystery Valley was formed by the collapse of the surface into a bunch of subterranean chambers created by the water erosion of the rock below. We took a hike on the trails through this preserve noting the “swallow holes” and the earth cracks where the earth caved in on itself.
It would have been a much more leisurely and pleasant hike if not for the hordes of mosquitoes that descended on us in the tree-covered portion of the trail. We probably finished the hike in record time.
Rogers City boasts the largest limestone quarry in the world. So our next stop was going to be the quarry overlook just outside of town so we could add this to our World’s Largest collection. But the road was fenced off, and we found out from one of the locals that the area immediately under the overlook was being mined at that time, so no more observation point. We did manage to get a picture later on from a different location. Had to use a drone to do so, but here it is:
Driving into town, we found the Tradewinds Bakery where we found the most enormous cinnamon rolls. A day-old package of three was just two bucks. That just had to come with us.
We wandered over a block or two and discovered a stately old house that was now a museum. The PIC Historial Museum, or Presque Isle County Historical Museum is located in this house, the original house of Carl Bradley, who started the limestone quarry.
We checked out the hours, but it didn’t open until 12:30 and it was not quite noon. We were just walking away when we heard a voice calling behind us. “Come on in,” the docent called. She was a fountain of information, and gave us a personal tour of the place and regaled us with the local lore. Turns out she worked at the limestone quarry for many years, and her father was a good friend of one of the later bosses of the place.
We had lunch at the parking lot for the boat ramp and then headed towards Ocqueoc Falls (try pronouncing that!). We expected empty parking lots and very few people since it was the middle of the day on Thursday, but when we got there, we had to park along the road because the lot was full. Turns out this is a very popular place.
Not wanting to crowd ourselves into the main pool under the falls, we walked downstream a short distance to another pool and spent some time in the water there. It was a lot like a very powerful jacuzzi if you placed yourself directly under one of the cascades. Lots of fun on a very nice day.
Back into Rogers City we had dinner at the Lighthouse Cafe and then headed to the state park to our reserved campsite. We parked the RV, unloaded the bikes, and biked to the 40 Mile Point Lighthouse. Another Michigan lighthouse to see and another shipwreck just offshore. Some of this wreckage is also on the beach. We may take the kayaks tomorrow to view the wreck, but I did take a few pictures with the drone.
The lighthouse itself is worth a couple pictures also, especially with that cute couple in the chairs in front:
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