The Minis take Michigan - 2023 Michigan Road Trip Day Ten: Sunshine, Shipwrecks, and Pasties
Day ten of our RV journey through Michigan with highlights of the trip, sites and destinations along with food, fun and ideas for your trip through Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. We have been finding things to do in Michigan with fun adventures, places to see and visit and more.
August 28
We got a great new site!
We woke up and made coffee, then went for a walk around the campground to look at the sites we had scoped out yesterday. One site in particular was perfect. The camp host had told us yesterday that, although the ticket showed that camper checking out today, they had been paying and adding one day at a time. We hoped that they were done doing that. We walked to that area and saw them packing up. We tried to sound casual as we verified they were heading out. Then we walked back to our first site and got ready for the shortest moving day ever.
We had a moment to top off our water while we tried to unobtrusively wait for the site to be free. Once we got in the site, I walked to the host and let her know of our transfer. Then we set up the Lippert Picnic Popup Gazebo and put our chairs and desks inside to get some work caught up.
I forgot to take a photo of our site, I’ll do that tomorrow.
Shipwreck Tour
There are a LOT of shipwrecks in Lake Superior. There are 73 shipwrecks just in the area of Grand Island and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. There are an estimated 550 wrecks, which is just part of more than 6,000 shipwrecks in all the Great Lakes together.
We decided today to take a glass-bottom boat shipwreck tour. So once we got caught up on our work, Bill picked us up and we headed into Munising.
The tour was not very crowded, so viewing was really easy when we were at each wreckage site. Other than those times, we sat upstairs and looked at the views, and down through the amazingly clear water to the bottom of the lake. It was interesting to me that there is no sand on the bottom of the lake, and we could see actual rock.
Some of the wreckage is as shallow at six feet below the water level. The bottom of the glass-bottom boat is four feet below water level, so when we hovered over the wrecks we got a really great view.
In addition to shipwrecks, our tour took us past the East Channel Lighthouse on Grand Island. The Captain also told us the history of Grand Island. On the eastern side of the island, we got to see erosion and caves, and the Captain took us really close to the cliffs to see the erosion.
We saw the wrecks of the Bermuda from 1870, and the Herman Hettler from 1926. The Hettler was blown to smithereens so it is much more spread out. The Bermuda was intact. I saved a picture from the tour company’s website, showing the scale of the wreck below the glass-bottom boat.
Dinner
We found pasties today! After the shipwreck tour, we walked over to Muldoon’s Pasties & Gifts and ordered pasties. Tony and I decided to test both the beef and the chicken. We got gravy with each. They were two different gravies.
There was more potato in this version, compared to the pasties we tried a few days ago. Also, the pastry wan’t quite as flaky or pretty. So far, we prefer Troll pasties over Yooper pasties. They were really nice, though, and Tony got a picture of the ladies throwing the dough.
Zappo the Yooper
Zappo wears a harness that says “Superdog” but on one side the “S” has peeled off. So we have taken to calling him the UPer (pronounced yooper) dog!
Rainy evening
I have been meaning to put the Michigan stickers on our door map, and I finally got around to it this evening. I added both parts of Michigan, plus the three Great Lakes that we have seen.
We were glad we had put up the Lippert Gazebo, because while we were sitting in it this evening, it started raining. Some of the rain was light but there were some pretty good downpours as well. The gazebo took it like a champ, and we stayed dry. Bill and Zappo waiting for a break in the rain and made a run for home, and we picked up and headed inside as well.
