I hope everyone had a great time over the 4th of July. My wife and I just returned from a weeks vacation in the Michigan U.P. We took a swing at tent camping, a feat not attempted since the kids were much smaller. According to the wife, it was a wonderful time except for being so damned cold. I enjoyed the cold at night and slept like a log.  Overall, I would do it again.  (Apparently, we are in the market for a camper.)

I would like to say “Hi” to Ted, Robbie, Dave and Deb from Detroit. They were a great group that camped in the site adjacent to our own. Until now I could not think of anyone from Detroit that I knew. It is my pleasure to say that is no longer the case.  They were a lot of fun and made our stay much more fun.  They were a big help in trying to decode the culture of the Da Yoopers.

We camped at a great campground at Muskallonge State Park.  If you want to find a camper-friendly place to go, this is it.  Heated bathrooms, hot showers and electricity were a godsend.  (It kept the wife happy) Extremely clean as well.  The entire campsite was spotless as a matter of fact.

The campground at Muskallonge State Park is nestled between Muskallonge Lake and Lake Superior.  Both lakes were amazingly clean and there was plenty of room to walk the beach and be alone.  One of the reasons we chose this area was the abundance of Agates that can be found right on the beach.  Rock hunting is a passion of my wife and she always wanted to find some agates.  It was cold and windy the first day, but warmed up a bit after the first.  It turned out to be a beautiful place.  (I think we were very successful, but I am also in the market for a good rock tumbler and a lapidary saw.)

Agate Hunting on Lake Superior

It began cold and windy on Lake Superior, but turned out to be a beautiful place to be.

It took a little work at first to figure out what an agate even looks like.  We purchased a couple of books about agates and Lake Superior agates in particular.  It seemed helpful until you actually went out looking for them.  After a short while, they all look the same.  To me especially.

We decided to take a trip over to Grand Marais and visited the Gitchee Gumee Agate Museum.  This was a very valuable visit for us.  The owner wasn’t around, but the woman that was working was very nice and showed us around the shop and the museum.  I hope that if we return that we have a chance to meet the owner.  If you visit the museum,  make sure you make to the back room.  We missed a cool exhibit but found out about it from our friends from Detroit.  I won’t tell you what it was; you will have to find out yourself.  It costs only $1 to get into the museum and it was worth every penny.

After we were able to get our eyes calibrated at the Gitchee Gurnee Agate Museum, we gave it another try.  Actually seeing what they look like in your hand gave us a great advantage.  We found quite a few in areas that others had already had scoured.  (A tip to those looking for agates.  Look in the second band of rocks from the beach.  That is where we found most of them.)  We stopped at a number of turn-offs on the old dirt log truck road that lies between Grand Marais and the State Park.  I think we saw one person on the beach.  We had it all to ourselves.

Tomorrow I will show you what we are fairly certain are agates that we found on the beach.  I will also share some the other places we visited and some of the Da Yooper culture we ran into.