We made a summer excursion to The Cabin. I drove up on
Wednesday, August 30 and arrived by about 3:30 pm. I arrived
early since I had to leave early and I had heard that the place
was in bad shape (having been overrun by rodents).
It turned out that wasn't the case. There had been some people
up a couple of weeks earlier and they left the place in pretty
good shape as can be seen by these pictures of the inside of the
main room. There was still plenty of things to do of course. A
lot of dust had collected inside, the pump had to be set up and
pumped for awhile, the propane tank had to be attached, a number
mantles had to be replaced, and the refrigerator had to be dealt
with (see below). By the time I finished it was getting late so
I made some dinner, built a small fire outside, and had some
wine. It was a very clear and beautiful night.
The day started off extremely hot, muggy, and buggy. I went out
for a short hike around the cabin. On the road behind the cabin
I saw some bear tracks (no bear sighting though). The photo at
left was taken behind the cabin. It is part of the reason why
the bugs were so bad. The photo at right is a small stream that
runs next to the cabin. It is pretty overgrown and full of
logs. There were clear signs of muskrats running up and down it
though.
Vittoria and Phil arrived around 4:30. It was still extremely
hot. After unloading, more cleaning, and another failed attempt
at the refrigerator (see below) we went into town to get some
ice and take a quick dip in Lake Superior (yes, it was that hot
out). For dinner we had a cold quiche since we didn't want to
use stove in the heat. That night we drank some wine (who would
have guessed) and played dominoes (which we had to finish in the
morning since someone got very tired, she ended up winning
anyway). It started to rain before we went to bed and it got
much cooler.
The rest of the gang was scheduled to arrive on Friday. In the morning we took a quick trip out to Sable Falls. On the left you can see Vittoria climbing down the stairs to the base of the falls (no, I don't know what she is doing, I deleted the other two "poses"). Next is Phil and Bert exploring the falls. After that is Phil, Bert, Vittoria, and Vinny exploring the falls. Finally the top of the falls are shown.
We then went into town to wait for the arrival of Lauren and Arthur. The first photo shows main street (just about all of it). Many of the important places, grocery store and hardware stores are shown in the next picture along with the Dunes Saloon (aka Lake Superior Brewing Company) on the right side of the photo. The Bay Shore Market (the gas station) is next. The Sportsman, the other bar in town, is next. The newest addition to town is the West Bay Diner shown in the next photo. It is locate off of the main street and is run by the people who used to own the Earl (which exists no more). They brought up an old diner car, fixed it up, attached it to a house, and turned it all into a diner. The next two photos show the bay. In the first of the two you can see a kid going into the water. It was a much, much colder day than yesterday when we ended up going in at about this spot. There is a historical marker overlooking the bay shown in the next photo that describes how Grand Marais got its name. Finally, the last photo shows Welkers, one of the hotels in Grand Marais. This one is located on the peninsula on the left side of the bay.
After Lauren and Arthur arrived and got settled into the cabin we split up for some more adventures. Vittoria and Lauren went off hiking and running while Arthur, Phil, and I went kayaking. We ended up getting to the place late so instead of getting dropped off somewhere we just took them upstream for about 1 1/2 hours and then back (which took about 1/2 an hour). The river was pretty slow, but there were still a few stretches that were very difficult when we were going upstream.
When I first arrived I spent awhile trying to light the (propane
powered) refrigerator. I failed. When Phil arrived we spent a
good hour trying to get the refrigerator going. We failed.
Finally Jon arrived and spent a lot of time trying to get the
refrigerator lit. He succeeded. As you can see it isn't a terribly
comfortable job. In fact the refrigerator pilot went out a
number of times. Each time Jon got it back going again until he
finally just took the relevant pieces apart, cleaned them,
readjusted them, and put it all back together again. Things
started working better after that.
That evening Vittoria took charge in created a wonderful meal (left photo). Amelia (center photo) and Lauren (not shown) were coerced into helping with the preparation. We all sat down and thoroughly enjoyed the meal when it was ready. Shown in the photo at right is the gang, (clockwise from the left) Jon, Phil, Vittoria, Arthur, Lauren, and Amelia, with the first pasta course.
After dinner (and plenty of wine) the silly games began. Jon was the first victim (left photo) who had to put on a hat. By the end all of us ended up wearing hats. Phil and Bert put on hats (next photo) but Vinny didn't (next photo). Finally we went outside and lit up the bonfire (last photo, prior to being lit).
We decided to do some mountain bike riding on Grand Island which is located just outside of Munising (western edge of Pictured Rocks) in Lake Superior. The first photo shows Arthur and Phil (front) and Vittoria, Amelia, and Lauren (back) preparing for the trip over in the parking lot. Jon stayed behind at the cabin to get some work done and watch the dogs. The trip over is a short ferry ride. The center photo shows the ferry coming over from the main land. In case it wasn't clear from the previous photo the last photo is a close up of the rest of the gang coming over on the "ferry".
We biked around on Grand Island for a few hours. Originally we planned a 10 mile trip. After a couple of wrong turns it became a somewhat longer trip, though still quite nice. The first photo shows Vittoria (front) and Amelia biking. The next photo has Lauren (left) and Amelia biking. In the next photo we climbed down some partially built stairs to the shoreline. Here can be seen (from the bottom) Arthur, Lauren, Amelia, Vittoria, and Phil. We ended up turning missing our turn, going for a ways, coming back, and getting back on track. We eventually made it to Echo Lake (next photo) which is a large inland lake on the island. We then went on to Trout Bay. Even though it was a cool day all that riding was enough to convince Phil and I to jump into Lake Superior. The next photo shows Amelia (left), Vittoria, and Phil on the beach. The final photo shows Vittoria (left), Arthur, and Lauren getting ready to head back to catch the ferry.
Unfortunately I had to leave after this and make the 6 hour drive back to the Detroit area. On the way I stopped and took a quick dip in Lake Michigan before crossing the bridge back to the Lower Peninsula. Meanwhile, Amelia had planned another wonderful meal that I was missing out on and more wine was consumed in my absence. By far the hardest part of the drive was thinking about all I was missing out on. Despite that it was another great trip up to the Cabin. I'm already looking forward to the winter.
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