First few days in Munising, MI–July 30-Aug 1, 2010

Saturday, July 30th

Our arrival at the Munising Tourist RV Park was timed, not on purpose, so the rains came after we had got parked and set up.

The storm passed and the sunset over Lake Superior tried to make up for the rainy afternoon.

Sunday, July 31st

This afternoon we had reservations for the Picture Rocks Cruise, so in the morning we did some sightseeing.   Here is what is left of the Bay Furnace, another pig iron blast furnace.

The NOW photo

The THEN photo.  This furnace only produced pigs between 1870-77 before it was damaged by fire.

Our front row seats for the three hour Picture Rocks Tour along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Indian Head Rock is the name of this sandstone cliff.

I really loved the turquoise colored water.

The Grand Island East Channel Lighthouse.

Tonight we fixed the trout we had purchased in Manistique at the Jensen’s Fishery.  By far it was the best of the three fillets we purchased,  salmon, trout, and whitefish.  Topped with garlic, butter, lemon juice, parsley and rosemary, then grilled in its own foil boat-wonderful!!

Monday, Aug 1st

Taking advantage of the clear weather, today we  booked a tour with the glass bottom boat folks, Shipwreck Tours.

As you can see, we did purchase one of their promotional photos they take when you board. 

 

 

 

We were to see three shipwrecks today, in all cases a float marks the spot, not an X.

The viewing area was two recessed places where about 20 people could look down over the railings.  There were three viewing groups on the tour and we were in #3, so we heard all about what was down there, twice,  before we got to see it for ourselves.

This tour was very cool and are so glad we took it.

In the afternoon we took a field trip to some Rock Kilns about 15 miles west of Munising.  The road actually looks familiar.

This one of twelve charcoal rock kilns were a shadow of their former selves.  They produced charcoal from 1879 to 1896 for use the the iron furnaces.  The furnaces used charcoal as fuel because, when burned, it reaches a higher temperature than wood.  Each kiln held 45 cords of wood and required 25 days for a single burn.

It took about 170-180 bushels of charcoal to produce one ton of iron.  The Upper Peninsula’s iron industry produced nearly 2 million tons of iron between 1870-1945.  This required the wood cut from abut 285,860 acres to produce 343,031,940 bushels of charcoal.  The charcoal industry’s wood workers in the U.P. cut over roughly 447 square miles of forest by hand in about 75 years. (taken from the Munising Ranger District brochure)