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We arrived in Paradise, and Michigan was certainly living up to the name! We settled in at Tahquamenon Falls State Park, a very nice state park with tall trees and green grass. The weather while we were there was cooler than we expected, and a little wet. We did have some beautiful weather the day we went to Tahquamenon Falls, our main reason for going to Paradise. Tahquamenon Falls are two different waterfalls on the Tahquamenon River near Lake Superior in the Upper Peninsula. The upper falls which is 200 feet across and with a drop of 48 feet, is the most spectacular. During the spring runoff the river drains as much as 50,000 gallons of water per second. The brown color of the falls is due from the tannis leached from the cedar swamps which the river drains.
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We lost track of the number of steps we went up and down at the Upper and Lower falls. Let’s just say….A LOT!
We hiked and did geocaching on part of this trail.
Bill was glad he could add another trail to his list!
The lower falls are a series of 5 smaller falls cascading around an island. They had rowboats available for rent so you could row across to the island. It was pretty windy that day and we were tired from the climbing of many many steps to get to the upper and lower falls, so we decided not to rent a rowboat.
Lower falls not as spectacular and grand as the Upper.
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We met a new friend, Bullwinkle!
Tahquamenon is in Longfellow’s “The Song of Hiawatha”. Years ago, the Ojibwa Indians lived, farmed, fished and trapped along the Tahquamenon River.
Also while we were in Paradise we drove up to Whitefish Point Lighthouse on Whitefish Bay overlooking Lake Superior. There they have a lighthouse and mariner museum. We found there are MANY lighthouses in Michigan! This lighthouse is the oldest operating lighthouse on Lake Superior and is at a critical turning point for entering or leaving Lake Superior. The current tower was built during Lincoln’s administration! Whitefish Point is known as the Graveyard of Ships since more ships have been lost here than in any other part of Lake Superior. Hundreds of ships, including the famous Edmund Fitzgerald, lies at the bottom of the bay. The lighthouse is at the end of an 80 mile stretch of shoreline known as Lake Superior’s Shipwreck Coast. The many rocks that line all the coasts of Michigan definitely explains why. It is too detailed to go into here, but if you have time, research more about the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. The light from the lighthouse had shone without fail for 150 years until the night of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
On the way back from the lighthouse we decided to do a few geocaches in the area. We knew we were in a wilderness area of Michigan, but one geocache took us down a road that went from gravel to dirt to sand. When the sand reached the hub caps we realized we were about to become stuck and barely managed to back up without getting stuck. We did find another road and did grab the geocache! We won’t easily forget that one!
