Canal Trip

Okay, you are about to be overtaken with photos. This weekend, we explored our surroundings. Saturday, we followed the Portage Canal west from Houghton until it emptied into Lake Superior. 

I've decided to call it Pebble Beach. Can you tell why?

After that, we drove back to Houghton, which included passing the blue door of the Christian Science reading room...

 ...crossed the bridge to Hancock, 

climbed the hill to check out the view of Houghton, 

and followed the canal west to Lake Superior again. 

For dinner, we ate fried whitefish on the hill that is Hancock. Today, we went out to Joe's hunting grounds. 

While he hung tree stands and cut down branches, I lured in chipmunks with freshly fallen acorns.

Target practice. Can you see the arrow?

More of the view:

Tomorrow it's back to school, where I remind my students what a beautiful place they live in. 

We finally figured out where Cedric disappeared to all summer. Click here for more details. 

Inside Copper Country

My dad came up a couple weekends ago, and much to my dismay, he wanted to take a tour of the Quincy mine, an out-of-use copper mine that at one time in the 1860s was producing the most amount of copper in the country.



I had no interest in going underground, but I sucked it up and humored our guest. Luckily, it turned out we weren't going to be lowered into a shaft from above. Instead, they took us down a track along a very large hill, and we entered an old shaft through the side.

It was 41 degrees inside the mine, so they gave us jackets to stay warm (and hardhats to stay safe).



As they pulled us through the cave-like entrance, one of the first things we saw was a classroom carved into the mine. For a while, Michigan Tech students had classes here.

At one point the tour guide turned out the lights.

No thanks.

We walked inside an old mining house.

Happy to be back above ground. 

In Love

Yesterday morning I woke up early, bought a doughnut and a coffee, and took my book down to the canal. I saw a bald eagle outrun some cranky seagulls and watched cars pass over the lift bridge. I watched clouds slip over the large hill that is Hancock, Michigan, and listened to water splash below my feet. 

Here's way too many photos of what we've been seeing.  

A rainy day in Copper Harbor.

The Portage Canal separating Hancock and Houghton.

The lift bridge, or the local excuse for being late.

Houghton

Somewhere on Lake Superior

Cedric's been seeing some remarkable things too.

 More Houghton

Almost made it last year. Maybe this is the year.

Cedric refused to swim.

Interesting Houghton graffiti.

My walk home from school, a nice view of Hancock.