By the Shores of Gitche Gumee

"By the shores of Gitche Gumee,  By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Dark behind it rose the forest, Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them; Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water, Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water."  

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - "Song of Hiawatha"

Nokomis is the grandmother of Hiawatha.  Gitche Gumee is Lake Superior.  So here I am, Grandma Nokomis, staying at the Gitche Gumee Campground just outside Marquette, Michigan on the south shore of Lake Superior.

We drove two lane state highways across northern Wisconsin and Michigan.  The roads were good, but hilly and winding and went through dozens of small towns.  We didn't try to hurry and just lollygagged along.  As we drove out of pine forests into the hardwood covered bluffs near Lake Superior, fall colors just jumped out at us.  I have never seen the maples so brilliantly red.  I have been using a fall color tracking map at smokeymountains.com to see where the best of the color will be.  This area is between 25 and 50% towards peak color.  Usually this time of year the sky is deep blue against the colors, but I think we are seeing some forest fire haze.

Our campground is odd.  The owner? calls himself Ranger Jeffrey.  He has made the entrance look like an entry to a national park.  There are unfinished projects everywhere - a fudge shop. a theater, and a clubhouse.  For the most part there are just some decent campsites on very sandy soil with a lot of nice pines providing shade.  Jeffrey is an older gentleman who is quite eager to chat and be helpful. I think he has many good ideas and not enough time or energy to complete the work.  The photo is the "office."

The campground is conveniently located between Marquette and Munising - just across the highway from a beautiful Wayside Park with a beach on Lake Superior.  We won't be swimming, but it is very pretty.  We found a lot of nice little Wayside parks along Highway 2 which is great for us as we like to stop and have lunch at a picnic table.

Tonight we are able to get a couple channels on our TV so that we can catch up on the news of hurricane Irma.  I'm so happy not to have to deal with that sort of wind and water and major damage. Although Minnesota blizzards are annoying, now that we are retired we just stay home and wait for the plow to come.  I'm a Minnesotan to the core, I guess.