Our Monday in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was by far the hottest day of our trip. They were calling for temps in the 105 degree range (F) after adding in the heat index. It's funny to think that it can get that hot in the northern most part of our state, but unfortunately it did.
With that in mind, we decided to get an early start on our day and head over to the Porcupine Mountains near the border of Michigan and Wisconsin.
Like my past posts, @mrsbozz and I have visited this area before, but I was excited to see what the rest of our traveling companions thought about it.
You drive up to a parking area and then there is a very short hike to the viewing area of Lake of the Clouds. This is actually one of the shortest sights to see in the Porcupine Mountain area. Most of them require a lengthy hike, so I figured this would be a safe bet considering the heat.
Looking to the right from where the path ends, you can see the valley and the path of the river that flows in/out to Lake of the Clouds.
While Lake of the Clouds is pretty spectacular, once you walk to the end of the path and take your obligatory selfies/photos, there isn't much else to do. Sure, it is beautiful and were it not so blazing hot, it might have been a nice area to have a picnic, but we decided to take a few parting shots and then head off to get some lunch.
Lunch took us just a bit East back to the small town of Ontonagon. There were a few places downtown for us to choose from, but I eventually decided on Syl's Cafe(pronounce "sills"). You would think being right on the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan I would be trying to eat as much whitefish as possible. For some reason though, I seemed to be on a bit of a burger kick in the last few days of our trip.
This was the burger I got. It was called the Syl's Burger and it was their take on the McDonald's Big Mac. Instead of having two patties though, it just had the one (but trust me that was enough). Pickles, onions, lettuce, cheese, and their own homemade special sauce rounded the burger out.
My wife got some form of chicken wrap and curly fries. She said it was pretty fantastic as far as chicken wraps go. She eats her fair share of chicken wraps, so coming from her, that is an extremely high compliment!
My nephew got the spicy chicken sandwich and he gave it a great big thumbs up. He devoured it like it was his last meal! It is pretty amazing what kids eat these days. Between spicy chicken sandwiches, Taki's, and Flaming Hot Cheeto's, they have stomachs of iron!
Our friend's daughter Nat got the chicken fettuccine Alfredo. and she thought it was really great. My wife agreed when she snuck a bite while Nat wasn't looking!
Nat's friend decided to get another pasty given how much she liked the one she had two days earlier. She exclaimed that this one was even better than the last one. In fact, after getting back from our trip, my wife found a recent article that listed the top ten places to get a pasty in the UP. Syl's was in that list.
There wasn't a single person that didn't absolutely rave about their meal. I think I did pretty good and maybe had a lot of dumb luck when I picked Syl's for lunch that day. I will definitely be coming back here at some point in the future!
On the ride back to the state park in Baraga, MI where we were camping, my nephew asked if I would take him fishing. Despite the insane heat, I figured this would be our best shot at going before we left in a couple of days.
I was a little surprised when the temperature dropped an instant 30 degrees as we crested the hill into the small valley where Baraga sits. The wind must have been pulling the cool air from Lake Superior into the bay and thus giving Baraga some reprieve from the heat.
In fact, it was downright chilly at our campsite!
When @mrsbozz and I visited this area a couple of years ago I found this small lake that had a fishing platform. Unfortunately, it was a bit inland in there was zero shade, so we sweltered in the heat while we did some fishing.
The kids enjoyed it though and despite us not catching single thing, I think we still made some great memories. A day catching no fish is still better than a day not fishing at all!
Actually, I did have a nice looking perch on my line at one point, but when I was trying to pull it out of the water it threw the hook and I lost it.
Awesome memories made with my nephew... Check! How about that hat right? It was an impulse purchase when the add came across my Facebook feed one day. The company is called Mission and it is actually a really nice hat. it was pretty cheap too running just about $15 to $20. It has some fancy cooling technology in it that I haven't tried yet, but so far I love the hat!
Unfortunately, not only did we not bring any fish back, but we did bring back the hot air. Just a few short minutes after we rolled back into the campground, the wind shifted and it started drawing that hot air from inland down into the valley. It wasn't long before it was sweltering hot at our campsite. We almost didn't have a fire that night because it was just so hot!
Thankfully, the humidity died down a bit overnight and by Tuesday morning we were ready to head out on our last adventure in the UP for this trip.
Check back to find out where that took us!
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