After leaving Baxter State Park, we drove 4.5 hours to my brother's house in New Hampshire. Scott had never been there and I just love it so it was great to finally arrive. What wasn't so great was that, after almost 10 hours of hiking, we had sat in a vehicle which caused lactic acid build up in our legs. Couple that with the delayed onset muscle soreness from that massive hike and you have two very sore people. By the time I stepped out of the truck I could hardly walk. Ugh. Wait, it gets better. The next day we had another 9 hours to get to our next destination, Niagara Falls. I hadn't been there since I was a baby (I don't remember it but apparently the story is that I got bored and crawled out to the 13th floor balcony for some fresh air...my parents were not impressed from what I can gather), and wanted to stop since we were headed that way. In addition, Scott had never been to Canada so he was jazzed to get another stamp in his passport. We arrived after dark to the hotel and, after a heartbreaking mishap with my coveted bottle of maple syrup, we settled into our room. We were there for 2 days and I can safely say that I do not ever need to go back, nor would I recommend the trip to anyone else. The falls themselves were impressive but the city of Niagara was a tourist trap filled with more haunted houses than I had ever seen in one place. It was dingy, run down, over priced, and crowded. And I thought that I would forget the details...huh.
If you do decide to go, the Canada side is facing the falls so you have a better view, but on the New York side you can get closer to the falls and it looked infinitely less developed. In any case, we hobbled around (day 2 was worse than day 1 for me) but spent most of our time relaxing in our hotel room (not impressive but it did have a jacuzzi built for two). After two weeks of mostly camping, we were so glad to get out of that city and back into the country!We headed into the Michigan peninsula and camped at Manistee National Forest. We had the place to ourselves (or so we thought). That first night we found out that the raccoons from the movie The Great Outdoors had come to greet us. They got into everything that wasn't hid in the truck. We had all of our food in rubbermaid containers but those buggers kept us up trying to get in. They even ripped open our wine and dragged it out across the campsite! Scott was determined not to lose another night's sleep so he bought a toy gun that shot foam discs and the next night as soon as they showed up, he sent a barrage of foam in their general direction. Thankfully they got the hint and left (or it could've been that we hid everything in the truck).
The National Park Service writes that, "South Manitou Island was once the center of civilization and commerce in the Manitou Passage. Settlement of this area of Michigan actually began on this little island primarily because of it's protected natural deep-water harbor. The island was densely forested, so when steamers began to sail the Great Lakes, it's strategic location between Chicago and the Straits of Mackinac, made it the best place to take on firewood for their boilers."
We saw the old light house, the ship Fransisco Morazan-a Liberian freighter that ran aground in 1960, and the patch of old growth cedar forrest. We ate our lunch and made our way back just in time for me to be able to jump into the water before the ferry took us back. It was an absolutely beautiful day! Our last night of camping was happily uneventful as we ate the last s'mores and enjoyed our last fire. We would be heading to Chicago for our last vacation night. Scott had booked us into a swank downtown hotel (we were both laughing as we pulled up to the valet, smelling of woodsmoke and citronella).
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| The ginormous cedar roots |
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| Fransisco Morazon |
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| I am now, and forever will be a tree hugger |
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| Still smiling on the sand dune |
