U. P. Trip - Fall 2010 - Day #12

This was another lovely day, but a little slower paced than yesterday.  An observation - in some places the deciduous trees are completely bare, yet in no time at all one moves on to an area where hardly a leaf has fallen, so every vista if different and most are still lovely.

We started very gently but eventually started driving up the peninsula loosely following the same circuit as yesterday, except we avoided Calumet, took the more coastal back road to Eagle River (where we did not stop) and on just a little way to Poorrock Abbey and its "Jampot" jams and baked goods store, where we bought but not as much as we have on previous visits.  (Diabetes takes the joy out of some things!)  We passed through Eagle Harbor and its intense road construction so didn't stop and look for anything and cruised onwards and then up Brockway Mountain Drive, whose summit we had virtually to ourselves while we all three walked and Marissa took a few pictures.

We dropped back down the other side into Copper Harbor and shopped a little.  As in so many past years John got a new pair of heavily discounted moccasins & yet another coffee mug to add to the collection.  After a little meandering we went to the general store & bought lunch supplies and once we had satisfied our hunger we went in to Fort Wilkins.  This year it was John's turn to have extensive dog detail while Marissa was able to enter all the buildings & see and read all she missed last year.  Some pictures were taken, of course.  On leaving we again did some browsing, but nothing caught our fancy so we decided to hightail it for the cabin.

We stopped in the impressive IGA in Calumet and bought supplies for a regular meal, since we have a comprehensively equipped kitchen at our disposal for Marissa to cook in and John to clean up.  But first we had our "cuppa tea" and then John & Zoe did a beach trek in the opposite direction to yesterday.  After we had eaten we again went to the beach, built a much bigger & better fire than yesterday and sat around admiring yet another truly spectacular Lake Superior sunset, that seemed to last for ages.  It has been another really good day.  Just before bedtime we observed some faint glows in the northern sky that were almost certainly week auroras.

A few more pictures have been added to John's Flickr set, found by going here.