from the UP: the best of the best

Idea: if you want to take someone to a cabin that may or may not be up to her neat-freak standards, drive up near midnight, after a storm, and say things like “thank God we found the dirt road that leads up to this place.” She’ll likely collapse with relief and when she wakes up the next morning, all she’ll notice will be the beautiful lake and maple forest.

Clarification: no, I do not photoshop color into my photos, to make them look like the canvases they sell by the roadside at $5 a piece. With black velvet trim. I cannot help it that we chose the most perfect week-end to be up north. Deeply clear skies, maples, exploding with brilliance, I mean, what can I do – mute my camera?


Chicago, Detroit and the UP -- linked by big time iron and big name boys, zipping up here for a break from city life. The McCormick and Ford men, the Firestone boys – oh, the whole lot of them. They bought land and settled in and the ones with a conscience handed it over, eventually, to the government, so that the likes of us could download maps and make our way up here to admire the views.

Ed and I hiked the McCormick Wilderness (I read that moose were airlifted here from Canada and now there are hundreds roaming the UP; so how come I saw not a single moose hair, let alone moose paw print the whole while I was here?) – up to the remains of the McCormick retreat.

You could not imagine a more beautiful fall day. Let me stay silent on the details and put up a few photos from the day, shown chronologically.




to the McCormick Wilderness



color



stream to jump over



path



brilliant



Ocean author, getting into the Yellow Dog River falls



at sunset: Marquette lighthouse on Lake Superior