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(Click for a larger photo)
The next morning we crossed the Mackinac Bridge which is a very elegant construction in steel painted yellow (fee 1.5 $ - crossing Storebæltsbroen in Denmark costs about 30 $, so you see pure theft from motorists in Europe !). We continued along the south coast of the Northern Peninsula. We had planned to drive to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on the north coast but due to heavy rain and strong winds we decided to make a shortcut and went via Newberry to the fameous Tahquamenon Falls. Crossing the peninsula we passed very picturesque maple forests which really had taken on the whole spectrum of autumn colors. We had never experienced this except from movies. This was really like driving through an incredible painting. We have frozen this scenery on a lot of photos. We could simply not stop. At the Tahquamenon Visitor Center we posed for a picture at the parking lot. You get some impression of the coloration as the background. And the rain from the wet pavement.
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(Click for a larger photo)
The Upper Tahquamenon Falls are the second largest in the Eastern USA after Niagara
Falls. The settings for these falls are much more inviting than Niagara with the river
quietly winding through deep forests. The picture shows the cascading water and the river
winding its way through the forests in autumn colours.
| Front view to the Tahquamenon Falls |
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From the falls we went out to the Whitefish Bay of Lake Superior. Just past the outflow of the Tahquamenon river we stopped at a rest area to get a view of Lake Superior. The beach was sandy and probably nice for a summer picnic. Further on east until Bay Mills, an Indian Reservation, we drove through colourful forest. At one point we had to make stop to let a flock of Canada Geese cross the road. In Bay Mills we went to the casino to get warmed up (remember in Cherokee a week before we had to go to the casino to cool). As always Michael was the lucky one and left the casino with an excess of 20 $.
Motives from the White Fish Bay of Lake Superior |
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1. Fall Colors West of
Paradise on Highway 123 |
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Late in the afternoon we crossed the bridge to Salt Ste. Marie in Canada. At the border we had to go inside to have our passports stamped. A polite Canadian officer showed us the direction to the visitor center, where we could buy Canadian $. At the visitor center we got many advises for accommodation, a visitor guide to Ontario and a road map. We easily found the way out of Salt Ste. Marie on highway 17 along Lake Huron. Remember it was still raining and it was getting dark so we decided for early accommodation. Also the surroundings were extremely beautiful with large rocks and solitaire trees, (pine, maple and birch) in autumn coloration. We would not miss this scenery in the dark. There were quite a number of choices of motels along the highway and we decided for one in Iron Bridge located on the banks of the Mississaga river. A good surprise was the price which only amounted to 55 CDN $. At the time we reached Canada a monetary crisis had got both the US and CDN $´s to drop drastically. One CDN $ was only worth 4 Dkr, which was 20% less since the last time we visited Canada.
