Autumn arrives in the U.P.

Brrr......The leaves have started changing colors up here, and the  last few days the temperatures have been in the 40s at night and the 50s during the day.  Maybe that wouldn't be so bad if the wind wasn't whipping as well.  One perk is that we have a chance to use our "winter" recipes- meatloaf, soups, Chili, etc.  instead of cooking the same old things on the grill. 
        We have been in the town of Thompson,  in Indian Lake State Park, exploring this area of the U.P.

Our first stop was " Big Spring"  which is the biggest fresh water spring in Michigan.  10,000 gallons of water a minute gush out of this spring, and you can see the constant swirling of the sand on the bottom of the pond.  Access to the spring is really cool.  There is an operator powered raft- so I cranked a huge wheel and that propelled the raft along a cable, out into the pond.  There is an observation "hole" in the wooden raft where you can look down and watch the water bubble and swirl.  The water is 45 degrees and crystal clear but appears bright green...

    Yesterday we headed to the ghost town of Fayette.  (Several pictures of it and of "Big Spring" are in my "Recent Pictures".) Fayette was a thriving Iron smelting town,  in the late 1800s. Unfortunately it only thrived for about 24 years, after which the company who built the town decided that it wasn't cost effective to remove the iron, so they closed up shop, abandoning the town.  In the late 1950s the state bought the land and have been slowly restoring some of the buildings.  So many of the buildings are still standing that it really gives a snapshot of what a small town would have looked like back then.  We enjoyed poking around and learning about the people who had lived there. The town has a small harbor, and the weather was so lousy, there were several boats tied to the dock waiting for the wind to die down.  We talked to one of the owners, who was anxious to leave, but not anxious to brave the waves out on the lake.  Eventually he did leave and we watched him bounce around for a bit- but he made it fine, as far as we could see.
  I also saw my first Bald Eagle yesterday but of course I didn't have my camera with me.  He was flying around our campground, which is right on a lake.  As soon as I saw him, I knew he was an Eagle, not an Osprey.  I looked for him later, and several times today, but no luck. I'll look again tomorrow before we leave, but we are headed to Copper Harbor, MI so maybe I'll have better luck there.
    Last night we looked at our schedule for the next few weeks and since we only have 3 weeks before we need to be back in MI for my surgery, we are unfortunately going to skip Voyageurs National Park in MN- its even further north than here, and will probably be pretty cold, especially since most of the park consists of  lakes.   Instead we are going to head to Wisconsin once we leave the U.P.
   Today we went to Seney National Wildlife Preserve.  They have a visitors center that was very well done and informative about the various wildlife.  However, we learned we were 2 days too late to see the loons, who have apparently all just left  due to the cold weather.  Ugh.  We did the 7 mile drive through the park, but elected not to hike or bike because the wind was still whipping and its just raw outside.  From there we drove through the small town of Curtis and then just headed back home after doing a little food shopping.
  We have no TV stations at this park, so we rented movies for the past two nights.  Not tonight though, so Paul is prowling around looking for things to do.  He just managed to fix our favorite pair of binoculars.  We have no idea how the eyepieces got out of alignment, but they are fixed now!