Pretty Rocks and Pretty Hot

"Fill your life with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show." -Unkown

Saturday, July 3, 2021 - Monday, July 5, 2021

The last major stop on this trip took us east a bit, but still along the shores of Lake Superior. Our destination was the second of three National Park Service-run parks: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore.

Much of our pre-trip research told us that the best views of the rocks come from Lake Superior either via kayak or boat. We wouldn't quite be able to pull that off with two young kids and a dog, but we also knew that we'd still be able to take in some different sights and sounds.

The first of those would come from our remote, non-electric campground deep into the park. Little Beaver Lake Campground was nestled far from civilization near the aptly named Little Beaver Lake. There was a small waterway that connected to Beaver Lake. Both of these lakes and the campground itself were just a mile or so from the Pictured Rocks of Lake Superior. And while the lake could be hiked to, it could not be seen from the campground.

No problem.

There's something beautiful about being in such a small campground. We had site 8 of 8 here.

The high humidity and rising temperatures into the upper 80s and low 90s with no ability to catch relief with air conditioning, however?

Problem.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon after driving through some nice towns and much of the park. We didn't stop much, though, as we were eager to get to our site and set up shop.

After doing so, we trekked a few hundred feet to the water access for Little Beaver Lake.

From there, we pumped up the paddle board and took turns paddling around the lake with Acadia. Most of our night was spent doing that before getting something to eat and calling it a night. It was hot out, but it wasn't unbearable - yet. We were able to get some sleep.

Sunday was July 4. Holidays are always busy, so we knew what we were getting into in terms of people - many of whom would be inexperienced in parks - and what we could, couldn't, should, and shouldn't attempt to do.

One thing we knew we could handle was a short (in terms of distance but not so much difficulty) trek down to some waterfalls before hiking back up and out. This section of the park was called Miners Falls.

Beautiful albeit buggy at times.

After this hike, we had a snack on the go and headeded to one of the most famous lookouts in Pictured Rocks: Miner's Castle.

All said and done, we walked about a mile or two at this spot as we checked out both the upper lookout and lower lookout.

The girls enjoyed all the views this site had to see just as much as we did.

By now, it was the middle of the afternoon and temperatures had reached record-breaking levels at 90+ degrees. We did some quick research and found a beach on Lake Superior that was also dog-friendly. This gave everybody plus Lily a chance to wade around, swim a bit, and just plain cool off.

So, we headed to Sand Point Beach, toward Munising, to relax as best we could in the sweltering heat.

There, we spent about an hour or two before drying off and heading into town to get some dinner at a local restaurant. We had hoped to spend more time checking out the town but mixing blistering heat with excessive crowds of people wasn't what we were looking for with two exhausted girls and an equally exhausted dog.

Back to the campsite we went. We didn't do too much once back aside from head back down to the water for a bit and take some mini-strolls around the campground. With everybody ready to pass out, unfortunately, it couldn't happen easily as temperatures were still in the 80s and humidity felt as if it was at near 100% - even at 9:00 p.m.

Talk about one of the toughest nights of sleep you'll ever have. Add this situation to the list of lessons learned. Since this trip, we have purchased a quiet smart "generator" power station that would allow us to hookup to our air conditioning for a few hours without the smells and sounds of a gasoline generator.

Somehow, though, sleep came. And we all slept in.

With some rest, knowing we had a travel day ahead of us, and everybody anxious to cool off with air conditioning in the RAV4, we broke down camp quickly, hitched up the camper, and pulled out not too long after waking up.

Our trip was quickly coming to a close. We only had two more stays left: a random community park on the shores of Lake Michigan (just something to break up the trip back home for a night) and Cuyahoga Valley National Park for two nights.