The second week of deer camp is when things get really kooky.
Sounds about right to me! 
Get yourself a UV flashlight so you can hunt for Yooperlites along the Lake Superior shore at night.
Check out the Pickle Barrel in Grand Marais.
The Log Slide Overlook (Google Maps) might be the same view point Crafter_Man mentioned.
Couple good breweries in Munising (and others all over the UP).
Lakenenland Sculpture Park east of Marquette: https://lakenenland.com/
Kitch-iti-kipi (Michigan Recreation Search Site Details Page) if you can get down near Manistique.
Cudighi for another UP culinary delight: Cudighi - Wikipedia
@SmellMyWort - Thanks for those suggestions. The Yooperlites definitely sound cool if we can find an out-of-the-way spot to look for them given we’ll be there later in the year after they will have had an opportunity to be well picked over. I do have a UV flashlight I primarily use for curing UV resin when tying flies that should work nicely. And we’ll be passing through Grand Marais on our way from Tahquamenon Falls to the Pictured Rocks, so the Pickle Barrel could make for a quick stop on the way through town.
The Lakenenland Sculpture Park reminds me of the Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose, SD that we found on our way to the Badlands and Black Hills a couple of years ago. That will also be on the “Must Do” list, along with Kitch-iti-kipi.
And the cudighi sounds yummy, too. Do you have any recommendations for a good place to get some?
For your UV light you’ll definitely want to make sure it’s 365nm. Other UV lights might work OK up close, but won’t fluoresce as bright or at all a few feet up when you are walking along scanning the beach. Lake Superior is constantly turning over new stuff, so I wouldn’t worry too much about beaches being picked over. I’ve been out three times over the last few years and found them in Copper Harbor, Deer Park (across from Muskallonge Lake State Park), and the best finds were at the east entrance of the Porcupine Mountains across from the Big Bear Campground.
I’ve never actually had cudighi in a restaurant but purchase it raw at various grocery stores, usually along with some porketta and other various Italian sausage blends. I’m usually near Iron Mountain so that’s where I get it, but my understanding is you’ll find it all over the UP. I usually make it into patties for sandwiches, or crumble it up for pizza topping. If you are on Facebook there is a page called Yooper Pasty that just had a long discussion about where to find cudighi around the UP.
Thanks. I’ll do a little digging and see what I can come up with.
Well, we’re back from our trip and I must say I enjoyed the UP every bit as much as I had hoped to. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to do as much fishing as I would have liked to but that just means another trip will have to be done in the not too distant future. Damn the bad luck!
So here’s a (hopefully) quick recap of the trip:
Upon crossing the Mackinac Bridge we stopped at Lehto’s Pasties in St. Ignace to get our 1st taste of UP cuisine. Lived up to my expectations, and the gravy added just enough salt to balance everything out. Judgment: Tasty, not nasty! Stopped at Castle Rock on the way out of town and climbed up to the overlook. It was every bit as kitschy as I expected it to be with its Paul Bunyon & Babe statues out front, but the view of Lake Huron and Mackinac Island was worth the stop.
Tahquamenon Falls - Camped at the Portage campground near the lower falls. Our campsite backed up to a bend in the river which was very nice. Hiked the full loop around the lower falls and took lots of pictures. The lower falls area was definitely more picturesque than the upper falls. Unfortunately, Brown’s Fish House in Paradise was closed and looked like it had been for a while. 
Still managed to find some smoked whitefish and whipped up a batch of @solost 's chowder for supper. I liked it, but my wife said I made it too spicy for her. Oh well! And the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum was great, too. Highly recommend it to anyone who happens to be in the area.
Pictured Rocks NL - Camped at Twelvemile Beach right on Lake Superior. Nice National Park Service campground overlooking the lake. Took the 365nm UV light I bought for the occasion down to the shoreline to hunt for Yooperlite rocks that night but, alas, to no avail. Had fun looking though. Drove into Munising for the Pictured Rocks boat tour which I’d say is definitely the best way to appreciate that shoreline. While in Munising picked up some more pasties from Muldoon’s for comparison purposes (and a gravy vs ketchup test). Their traditional pasty with ketchup was good, but needed a bit of Tony Chachere’s to spice it up a bit. But their apple pie pasty was divine! Comparing Lehto’s to Muldoon’s, my wife and I agreed that Lehto’s pastry crust was a little bit better for the savory pasties, but Muldoon’s fruit pasty was definitely a winner. And gravy vs ketchup was a toss-up for me. Either way works as long as you add some salt or other spices.
The Porkies - Stopped to check out Lakenenland Sculpture Park on our way into Marquette. Very interesting stuff with a fair dose of editorial opinion expressed in several of his pieces. The artist is definitely willing to let the viewer know where he stands on a variety of topics! Reminded me quite a bit of Porter Sculpture Park up in South Dakota.
Continuing on to the Porkies, we camped at Union Bay campground on the Ontonagon side of the park with our campsite backed right up to the lake. Did Lake of the Clouds that evening, and the fall colors were BEAUTIFUL! The next day we took the South Boundary Rd over to the Presque Isle side of the park, stopping to hike a couple of trails along the way, and taking in the waterfalls on the Presque Isle River. Our final day there we hiked the Government Peak Trail up to Trap Falls and back, then rode the ski lift at the winter sports complex to take in some more fall colors and beautiful views. We really enjoyed our time there in the Porkies and may well return someday.
The trip home - On the way back south we stopped for the night at Fayette Historic State Park on Lake Michigan. Checked out the restored town and enjoyed a nice sunset over the lake. Then on to Kitch-Iti-Kipi. Got there early enough that the mist was just burning off of the water which made for some great photos. Another very cool stop and definitely worth the small detour. Stopped at Gustafson’s for some more smoked fish and jerky (tried their smoked fish dip and really liked it as well!), then back across the bridge and on to Sleeping Bear Dunes.
Overall we had a really great time. Saw some great fall colors, lots of interesting places, and were not disappointed by any of the local cuisine that we were able to try (unfortunately no cudighi this trip, but it’s on the list for next time). Thanks to all who provided input and guidance, and the UP certainly is high on my Be Back List.
Wow, you sure packed a lot into your trip! That’s as much sightseeing as I ever did in 3 or 4 trips to the U.P. Glad to hear you had a great time!
WOW! You definitely got some highlights. I’ve visited the UP most years since 2007(?) but missed this year. I usually only do one region/year though.
Brian
Well, I traveled extensively with my family when I was a kid and got to see the vast majority of the country. But my wife (born & raised in Connecticut) never traveled much at all other than one trip to Florida when she as about nine and seeing the World’s Fair in New York back in the 60s. As a result, in the 7 years we’ve been together I’ve been on a mission to take her to all of the places she never got to visit growing up. Initially, my plan is to hit all of the must-see sites like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain NP, Acadia NP, Cape Cod, Niagara Falls, New Orleans, San Francisco, etc. and see as much of a given area as possible while we’re there. We’re both in our mid-to-upper 60s and in reasonably good health for now, but the clock is ticking. Once we finish our first lap around the country, then we’ll start going back for a more in-depth exploration of the places we really enjoyed (the Be Back List, which Michigan & the UP are definitely on). We’re making pretty good progress so far (41 out of 50 states visited, 33 in our camper) and well over half of the National Parks visited (along with many other NPS sites).
Since the Mrs. and I hit the UP and Salte Ste. Marie ON at the end of September, I’ll post our experiences.
We did the Seney marshland drive in their National Wildlife Refuge, a 7 mile twisty turny one way gravel road between streams and pools of water where we saw loons, swans, sandhill cranes and absolutely no other humans. It was great.
We went to Grand Marais MI on Lake Superior and had one of the best fish fries of our lives, fresh whitefish that had actually been caught on the UP’s south shore by the fishmonger in Naubinway on Lake Michigan that morning. The town was fun and amazing and the colors of the leaves were spectacular.
We hiked to the top of the Logslide in Pictured Rocks and took in the amazing vista there, super steep dunes over 400 feet high, in the middle of a wilderness. We viewed the stars under truly dark skies at the northeast end of 12 mile beach, hiked the trails, saw the waterfalls. We focused on Pictured Rocks east end as we’d extensively visited (and even swum in the ice caves) the west end some years ago.
We revisited Tahquamenon Falls, enjoying the colors there too. Also a re-visit to the Great Lakes Shipwreck museum, which was just as poignant and interesting as my first visit years earlier.
We almost made it to Vermilion, too. I’d long wanted to visit that old lifesaving station and abandoned village, and we took our all wheel drive vehicle over the one lane sandy road over 8 miles to within a quarter mile of the site too, when we were confronted by the road and bridge being under water. So we were forced to turn around; I was NOT going to drive an underwater sand road/bridge combo in the middle of nowhere with iffy cell reception. A disappointment but oh well.
Next we went across the border to Saulte Ste. Marie and explored the trails along the St. Mary river and the Whitefish Island indian reserve which were quite nice. We chatted with a number of SSM natives, and found them quite friendly. Then we hiked to Crystal Falls.
We hit the bushplane and insect museum (a combined display) and both were amazing. I loved seeing their Republic Seabee, as I’d flown frequently in one as a kid. They also had a Ranger 200 horse aircraft engine on display. That had been the powerplant in the Fairchild PT-26 my father and I crashed back in 1974. I’d spent a huge portion of 1973 being a grease monkey on that engine so seeing it again was quite poignant. The insects and lizards were neat too. They had a group of 8 year old girls visiting the insectorium and they all had fun having the creatures crawl over them. No screaming or flinching, just interest and enjoyment from what I could tell.
We returned to the US with a supply of Liberté yogurt (sadly no longer available in US stores).
We still want to make a tour of Superior’s great circle route, but perhaps next year.
Hmm, I don’t remember insects when I visited the Bush Plane museum — wonder if it was added after.
Brian
Might well be. It took up a very tiny corner of the Bush Plane museum.
Glad to hear you and the Mrs. had a good time in the UP! All these UP stories are making me nostalgic for the times I used to visit the UP every summer.
Since you are a Sconnie, Qadgop, I’m remembering a story from my late 20s - early 30s, camping at the Porkies with a friend: we climbed to the top of the observation tower in the park, and there were a few campers up there who were about our age, who were from Wisconsin. They insisted that the UP should be part of Wisconsin, since geographically they are one land mass, and the UP is not even joined to the LP at all. They didn’t even seem to be joking, or half-joking-- they were dead serious as far as I could tell, and not happy about it. I didn’t know what to say to them; I didn’t disagree. I think I just said something like “sorry for your loss”
IIRC The UP was part of Wisconsin but then there was a dispute with Ohio which MI lost and were given the UP in compensation.
Th counties that border Wisconsin are in central time, which makes more sense esp for the more western ones.
A non-trivial percent of Yoopers are Packer fans.
Brian
Yes, I believe we got the UP as compensation for giving up Toledo. A fair trade, I think.
I kid, I kid! I like Toledo.
Yep, drive through any town west of say, Highway 41, and all you see is green and yellow everywhere. And I’m not talking early Fall leaf colors.
I understand the sentiment but northern WI struggles enough with unemployment, drug addiction, and all that. Add the UP on to the rest of the state and that burden increases tremendously. I’d support it as a separate state (though it’d be a red one). Or leave as is, it makes it more exotic for us Sconnies to visit and enjoy.
I hear lots of WI pot consumers make a beeline for Menominee, MI anyway for their THC fix. That’d go away if the UP belonged to WI.
I still need to visit Marquette and Detour Village/Drummond Island MI one day, then I’ll consider that I’ve explored the UP sufficiently (if still not thoroughly).
And I still need to visit the great state of Wisconsin! Other than taking a different route by driving straight through WI from the Porkies to get back home to SE Michigan, just as a change of pace years ago, I’ve never been.
The family and I were planning a big Wisconsin vacation several years ago, and I even started a recommendation thread, to which you and many others contributed great ideas for places to visit. But it fell through, and for various reasons we haven’t been able to have a family vacation since.
Bumping this thread since my wife and I just got back from the U.P.-- our son started college at Michigan Tech in the Keewenaw peninsula. He drove his car up but didn’t want to keep it over winter, so we drove up to get it.
We made a week of it, visiting places we hadn’t been yet. I revisited this thread to get some ideas on what to see. This one I had wanted to see for years and thought was well worth the trip-- gorgeous turquoise crystal-clear water:
Another natural sight, that I didn’t see mentioned here that I think is well worth the visit, is Laughing Whitefish Falls, just south of Marquette. Not nearly as much water volume as Tahquamenon Falls, but quite a bit higher elevation. There’s a stairway that runs alongside from top to bottom of the falls with a LOT of stairs. I was a little concerned I’d have a struggle walking back up since I ain’t getting any younger, but I did just fine.
Those were the two coolest new-to-me natural sights we took in. We also did a fair amount of historical sightseeing, like a tour of the Quincy Mine in Hancock, Fort Wilkins State Park at the tip of the Keewenaw, and the Maritime Museum in Marquette.