Settling in in Pembine, WI

We’re getting settled at Lake Lundgren Bible Camp – meeting new friends and getting to know the area. Mostly we’re learning that the nearest “real” stuff is about a half hour away in Iron Mountain. But before we get to where we are now, I need to fill you in on where we’ve been.

Wednesday, the 27th, we continued north up the “tail” of the U.P. We were headed for Houghton (known location of a Walmart and also the home of Michigan Tech). It was a beautiful drive, and along the way we stopped at Alberta Village– a model community that was built by Henry Ford. He thought it would be a good spot for a lumber mill to produce wood for his “Woodie” automobile. Along with the sawmill he also constructed 12 houses, 2 schools, a reception center and several outbuildings. It lasted about 12 years (1935-1947), and then was deeded over Michigan Tech. They have restored the mill and are currently renting out the houses. It was a very interesting stop.
We tucked Lizzie out of the way at the Campground du Walmart in Houghton, and just took the truck to make the rest of the trip to, the farthest north point of Michigan – Copper Harbor. Again, a very beautiful drive, much of it hugging the coast of Lake Superior. When we got to the end of Rte 41 (that road runs from here down to Florida!), there was a dirt road that continued on…..so what the heck, we were kind of into the dirt road experience, so off we went, hoping to make it to coast (it couldn’t be that far, right?) About an hour later (and these were REALLY BAD ROADS) we finally hit blacktop again (phew) and never did quite make it to the tip of the “tail”. But Gary certainly had a fun time pretending we were driving an ATV! While in Copper Harbor we enjoyed an authentic Pasty (Pass-Tee) which is a traditional Cornish all-in-one meal wrapped in a flaky crust. (They needed them self-contained to take them into the copper mines in their pockets so we’re told). We also went to Fort Wilkins and enjoyed learning www.michigan.gov/historicfortwilkins a little bit more about the history of that area. Another blue sky day, and I took lots of pictures. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get on a faster connection and get those pictures loaded. There are many, many lighthouses in this area – probably in directly relation to the number of shipwrecks on these Great Lakes! It was a very lovely day.
Before we continued on our way on Thursday, we went to the Quincy Copper Mine and took another underground tour. Learned lots, but mostly just reaffirmed the joy of never having been a miner! There are no working copper mines in the area currently, but during the turn of the century and through WWII it was the major industry in the area.
Stuff you learn along the way!
Thursday we moseyed down the road to Iron Mountain, MI where we did exciting things like got the oil changed in the truck and picked up supplies at the Walmart. We were only 20 miles from our destination, but we waited until today to pull in and get settled. Which brings us right up to date.
Tomorrow we are planning on heading back to Iron Mountain to visit another mine – this time an Iron Ore mine. Just in case we missed something on the other two mine tours, I guess! =) Oh, we might find a couple of quilt shops along the way (isn’t he a sweetie?).
I think Wisconsin is going to work out just fine!
PS – Since this is being posted a day later….yes, we did make it to that Iron Ore mine and yes it was pretty much the same (except this one had very friendly bats!) Yep, I don’t think this girl will be going on any more tram rides into the center of the mountains any time soon!

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