I had a plan to photograph an actual Lake Superior sunRISE on Saturday morning. I have umpteen gazillion pics of sunSETS on Gitchee Gumee. I do not think I have ever had the opportunity to get a sunrise. So I got up plenty early in order to drive the Ninja over to the turnout before sunrise. And then… It was 6:30 AM and I was finished with my shower and it was still pitch black and the sun wasn’t going to rise for another hour and the GG was still asnore.

We ate breakfast in the Lyme Lounge that morning. The GG surfaced in time to start cooking for me to actually EAT and get over to the turnout a couple minutes before the sun came up. Here he is and yes I CAN cook and I can even cook in the Lyme Lounge but lately it is getting to be a little more like a man cave than I would prefer, so I sat back and let him do what minimal cooking we did.

When I got to the turnout (where there is cell service), my phone said that the sun would rise at 7:27. In fact, it rose at 7:29. I suspect that it rose at 7:27 in Sault Ste. Siberia, which is where my weather app was set, and 7:29 at the turnout south of Paradise, where *I* was.

We got up to Tahquamenon Falls PDQ that morning, took the shuttle to the Upper Falls and hiked down to the Lower. What was good about getting out early was that, on that beautiful day, the sun was still low enough in the sky to light up the water. This foam is below the upper falls. It is a natural characteristic of the Tahquamenon River and not some kind of agricultural or industrial pollutant.

The trail between the lower and upper falls is built largely along a hillside. It is challenging to keep it navigable and trees eventually tip over and fall into the river. I’m not sure what the heck is going on with this tree (trees?) but here is the GG posing in it.

I always love reflection pics. We are below the foam (mostly) at this point.

And this is a close up, foam near the shore and a lens-flare.

It’s a 4-mile hike from the upper falls to the lower falls and of course we made it there. If I can kvetch for just a moment, I get so annoyed when I meet people on the trail who for whatever reason seem to size me up and try to instruct me about the trail. Hey guys (usually men, but sometimes women), I have been hiking this trail since I was a kid. Back before there was a brewery. So, the lower falls…

And the upper falls.

We ate lunch at the brewery after that but then we walked out to view the upper falls and then we continued on to where the North Country Trail picks up again and we walked out to where there is a series of complex ponds created by beavers in which the water levels are different in each of the ponds. Here is the GG standing by a beaver dam. What you may not be able to tell from the photo is that I am standing below the water level.

After all of that hiking (33K steps for me), when we got back to our campsite, my feet were FILTHY! This may be TMI but I wash/defoliate my feet every afternoon. I have been doing that since I was a teenager. When my family was at the moomincabin in the summer, I would return from an evening walking around on the beach with the other teenagers there and I would always heat some water on the stove and hoist my feet one after the other into a basin in the kitchen sink and wash them. Nowadays I wash my feet every afternoon when I get home from work even though they aren’t all that dirty from being at work. Hiking and camping? Dirty? Yes. The plastic container I used to use to wash my feet apparently broke but there were a bunch of aluminum foil lasagne pans available and so I washed my feet in a lasagne pan every afternoon that I was at Tahq. Loved it.

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