We drove north from Ann Arbor to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to visit Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and Petoskey on the drive back down.
Pop quiz: What do the people there call themselves?
A) Yooper
B) Yupper
C) Yuppie
D) Uppity
We didn’t get a FCFS spot at Bay Furnace, but luckily found a backup nearby at the Kewadin Casino in Christmas. We had fun beachcombing, hiking to waterfalls, and trying local Yooper food like pasties. Yep, the answer was A (from U.P.).
We began by hiking to the nearby waterfalls. Munising Falls by the visitor center was a trickle, but Wagner Falls was more impressive. The kids loved that it only took a super-short, accessible hike on a boardwalk.
The highlight was a boat tour along the Pictured Rocks. It was short enough to (mostly) hold the kids’ attention and gave the best close-up views. There were incredible sandstone formations, transparent turquoise waters, and dripping “paint” from copper, manganese, iron, and limonite. Tip: sit on the starboard (right) side for more photo opportunities.
We came back to Pictured Rocks later to have a nice beach day at Miner’s Beach. There is a rock formation nearby you can also hike to see. We decided swimming in the lake would be more fun.
All the beautiful rock formations inspired us to hunt for rocks along the shores. Since Bay Furnace was just across the road, we started there first. Definitely wear sandals or flip-flops! We discovered large green and purple volcanic glass, rose quartz, and agate.
On our drive back down, we stayed in Petoskey. We did some more rock hounding on the public beaches there and found some unique to Upper Michigan fossilized coral pieces called Petoskey and Charlevoix stones. These stones are fossilized coral! We also found all sorts of sea creature fossils along the shores of Lake Michigan in Petoskey. Our favorite place to search for rocks in Petoskey was Bayfront Park (west).
Check your location before collecting and keeping any rocks. Keeping rocks from National Parks are a big no-no, but we found out `National Forest land is ok (unless specifically prohibited). In addition, Michigan has a limit on how many pounds of rocks you can remove from their shores every year.
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