Honeymoon: Marquette means Beer and Beaches

 Scottie did have a vision for beer so to Marquette we went.  

Once we got to Marquette we walked around downtown only to find nothing was open. Apparently the city shuts down on Sundays. 

The last couple of days we entered a region of the Upper Peninsula known for its boomtowns. Despite it's relatively small size you can see the wealth that was generated by mining. 

The city is filled with large late 19th and early 20th century brick and stone buildings. The scale of the architecture in Marquette, Houghton and Calumet dwarf much larger cities in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Unfortunately the Vierling, a well regarded brewery and restaurant, was closed like everything else. There was a sign on the back of the building that read "Unions: The People Who Brought You The Weekend."

Then we stumbled upon the Ore Dock Brewery and it was open. Joy.

  I asked the gentleman above if all the closed businesses had something to do with the unions. He didn't get my reference and shrugged it off. Apparently he wasn't aware every restaurant in town was shuttered on Sundays or that Vierling had a massive sign fighting for union rights on its rear.

This was the first tap room Brooke and I had been to where the brewery charged for beer. In some states its illegal to sell pints at the brewery, so they have to give it away. That was the case in Minnesota until recently. 

Despite the lack of food, I can't wait to go to all the new tap rooms in the Twin Cities. The beer was really great. I had a radler (lemonade and beer) and Brooke drank a Belgian Wit. Both were delicious.

I wanted to check out some more of the buildings in town.

Brooke is only interested in a building if its a mansion. She went back to the car and I snapped a few pictures of downtown. I love the bar that looks like a two-story White Castle. 

Now that it was sunny and warmer out I was too excited to get to the beach.

Having missed out on swimming the last two days I needed to get some beach time in.

We went to the beautiful Presque Isle Park. It was bit disconcerting that the beach was right next to some very large smokestacks (not pictured). As long as you didn't look to the north it was splendid.

 The bottom of this beach was all rock and no sand and random boulders were everywhere. But the water was so clear. 

But it wasn't pebbles. It was red magma-looking rock that gently undulated under our feet.

 The water was a bit chilly. We were the only ones who stayed in the water for more than 5 minutes. 

I swam for a good half-hour while some bros showed up and chickened out quickly.

The sun began to set. Play time was over.

We needed to head out to find a place to stay for the night. 

We settled on a state forest along the way.

It was dark when we set up camp so we ate our dinner in the dark. 

 I cooked the soup like any self-respecting hobo would, right in the can. We hadn't taken a shower since Mackinac, so it seemed appropriate.

While Brooke went to bed I took some night photos of the lake behind our campsite.

Day 10

The campground here was 8 lots on one big open field with no trees, but each campsite had open access to water.

We ate our standard oatmeal breakfast and then went on to finish our last day in the UP.

Even though we just had breakfast we couldn't pass up frozen custard no matter what time of the day it was. 

Wasn't the worlds best frozen custard, but what could you expect form a joint called the Drive-In. And don't let Yelp fool you, there was no Baraga in the name. That's just the city it's in.

Then it was onto the Keewenaw Peninsula or as I like to call it the Quinoa Peninsula.

Before we knew it we were in Outside Magazine's best place to live in America, Houghton and Hancock, Michigan. 

So we stopped for a mine tour that Scott said was better than the Big John Underground Mine Tour.

These red carts were what the men sat in when they were taken underground. Three men would sit in a row like a bleacher and their faces were literally inches from the rocks.

The Quincy Mine was a little more significant than Big John since they mined copper metal here and not just copper or iron ore.

Supposedly this is one of the only places in the world where copper came out of the ground in chunks. Iron mines on the other hand are a dime a dozen in Michigan and Minnesota. It's also the first stop in the Keweenaw National Historic Park, which stretches the entire peninsula.

The old hoist house had this darling diorama of the mine. The building we were in was the red stone one on the left.

An example of a commonly-sized piece of copper found in the mine.

This humungous copper boulder was found at the bottom of Lake Superior. It's worth well over 100 grand.

That's a lot of pennies. 

The inside of the mine was 42 degrees. My little legs were going to freeze. 

Since it wouldn't be safe going through the elevator shaft (the first building when we arrived) they built this funicular to go down the steep hill to the new mine entrance.

Our tour guide then moved us onto a trailer pulled by an old tractor.

The hole we entered through was dug out during the 90s by nearby Michigan Tech. They used the mine to teach students their trade.

The mine went 9260 feet or 85 floors into the ground and sprawled out for miles. 

Everything 6 inches below our feet had been flooded with water.

Once we were down there for awhile the temperature wasn't so bad. 

A group of kids on the tour incessantly asked question about miners getting hurt.

Before we knew it we were back up the hill.

We thought we were done with the tour, but we hadn't seen the hoist house yet. This massive turbine was built in pieces in Milwaukee and shipped up. They originally were going to construct the building behind it, but instead brought in pieces of the drum piece by piece. 

I'm so amazed that this was all left here abandoned after the mine closed. 

This was one of my favorite stops on the whole trip.

Okay so this tour was pretty cool since most of the buildings were still intact. 

It would have been awesome to see the massive cables that lowered and raised the elevator. We looked around for a while and checked out the adjoining remnants of the workers homes.

Did we find any copper?