Exploring Marquette

This morning we woke up early and well rested. While Katie was getting ready, I decided to go for run around Marquette. I love getting exercise while on vacation and exploring the surrounding area. This time, I ended up at the point of a lighthouse about 2 miles away from our hotel. Being early still, I practically had the city to myself.

After cleaning up and eating some breakfast, Katie and I headed out for a hike to go find a nearby waterfall. Marquette has many secret waterfalls hiding in the vicinity. After some google searching we stumbled upon "Morgan Falls", which seemed like an easy enough hike. Google maps ended up taking us to a location where we had to pull off on the side of the road. The majority of the hike was along a mountain road (closed to vehicles), and we practically had the place to ourselves.

Relying only some written instructions we found on Google, we hiked about a mile into the woods. We started to fear that we might have missed a turn somewhere along the way, so we doubled back and re-traced our steps. Sure enough we had indeed missed our turn, and eventually arrived at Morgan Falls.

This little waterfall was great! Again we practically had the place to ourselves. The surrounding area was really nice too. There were a few picnic tables and gently winding river where you can tell some campers stayed the night before.

Throughout our hike we also noticed a large network of mountain bike trails. Looking at a map, one of the stops happened to be Morgan Falls. I told Katie next time we come I will most certainly be bringing my mountain bike!

Hungry for lunch, we headed to downtown Marquette and by recommendation found ourselves at Donckers. This place was as if a classic diner had a baby with an old fashioned candy store. The food was pretty great, but we suffered from some significantly delayed service. They ended up comping 50% of our meal which was a nice gesture!

After lunch we headed for Presque Isle Park. This is a popular park very close to Marquette that juts out into Lake Superior. This is also where the famous Black Rocks are. Naturally, I wanted to make sure I got some plunges into the beautiful blue/green waters.

Lake Superior actually wasn't as bone-chillingly cold as it usually is. In fact, it was quite refreshing! We really lucked out with the weather on this trip. Every day was beautifully sunny and warm.

Katie was then craving some ice cream, so we found Jilbert Dairy - a place known for their homemade ice cream.

We then headed back into downtown Marquette and found ourselves at Black Rocks Brewery. I had been here once before on my bachelor party, and was so excited to come back. They brew one of my favorite beers, the "51k IPA".

The place has changed quite drastically since I was there 4 years ago. What used to be a quaint little house with a small beer garden, is now an outdoor compound complete with a giant patio and music stage. Half of it was still even under construction as they appear to be taking over the house next door. Can't wait to visit next time!

While at Black Rocks, we snacked on some tacos from a food truck, but eventually we got hungry for dinner. We found ourselves at restaurant close by called Vango’s Pizza. This was perfect little place: Great pub food and super cheap beer.

We didn't want the night to end we went back to Black Rocks one more time to get a T-Shirt and a night cap.

The Next Day

The next day we checked out of our hotel early because had a 6.5 hour drive ahead of us. However we had a couple destinations we wanted to hit on the way down to break up the day.

The first stop was Kitch-iti-kipi, or "Big Spring". To get to this little sleeper destination Google Maps took us down old logging road 20 miles. It was totally worth it though.

This spring fed pond was unbelievably clear. We also got to take a ride on a floating barge, and saw numerous fish just chillin in the water. We read that the spring is fed at a rate of 10,000 gallons per minute! You could even see the spring watter bubbling up from the bottom.

We hopped back in the car and drove for another hour or so. We wanted to make a pit stop at Mackinaw City. It had been years since Katie and I had been, so we wanted to see what it was all about. Unfortunately, we were extremely disappointed. To us it seemed just like a rundown tourist trap. But maybe that's just because we spent an amazing weekend in the beautiful Upper Peninsula. We stayed for about 20 minutes, and realized we were ready to go home!