It was Americana at its best.
The 4th of July. A small Michigan town with a seasonal tourist season. Two Washingtonians and a Corgi. Returning to an area we spent some time in 25 years ago when our careers were just getting started.
It was a recipe for a sweet summer day.
Mission accomplished.
We started with taking it easy at Fanny Hooe Lake Campground in Copper Harbor. It is a locally owned campground – with a nice mixture of locals and out of towners. We saw license plates on campers/cars from Florida and Delaware as well as Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. There were even some folks with a silver Airstream Atlas with Washington Plates that are RVTCOUG (“Riveted Coug” in Airstream language).
Noel has volunteered to cook some on our trips – traditionally Kirk has done a lot of the cooking and Noel has done the clean-up work. In a reversal of roles – she fixed some outstanding blueberry buttermilk pancakes – so my guess is that she will now get breakfast duty more often!
Post breakfast we enjoyed a relaxing morning at the campsite with Kirk reading some Science Fiction on his Kindle and Noel doing some water color painting at the picnic table.
We per custom, we found a local brewery in tiny Copper Harbor. A short internet search found the Brickside Brewery about a 0.5 mile walk from the campground to downtown Copper Harbor. Kirk enjoyed a nice locally brewed beer (an IPA no less) and a pita with jerk-pork. Noel skipped the salad course at lunch this time and went right for a pita with pesto chicken.
We also wanted to spend some time browsing for some memorabilia at the local arts and crafts shops. These are all locally owned small businesses – so we bought some post cards, refrigerator magnets, locally made jewelry, pottery and other small tokens to remember our time in Copper Harbor. Of course – we could not pass up a local ice cream shop for a needed sugar rush after all of that shopping!
After a bit of a rest back in the campsite – and a couple of walks with the resident Corgi – we prepped for dinner at the Harbor Haus Restaurant.
We had been frequent diners at Harbor Haus Restaurant during our tenure at Michigan Tech from 1995 to 2001. It is a rarity these days – a fine dining restaurant that only operates seasonally during the summer months.
While we might want to reminisce about the great meals we had there 25 years ago – we were also eager to see if they still had incredible German style food with a Lake Superior flair.
It was about a mile walk from our campsite to the restaurant.
The meal and service were as good as we remembered.
We started with a German style potato pancake with a nice California Sauvignon Blanc. Kirk had a planked Lake Superior Whitefish and Noel had shrimp and steak. To top the evening off – we enjoyed a German style Black Forest Torte.
After stumbling back to our campsite (we somehow polished off the entire bottle of wine) or at least not walking in a completely straight line – we sat outside and enjoyed a campfire.
At 11:00 p.m. the Town of Copper Harbor put on a 15 minute drone light show over the Harbor. It was amazing to see the patterns and colors done by the drones with traditional types of 4th of July images. The technology is stunning.
We crawled into bed around midnight. Those of you that know that I normally like to be getting ready for bed at 9 p.m. can appreciate the focus it took to stay up.
It was totally worth it!
What an amazing 4th of July celebrating our Nation’s Birthday!
Kirk’s Travelogue 