Day Trip along the lakeshore

We drove a total of 129 miles, but saw so many sites. Most of the stops were within the boundaries of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We stopped at Twelve-Mile Beach, but I didn't get a good picture, and I don't think it was a real 12 mile beach.

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Next we stopped at the Au Sable Lighthouse. It was about a 2 mile roundtrip hike out to the lighthouse. We went down on the beach just before reaching the lighthouse so we could see the remains of some of the famous shipwrecks from this area. Here is just one of several ship skeletons we saw along the beach

And here is the lighthouse as seen from the beach.

Although they don't use the old style lanterns anymore, they still do use a light, it's just solar powered now. Here I am standing next to the current light on top of the lighthouse.

Next stop was the Log Slide. And yes, it is just what it sounds like. Back in the 1800s when logging was a mainstay in this area, they needed to get the logs down to the beach. They would drag them to the cliffs and then load them on a chute, sliding them down to the beach where the ships would pick them up. Of course the chute is gone, but the place where they slide down to the beach is still there.

If you look close you can see where the chute used to be. People can still slide down the slope, but getting back up is the problem.

These are the dunes along side the logslide.

Next stop after the logslide was Grand Marias. This building has been rebuilt, but is the original design.

As you can see, it was built in 1895.

This Pickle Barrel House is on the National Historic Registry.

It is now used as a visitor center, but if you can read the sign above, it was used for a summer home originally.

And this was all in the first 60 miles of our trip. The remaining miles was simply getting back by the highway. We had 5 cars of people caravaning on this day.