Arriving Ishpenny

 8-27-2021 - Friday

It was a brisk 66 when I woke up about 6:45 this morning, and very cloudy. But by the time we got on the road, the temperature had dropped to 62, and later it got down to 59 before it came back up into the 70s.   I took a short walk to see if I could see lights on the bridge since it was just breaking daylight, and I could -- although my viewpoint was blocked by trees.  

Today we headed across the U P to the Marquette area, actually we are staying in Ishpeming.  A lady we talked to on the beach in Leland told us about a spot in Marquette to find agates.  We had driven to Marquette when we were here in June but couldn't find any good spots to rockhound, so now we have a target.  I called two campgrounds in Marquette but they were both full, so we ended up in Ishpeming, about 15 miles away, for Friday and Saturday nights.  It's very difficult to find campsites on the weekends in Michigan, both Lower and Upper.

In the giftshop here at St. Ignace, there is a box of polished Petoskey stones.  She said the small ones had already been bought, so I was forced to buy a $10 one.  A relative of hers (brother, cousin?) finds and polishes them.  I think she called this "facing," where just one side is polished.  Anyway, I was certain I needed one for my collection -- a big one to go with the small ones we are lucky enough to find.

All we had to do this morning was unhook electricity, so we were on the way by 9:25.  It started raining shortly after I got up and rained off and on all day.  We took I-75 out of St. Ignace to hwy 123, then hwy 28 across. then we started jogging a little, across 94, 553, and 35.  Pleasant drive, good roads, might have had a  little tail wind.   This is supposed to be moose territory so we were on the lookout. Didn’t see any moose but did see a sign for bear bait, so there must be bears in the area too.  Didn’t see any of them either.  We had to turn the heater on through the Newberry area, (the moose area) when it was 59. The last little bit of our drive got pretty curvy, and we came into Ishpeming the back way, but that was all ok.  We got to the campground about 1:30.  This is another nice campground (Country Village), right off of Hwy 41.  Very roomy, clean, full hook-up, laundry, right in the town of Ishpeming.  

While Joe was hooking up to electricity, etc., I started vacuuming the RV, which desperately needed it.  Well, the vacuum got plugged up, and we ended up changing the bag and shaking out the filter.  Then while I was vacuuming the bedroom, Joe started fixing up our little apple cider vinegar/dawn mixture in little glass bowls for the gnats.  I pulled the sweeper too far, and the cord came out of the plug-in, knocking off one of the little bowls and shattering the glass all over the floor I had just vacuumed.  Made a little job into a big job, and neither of us were in too great a mood by then.

We went out for pasta tonight, very good at Mama Mia's, then drove to a rock shop called Tourist Trap.  We had stopped here before, and the owner comes to Apache Junction in the winter and belongs to our rock club.  They have some nice rock on display here.

Since I had bought the larger Petoskey stone this morning, I wanted to find out how they got them to shine.  The ones I had polished before never really shined much, and got ground away to much smaller specimens.  I learned they put some kind of finish on them, something like polyurethane but much more expensive, rather than tumbling them like I had tried.  They just polish one side.

One of the most impressive things here, I think, are the sets of bookends, to which I am partial anyhow.  I kept looking at them, thinking I have a birthday coming up, but couldn't figure out where I would put them to get the viewing they deserve, so I didn't start begging.  The picture of the first one doesn't do it justice -- it was pink all over, they were both beautiful, along with some others he had.

Another sample he had was hermatite, which he gave me a piece of when we were here before.  It is almost black, very sparkly.

There is a pretty unique gift shop attached to the rock shop, and I went in there and looked around but didn't buy anything.  Meanwhile, Joe walked the grounds outside and found a sample of slag from one of the mines in this area, I imagine the "blueys" we were looking for in Leland are very similar to this, since these pieces come from the same process.

So enough about rocks.  We left there, heading to the grocery store just down from the campground, but when we started to pull onto the highway, I spotted 2 deer straight across the road, so of course, the deer won.  We went down that road until it wound its way back to the highway (we were surprised), and we did see 2 other deer.  When we turned onto Hwy 41, we really didn't know where we were with regard to the campground, and we turned the wrong way, back the way we had come into town in the RV.  But that worked out, because we had seen a produce market and planned to go back to it, and lo and behold, there it was.  We stopped and picked up a few things, they had Indiana watermelons but they didn't say whose farm they were from.  We have been fighting gnats or fruit flies in the RV all summer, so I hope we didn't bring more in.  I washed everything we bought, so we are hoping.

So we just went back to the RV, have to try again tomorrow for the grocery store.  But our plan tomorrow is to go rockhounding for agates in Marquette, in Lake Superior.  Joe just read they are having a march in Marquette tomorrow for voters rights, so we may run into problems there.  I hope not, because I'm thinking this is probably my last opportunity for rockhounding on this trip.

Yesterday I calculated our RV mileage at 6,500 miles.  Today, I got the mileage out of the Jeep, and we are at 6,432 miles in it.  Lots and lots of gasoline!

On an unrelated topic, Joe's cousin in Virginia just won the St. Jude's House Give-Away.  We were told the house is valued at $525,000.  Now that is pretty cool!  She is a great person, and well-deserving.