Thursday, September 30, 2010

Manistique (Travel Tip Thursday)

Travel Tip Thursday is a writing prompt that encourages us to write about places we’ve gone offering “tips” about places to travel. As one who is always up for a road trip (or train or even plane), I enjoy reading about other people’s travel. Today, I’m taking you to Manistique, Michigan. This is an easy post which is good, because the last month has wiped me out. October promises some changes, but will also be hectic as I’ll fly home to spend a few days with my parents, and then at the end of the month I’ll fly to Costa Rica for a week. Hopefully, I’ll gather a few stories from my travels.


Last summer, when I was in the UP (that’s Upper Peninsula for you non-Michigan folk), I made a stop in Manistique to have lunch with the local Habitat for Humanity director. I’d only been through Manistique once before and remembered the weird water tower in the middle of the town. This time, I took some time to walk around the old Soo Lines that cut through town (see the station below), and to tour the museum inside the water tower that’s only open in the summer. (the tower is no longer in use.) The museum told about the town’s special “Siphon Bridge” and flume built nearly a hundred years ago to channel water and logs into the town’s paper mill. I also checked out the beach, but for some reason didn’t bother to photograph the sand and water (and lighthouse) that was inviting on a warm July day.
I would have also loved sticking around to have watched the sunset over the lake, but in July, the sun doesn't set to nearly 10 PM this far north (and besides, I think the sun wouldn't have set over the lake as the lake is south of Manistique... but in the winter, when the sun sets southward, I think you'd get a nice view of it from the beach. Dress warmly! Probably a nicer view of the sunset (through much of the year) would be at Seul Choix Point Lighthouse about 20 miles east of Manistique. The point juts out into Lake Michigan, providing an opportunity to see sunrises and sunsets.

Manistique is at the end of the Manistique River (which I fished along with the Fox River back in 2007). It use to be a big lumber and paper mill area. The Ann Arbor Railroad ran a ferry to Manistique from Frankfort, MI (in the lower peninsula). The ferry was a small ship and carried no only automobiles, but train cars (and served as the Ann Arbor’s connection to the Soo Line. With the opening of the Big Mac (bridge between the upper and lower peninsula) in 1957, the ferries were doomed and stopped running in the 1960s.

My travel tip for today: take time to visit those less known places.

17 comments:

  1. think that is a great idea...and usually they dont have huge crowds either...we like to find small towns nearby...there is usually something of interest...cool tower...

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  2. YOu go to the most interesting places!

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  3. I love visiting little towns. I should do more of it.

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  4. It is impossible to judge where the fellow that built the water tower was off to with that design. Having said that though, it's about twenty foot shy of being downright elegant.

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  5. These are both beautiful shots, but I really love the line of that railroad heading into the horizon.

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  6. Manistique sounds so exotic - I thought it would be in Morocco or someplace like that when I saw the title. :)

    I love these kinds of places. My favorite thing to do is take back roads instead of the expressway (when I have time) so that I can run up on places like that awesome old water tower.

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  7. Lana and I just found out about a couple of amazing places right in our own backyard. There are so many cool places

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  8. Always fun reading the travel posts, even if they do make me remember I desperately need a vacation.

    Cheers.

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  9. There are many small places with lots of charm. I like their 'little stories'. Cool post!

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  10. Sage, my photos were from Ft. Fisher. We were there in Sept. I wonder how they fared in the rain, since Carolina Beach is flooded.

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  11. I've been in the thumb of Michigan but not the UP. My one association with the UP is the novel ANATOMY OF A MURDER and the movie that was, I believe, shot there. It always seems so far away...and in black and white with a Duke Ellington soundtrack...

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  12. I enjoyed the little toys on my drive to Mackinaw more than the island visit itself...

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  13. Towns, not toys.

    Uff da, I think it's bedtime.

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  14. What a quaint little town, and I think it's neat that there's a museum inside the water tower. Great pics!

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  15. Sounds lovely. Altho I thought there might be Men, with Mystique, in Manistique. Evidently not...sigh ;-)

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  16. I must have been reading Michiganders' blogs too long. I knew what the UP was right off.

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  17. Since you mentioned doing a water tower post I had to check it out..I love water towers, and this one seems to have another favorite thing of mine in its design...doesn't it appear like it could be part of a lighthouse, especially around the Up...very amazing, thanks for sharing this post Sage!

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