Porcupine Mountains Trip

Last weekend Brian and I (and Foxy) went to the Porcupine Mountains State Wilderness in Michigan to do some "luxury" camping. By luxury I mean that we got to forgo the tent and rented a rustic cabin for two nights. The cabins are basically just shelters that have some bunk beds, a table and chairs, a woodstove, and some pots and pans. Considering that it was in the 30's at night and rained one of the nights, it was definitely a luxury staying dry and warm in those cabins. For light, we had our headlamps and a lantern and yes, you did have to go outside to use the outhouse. It is a beautiful area and we only saw one other family there the entire three days we were in the park.

The first night we stayed at Speakers Cabin which is right on Lake Superior. It was awesome. It did some sprinkling/hailing as we walked in (oh yeah, you have to backpack your stuff in a mile to the cabins) but when we arrived at the cabin the clouds were starting to break and there was an amazing sunset to see. The cabin was super cute and stocked with wood. Quite cozy. The only complaints were that the mattresses were only a smidge better than sleeping on the ground and there were a ton of flies that had been caught by various strips of hanging fly paper. This wasn't a big deal until we made a fire in the stove and as the cabin heated up, the flies started to come back to life. Like really....as the temp went up, you heard more buzzing and saw little stuck flies starting to wiggle where they were silent and lifeless before. Creepy. I put those strips outside and in the morning there were no flies left, so I'm guessing some little critter got a midnight snack.

The second night we stayed at Greenstone Falls Cabin. This was a nice cabin on the river, however there was a very big problem. There was NO WOOD. And let me just say if it were just me on this adventure I would have left. But my strapping lumberjack husband went out and hauled in wet wood and used a sucky axe that they provide at the cabin to basically beat the wood into pieces so we could stay warm for the night. What a man. My hero. Even more so because at this point in the trip, my cold that I had started getting our first night had taken over my whole head and throat by the second night and there was no way I could even help with the wood bludgeoning.

We could have stayed a third night but I was feeling like crap so we went to Hayward on Saturday afternoon to be pampered by my Dad (aka he made us lots of good food and we watched a movie). Then Sunday we finished harvesting the last of the veggies - kale, chard, lettuce, and parsnips - and changed the oil on my car and headed back home. A really great mini-vacation. I highly recommend staying in those cabins. Really relaxing and cozy, especially when it is chilly outside.