Brocation 2020, Pt. III

(And now, for the thrilling conclusion. . .)

Following a rocky morning for some (Yours Truly was fine and dandy), the team got around and headed downstairs for the hotel's complimentary breakfast. . . where I quickly spotted this gem.  Looks like someone went to Farwell Public Schools. . . 

First breakfast

Second breakfast.  Goddamn, this group of dads like to eat.  After grabbing a small breakfast at the hotel - which was more than enough for me, personally - the guys wanted to check out this diner that Erik recommended in town.  I stuck with coffee and the Funnies (gotta love newspaper comic strips.)

Having gorged on its second meal before 10am, our group set off for our morning's first adventure. . .

Erik wanted to check out an old railway trestle bridge, straight out of Stand By Me.  It was a mile or two down the tracks from where we parked, so we threw on some adventure packs and set off.

It was pretty hot out, so this was definitely an undertaking.

Morgan, Erik and Lonnie

These pebbles were everywhere, and Erik explained that these little round balls were actually iron ore scraps that had been ground down over multiple decades to small balls, slightly smaller than marbles.  As trains run back and forth along these rails, transporting iron ore from the mines to the ore docks in the harbor, pieces fall off the top and scatter along the tracks.  Over time, trains passing by wear them down into these shapes.  Definitely a pain in the pass to walk over - these things found a way of getting into your shoes.

Spotted this structure along our walk.  Looks like some kinda German machine gun bunker from World War II.

In a couple spots you can tell these had to blast through rock in order to get the track through.

Just as promised, the old railroad bridge.

Ryan flirts with danger.

I was having no part of this, but the other five guys walked out there. . . not paying any heed to the signs forbidding such tomfoolery.

Seriously.  Watch Stand By Me sometime.

Checking out what, I assume, is a drop of a couple hundred feet.

Yup, that's a hard nope for me.

Ryan's panoramic shot of the bridge made Morgan look like some kinda Quasimodo.

That's a river down there, not a stream.  They're that high up.

The Dead River

Ryan took this, 'cause he's frickin' crazy.

Pics like these give me anxiety. . .

Heading back to safe ground

Looks like some rail worker lost a glove.

Before we set off down the track, back to our car, we decided to head down a weedy trail that winded down a steep slope to a rocky outcrop underneath the bridge.

This structure was massive.

Matt 'Extreme' Fischer, of course, had to climb this thing. . .

The Colonel, as this group nicknamed me on this trip, on account of my swagger and bossy nature, I guess.  What's hilarious is that this was already my nickname from my years in the Peace Corps in Ghana.

This wiring was scattered along the side of the track as we walked back. . . not sure what it was.  Maybe telegraph lines?

The sun was pretty brutal this morning - that was a loooong walk back.

After the rail bridge excursion, which took us a couple ours, Erik suggested we check out the rocky shoreline of Lake Superior.  The first spot we checked out was this roadside overlook, which we only stayed at for, like, ten minutes or so.  Just long enough for some pictures.

Bunch of dads, enjoying the view.

A big-ass tree, falling into the lake.

Some random rocky island.

The roadside stop, featuring Morgan's on-the-go rum-and-coke.

In order to get a closer look at the rocky shoreline, Erik led us to a public park that featured one of the area's most prolific features: the Blackrocks.

Parking was a bitch - because the weather was so good, albeit a little on the hot side, the place was packed - but congestion out on the rocks wasn't too bad, since most folks were swimming instead.

These rocks were pretty cool.  I'm no geologist, obviously, so I'm not sure how they were formed, but clearly the waters of Lake Superior had a hand in things.  I assume.

Well aware that all these rock pictures look the same after awhile.  I took a shitload of pics on this trip.

We spotted this millennial hipster out on the rocks.  Homeboy was lying on a towel listening to music, texting on his phone, writing on something.  You know, bein' artsy and 'deep.'  You do you, hipster.

This crowd was assembled on the edge of a cliff that dropped off the rocks about thirty feet into the chilly waters of Lake Superior below.  They were taking turns diving off into the waters and swimming around, then climbing back up a neighboring bank.  Frickin' college kids are nuts.

Checking out some of the collected water (it felt like tap water set all the way to 'cold,' I can't fathom how those 20-somethings were swimming in this shit.)

Erik pointed out this particular rock, which people always used to pose with pretending to lift it.

Ryan has a go at it.

The Team

Big Balls, lovin' the Superior.

After an hour or so of playing around on the Blackrocks, we got back into the car and headed back towards Marquette for lunch.  Morgan "Baby Driver" Larson, as always, at the wheel. 

The guys settled in to grab lunch at a place called Stucko's, and while they grabbed a table and placed their orders, I ate a Quest bar and walked a block down the road to check out a local record/musical instrument store called Yoop Tone Music.  Their selection was scant, unfortunately, and pretty over-priced, which I expected being a record store in a college town (f***ing hipsters are ruining the used vinyl shopping experience.)

Walking back to Stucko's after my fruitless record shopping experience (our group is seated off to the left, trying desperately to sit in the shade.)

Extreme and Ryan.

They served Bell's Two-Hearted Ale in giant, 32 oz goblets of awesome.  Ryan and I were the only two who were willing to do it.

So much bigger than what it looks like here.

After a hearty lunch (well, beer in my case), we drove over to a harbor-side park in order to leave the car while we hung out along the shoreline.  They had the replica of some sort of coast guard ship sitting there, for whatever reason.

Erik suggested walking up and down the street by the harbor, hitting up shops and bars, so while this was going on Ryan was going to chill in the park and play around with his Ham Radio stuff (I guess there was some big ham radio convention slotted for the afternoon, and the park was ideal in terms of signal, due to the lack of obstruction from trees, buildings, etc.)  Here Matt, Morgan, and Erik ask Ryan where he wants one of the park's scarce picnic tables.

In the background, you can see the famous Marquette Ore Dock remember me talking about that in the earlier post, when we went to Ore Dock Brewing?)

Ryan had a ridiculous amount of gear to set up.

Marquette harbor.

That structure is beyond huge.

(I doubt this machine gun is serviceable.)

Well, there you go.  I was way off.

Big Balls, taking in the harbor.

Extreme, not being 'extreme' at all.

Ryan 'Radio' Collier.

Hey look, a sailboat.

Doin' radio. . . stuff.

Marquette, beyond the harbor.

Morgan 'Baby Driver' Larson

Cool looking light fixture

The group, sans 'Radio' Collier, heading off for some bars.

Downtown Marquette has some pretty bad-ass, old buildings.

Erik and I wanted a pic in front of Marquette's lodge, to use for social media stuff for our own lodge at some point.

Erik leads us to a local watering hole.

We set up shop at the end of this bar, which had a pretty good selection and a super-nice waiting staff.

Big Balls and Erik 'The Enforcer' Johnson.

Meanwhile, back in the park, Ryan took this of himself 'hamming' it up.

After an hour or so at the bar, we were served our bill.  This is how the staff referred to us.

On the walk back, I ducked into a ukulele store - yes, they had an entire store devoted to ukuleles - in order to shop for a new ax (I'm in the market for an electric tenor, personally.)  Unfortunately, their instruments were all over-priced by, like, $40 or $50 apiece, and their selection was all weird off-brands that I had never heard of.  They had NO reputable brands whatsoever.  And most of them were sopranos, too, which I absolutely despise.  To top it off, the owner was overly pushy and wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so eventually I just walked out with him still talking to me.  Afterwards, we moseyed on back down to the harbor front park to meet up with Mr. Radio.

While Ryan packed up his stuff, Mitch - one of the core members of our group, and one of two that was unable to go on this trip - texted us to see how it was going.  In response, we texted him this pic.

Setting off once again, this time to re-park the car in a more central location.

Before we set about to straight-up bar business, however, we decided to grab dinner at the 906 Bar, a sports bar with an insanely good menu.

No idea what he's pointing at here.

Decisions, decisions. . .

Morgan is not down with whatever the hell it is he's checking out on his phone. . .

Downtown Marquette, as seen from one of the upstairs windows of the 906 Bar. 

Leavin' the 906, setting off for another old college bar that Erik used to frequent, called Remie's.

There were two main rooms in this bar:  the bar itself, which was packed with college kids, and this less-crowded 'game' room with a pool table, darts, etc. and six or seven tables.  Being a bunch of old timers, we knew where we wanted to set up shop.

We stayed a couple hours at this place.  At one point in time a group of college girls came over to our table, I forget what excuse they used but clearly intrigued by a group of old dads hanging out in a college bar.  We asked them how old they thought each of us were, and ages were all over the place.  They thought I was the youngest, at 35, and that Lonnie and Erik were the oldest, in their early 50s.  I've got some serious bragging rights, folks.

Playing pool.  After bidding farewell to our fan club, we decided to set out and hit up another place that Erik recommended, called Flanigans.

As is the case with any guy adventure, there was a serious amount of shit-talking this weekend, and at some point it came up who was the fastest runner in our group (yes seriously, because we're still in middle school.)  Since we'd been drinking for awhile by this point, Ryan, Erik and Matt decided to hold an impromptu foot race. . . right down the middle of the busiest street in downtown Marquette.  Out of left field, Erik totally smoked the other two (who, to their credit, were running in flip-flops.)  This earned him the rightful nickname, 'White Lightning.'

After the random race was out of the way, we stepped into Flanigan's. . . only to find the place absolutely packed, shoulder-to-shoulder, and no one was wearing masks.  We placed an order at the bar and had one drink on the back patio, outdoors and away from the crowd, before deciding that we'd move on.

If you look past Morgan and Erik, who were waiting outside for the others to pay their tabs, you can see folks from a wedding reception standing outside the Ramada.  We recognized a few of these bridal party members from earlier in the day when they were getting pictures taken on the Blackrocks.  We came thiiiis close to crashing the wedding reception, but ultimately decided against it.

Leaving Flanigan's.

Another feat of manliness: arm wrestling.  Ultimately it came down to Lonnie and Morgan for the championship.

The next morning, we began the long process of packing up the car for the return drive home. . . which would take hours and hours and hours.

Baby Driver once again at the helm.

Shortly before we hit St. Ignace, we stopped at this famous (I'm told) gas station store, which specializes in selling fresh fish, exotic jerky, and UP-exclusive beers.  I picked up sixers of Upper Hand Brewing's Lime Rock and Blackrocks ales (they're unavailable in the Lower Peninsula, and are a subsidiary of Bell's.) 

We stopped at Clyde's for lunch, right before we hit the Bridge.  Just like every other time I've eaten there, the place was packed and service was ludicrously slow.  I wasn't hungry, but worked on a Bloody Mary instead (in my custom-made Masonic Yeti, of course.)

Crossing that stupid frickin' bridge again. . .

And so, Brocation 2020 was brought to a close.  Rest assured, we're already making plans for next summer's epic adventure.  Stay tuned.

- Brian