Yooper Troopers, Pt. VII

 (contd.)

We had to get up relatively early this morning because we had to be out of Duane's rental by 11am.  We were heading east, back towards Marquette, and had a second Airbnb rental in a small town about fifteen minutes south of Marquette called Ishpeming.  On the way, we stopped off at this local diner along the side of the road, as my buddy Erik said they have the best pasties in the entirety of the Upper Peninsula.

A pretty unassuming storefront for having the state's best pasties, right?

None of the Houghs had ever had these before, so we made it a point to get some on this vacation.

Kris and I got large sizes, the girls got small, on our waitress' recommendation.

Kids ate 'em up, they were so good.

After we had eaten brunch (essentially), we got back on the road and continued driving towards Marquette.  Along the way, we made another mandatory stop at the Yooper Tourist Trap, a hokey photo ops place and massive souvenir store.

The place was filled with crap like this.  We took advantage of it while waiting for Smitty and Rita to catch up with us (we had hit the road about an hour before they did.)

I did.

Tons of weird shit to take pics in front of.  Perfect time-killer when you have kids in tow.

Inside the gift shop.

Classy.

I have my doubts.

After buying a few things in the gift shop, and browsing the overly crowded store for about an hour, we snapped a few more photo ops before hitting the road once again.

Kris and Rita unintentionally wore matching outfits today.  Losers.

Welcome to scenic, um, Ishpeming.

Why does every small town in the U.P. look like Farwell?

This. . . thing. . . was the right across the street from our rental.  What the hell is it?

Our second rental of the vacation.  I forget the names of the elderly couple who owned the place, but they gave us the wrong key access code to unlock the door - they gave us one extra digit - it took me a bit to figure it out.

This place sat atop a hill overlooking the town, and had a separated garage from the main house.

Upon entering the house, these steps went down into the basement.

Decent sized kitchen.

That dining room table was never used for sitting.  Since we were only at this house for two nights we barely unpacked, so this table held our shopping bags, totes, duffel bags, camera bags, you name it.

The living room felt like a grandparents' house - definitely dated, but comfortable.

Much cozier than Duane's.

Heading upstairs to the bedrooms.

Atop the landing was this bed, which Kris and I took, seeing how we're early risers (well, I am, at any rate.)

From our bed, looking into the room that we ended up giving to Rita and Smitty (the house neglected to mention that there were no legit doors on any of the rooms, just partitions.  At least this one had an accordion-style, plastic one - like you'd find in an RV - instead of a frickin' sheet, like the other room we ended up giving to the girls.

Rita and Smitty's room.

The girls' room.  We ended up blowing up an available air mattress, because Alayna adamantly refused to share a bed with her sister.

This bathroom was a hot mess.  No vents to speak of, and it was about ten degrees warmer than the rest of our house.  If someone dropped a deuce in there, it lingered forever.  Not fun when six folks have to share one frickin' bathroom.

The basement we never once went down into (besides when I took this.)  What the hell is up with the random toilet?

Sitting for a bit before heading back towards Marquette for the afternoon and evening.

Our view of Ishpeming.

Most of the town looked like this.

That's a pretty awesome car, right there.

Smitty and I wanted to stop and check out this thrift shop, but we were voted down.  Women suck.

A short while later, we were back in Marquette, this time headed to Presque Isle (no, not the same one we visited in the Porkies, a different one) to check out one of my recommendations for the area: the Black Rocks.

This trestle bridge goes out to one of the city's ore docks.

See?

The Black Rocks.  This place is pretty awesome, and as the only person in our group who had previously been to Marquette, I made it a point to recommend we hit up this place while in the area.

Like walking on the surface of another planet.  I had last been here on Brocation with the dads.

The Cannonball and Smitty

You can always spot a Hough in public.

Took a shit-load of pics while checking out these rocks, and as usual with scenic nature shots there's not a ton of captioning to be had. . .

I remember this photo op from last summer, made sure we had everyone take a turn with it.

Like last summer, there was a crowd assembled watching cliff divers jump off the black rocks and into the frigid waters of Lake Superior.

Oh look, Abby's found another hole to crawl into. . .

I feel like I've gotten like thirty pics of Alayna doing this exact pose just on this trip.

On our way out, back to the van, we saw this dude down by the waterline painting the shore.

Heading back into town, we rendezvoused briefly with Courtney and Ella, who were also up in the UP (she was visiting her dad, who lives in Michigamme) and had stopped off in Marquette on the way up. 

After hitting up a couple shops, we stopped off at this ice cream joint.

The girls were pretty stoked to see a familiar face this far north and away from home.

After everyone (but me) enjoyed some ice cream, we said our goodbyes to Courtney and Ella and drove downtown to park.  I had made it a point to hit up Oredock Brewing, my favorite Marquette brewery, for a couple beers and some merch shopping. 

Kris and Rita were nice enough to take the girls out to shop in downtown Marquette while Smitty and I settled in for a few beers.  I got a flight of five different craft beers, some really good, some okay, and one that was downright terrible.

I bought a few things at Oredock, my only souvenirs of the entire trip.  I filled a 64 oz Growler with Bramble on the Rose, an 8% golden ale that you can only buy at the brewery, they don't can it, and paid more for the deluxe growler with the snap-top latch for a lid so that the beer stays fresh for over a week (screw-top growlers only hold beer for a day or two.)  I also bought a black, Stanley-brand stein with a closing metal lid, embossed with the Oredock logo, a sticker pack, and a coffee mug.

While Smitty and I were drinking and shopping at Oredock, the girls were apparently hanging out with local wildlife.

Smitty bought himself a new shirt before we left the brewery and set off to meet up with our womenfolk.

The girls occupied themselves on this bench while waiting for their mom and Rita to finish up in a store.

Downtown Marquette

After the girls had wrapped up shopping, we headed back to the van.  We had dinner reservations for the Iron Bay Restaurant that Kris and I had failed to get into the last time were were in Marquette, about five days ago, and we wanted to park the van closer to the restaurant.  Fortunately, I knew just the place.

If you'll recall, this park was right on the harbor, overlooking the city's old ore dock, and right across the street from the Iron Bay Restaurant.

We had about a half-hour to kill still before our reservation, so we sat down and just chilled for a bit.

I don't remember what the deal is with that boat.

Who's she waving to?  Seagulls?

We didn't hang out here for a half-hour - as cool as that giant ore dock is, it's not so cool that you could stare at it for thirty frickin' minutes - after getting some pics in and sitting for a bit, we decided to try our luck with the restaurant and getting early access to our table.

Alayna attempts to get her sister moving.

Only a five-minute (if that) walk to the restaurant.

Luck was on our side.  When we rolled in early, our table was already ready to roll, so we were seated early.  Booya.

We were all pretty hungry, but the food didn't take long to come out, which was awesome.

Bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers as one of our appetizers.  Hell f***ing yes.

Alayna's a big fan of spicy food, and bacon, so she was totally down with this.

I got a brace of whitefish tacos and fries on the side, but I ended up only eating one of the tacos because I had filled up on appetizers and craft beer.  I ordered a box for my leftovers at the close of our meal, and promptly left the box on the table when we left.  Like an idiot.

Happy campers.

Heading back to the van, past the harbor.

On the road back to Ishpeming.

That bar looks seedy as hell.  Smitty and I expressed interest in checking it out, but the womenfolk weren't having it.

Driving through scenic Ishpeming. . .

Watching some anime at the end of the night, everyone exhausted an stuffed from dinner.

Smitty and I stayed up for awhile after the ladies all went to bed, and got to experience local TV programming at its finest.  We were watching the local ABC affiliate, and it was clearly amateur hour at the TV station.  They cut shows early to go to commercial, they didn't have enough news segments to fill the required time slot, so they played old segments from years ago, they went to this Test screen a couple times.  Pretty sure the programmers were stoned out of their minds.

Hey, remember this guy?  From when we went to the Quincy Copper Mine and toured the engine house?  I told you you'd be seeing him again.  Why he's reporting by the waterfront, I have no idea.

This was on the screen for like 20 minutes.  Seriously a straight-up clown show up here in Marquette.

- Brian