Michigan Aug 2015 On the way to Marquette on Lake SuperiorVan Riper State Park, Champion MI and Marquette

Van Riper State Park in Champion would be our last stop in MI.  The reason I had chosen this park, other than it was on the way south, was that my dad had a good friend when we were growing up named George Van Riper.  It was 40 minutes from Marquette and other than a nice lake-Michigamee- there was nothing nearby that we planned to do.  We'd stopped at Pictured Rocks on the way and were pretty knackered by the time we got here but the lake was beautiful, the water was warm enough for wading and we felt refreshed after taking a walk.

A lakeside (Lake Superior) beach on the way to Marquette

The next day was time for me to do laundry as I had not done any for almost 2 weeks.  The nearest laundromat was all the way in Marquette so off I drove for most of the day to wash and fold.  But, it always feels good to get that out of the way and when I got back we went for a paddle on the lake.  We also had plans to go into Marquette one evening for dinner because the people we'd met at dinner in Asheville owned a restaurant in Marquette that we wanted to visit. 

It's a 45 min drive to Marquette so we went early and walked around listening to a summer concert and watching the boats on the lake and then on to the restaurant where we talked for awhile with the "husband half" of the owners (his wife was preparing for their Labor Day trip) and then had a good dinner.

Roadside Scenes on the way

Lake Superior White Fish

The rest of our time at Van Riper was spent kayaking on the lake and hanging out before getting ready for the trip to Wisconsin.