THE SYMBOL OF FREEDOM

As you know, if you have been keeping up with my blog I am keeping a track of the animals that I have seen for the first time living up in the UP. Yesterday Mark and I decided that it was going to be a beautiful mild day and we wanted to get out of the house so we went for a drive up to Tahquamenon Falls and Whitefish Point to see the lighthouse and we were going to Crisp Point but that story will come later. We went to the Upper Falls first. There is a restaurant and a concrete path that goes along the falls. Of course we couldn't see the concrete path because it was covered with about a foot or two of snow that has been packed down hard and that is the path you slide..I mean walk on. It was a blast!! The weather was so nice and not freezing. The sun was shining gloriously. At one point you can go down 94 steps to the brink of the falls. I wanted to go so bad but I knew that getting back up those 94 steps would surely send me in to an Asthmatic nightmare. So, I went down one flight and sat on them while Mark went all the way down. I sat in the sun, closed my eyes and the warm sun was shining on my face and I just closed my eyes tight and listened to the roar of the amazing waterfall. It was so great.

This waterfall is one of the largest waterfalls east of the Mississippi. It has a drop of nearly 50 feet and is more than 200 feet across. A maximum flow of 50,000 gallons of water per second has been recorded cascading over these falls.

The first time I saw the falls I thought it was just dirty water going over. It's not. It has an amber color due to tannin that is released from the Cedar, Spruce and Hemlock in the swamps drained by the river. The extremely soft water churned by the action of the falls causes the large amounts of foam which has been the trademark of the Tahquamenon since the days of the voyagers. (Yes, I got all of this off of the pamphlet that we got there.)

In the winter some of the falls freeze and it makes beautiful ice sculptures. See the pictures. We had a great time.

We also went up to Whitefish Point Lighthouse. This is where the Edmund Fitzgerald ship went down. THey have a shiprwreck museum there but everything is closed for the winter. It was foggy and they had the light going. It was so neat. It's the first time I have actually seen a light working!!

Then we decided to go to Crisp Point. That was the lighthouse that we found by following little homemade signs a couple of years ago. It was so beautiful. Anyway, so we go down these horrible roads. They are muddy and slippery and we almost ate a snowbank. It's worse than ice!! Anyway, we got way back in the woods and got to the road that goes up to the lighthouse and it is a "Seasonal Road" which means they don't plow it and the snow was as tall as I am on it. So, we turned around and finally got to a highway. I was never so glad to see blacktop in my life!! It was fun though. I was hoping to see a Moose but we never did.

When we were on our way up to the falls, we were driving down the highway and on the side of the road was about 30 turkeys. By the time we got turned around and to them to take a picture they were in the woods. I did get a few pictures though. Then, as we were going down the road, Mark pulled over to the side and turned around. I couldn't believe what we had just seen!! An eagle was perched in a tree!! We turned around and got a few pictures of it before it flew off. I tried to get a picture of it flying but it didn't work. Anyway, this is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Oh my. My day was complete at that point. We could have turned around and gone home right then.

I hope you enjoy the photos. It was a great day. It was a long day and my legs hurt now from all of the walking but it was fantastic and well worth it!!

Enjoy the pictures!!