Up North Travel, Day #1

We arrived in Michigan's Upper peninsula on day one of our Canadian Shield Challenge. It would have meant a late arrival had we continued on our path to Canada, so we stopped off at Tahquamenon Falls State Park. I am so glad that we did! Our stay was lovely, the weather was perfect, and we got a good night's sleep.

The park covers a good sized chunk of the U.P., and ranges from the lovely Lake Superior down to both the Upper and Lower Falls. Yes, there are two sets of them. I'll post pics of that in a later post, today I'm going to talk about Paradise. Not heaven, mind you, far from it. Paradise, Michigan is a town that the twenty-first century seems to have left behind. I didn't take a lot of pictures, mostly because I didn't feel like insulting anyone who owns a business up there. These fiberglass sculptures greeted me outside of the Chamber of Commerce:
The smallest one there in the middle is the same height as me. These thing are cheerful in a creepy kind of way, and have obviously had a second paint job within the last two decades, but are an obvious throwback to what must have been the heyday of Paradise.
Being in that town felt exactly like reading the travel ads in National Geographic magazines from the 60s and early 70s. In fact, I'm almost positive that I've seen an ad for Tahquamenon Falls somewhere in my dad's old NG collection.

Unfortunately, the town boomed then and never quite moved beyond that. Every other business, restaurant and motel is defunct, and the winters have not been kind to what is left behind. The town itself is charming and sweet in its smallness and ambition, but the remnant attests to the huge freeway that now bypasses the area completely, higher gas prices forcing people to remain closer, and trendier vacation spots elsewhere. People seem to make their living in any way they can. The recent firewood moving bans in Michigan and elsewhere seem to have helped small local woodsmen, and we bought a bundle or two from this stand:

If you're a lover of anything 1960s, I urge you to visit the area. Michael and I were on time constraints and a strict budget, so we didn't stay as long as I would have hoped, but I have every intention of going back, with the kids. We'll make sure to spend a bit of our hard-earned money in the area, keeping to our policy of independents. Independents are about all that exist in the area, not a single McDonald's franchise or chain motel was in sight. I'm sure their market research wouldn't allow them into Paradise.

Labels: 1960s, camping, Lake Superior, Michigan, Paradise, Tahquamenon Falls, travel, Upper Peninsula