Lighthouse Climb...Eagle Harbor

By mid-afternoon on July 24th, I had meandered through a few small towns in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, stopping in Eagle River for some much needed caffeine, and pausing at Jacob's Falls and a wonderful little bakery run by monks called JamPot. WOW! If you are ever in the area...you MUST stop in! It's right next to the waterfall and oh...the yummy aroma that lingered all around! Jams, jellies, pound cakes, cookies, muffins and more! If I wouldn't have had to leave the goodies in a hot car for a week, it would have been trouble! So...I settled on some gingersnaps and a muffin. Very tasty! Just up the road apiece I came upon the sleepy town of Eagle River....which has a very quaint lighthouse that I just had to stop at! There were several buildings on sight housing artifacts and the like...but I was absolutely delighted when I found out I could climb the tower of this now automated lighthouse. Well, the first 40 steps anyway, the last 6 were roped off :-( After descending the docent informed me that it was ok to explore the property and the rocky shoreline at my leisure. Hmm. So I carefully scampered out to the end of the rocks to get some really nice photos (they really were....until I mistakenly formatted the wrong card later on the trip) of the light, lichens on the rocks and these beautiful blue flowers growing in such a seemingly inhospitable environment. I found out later they were harebells. In one spot I even found a USGS survey marker drilled into a large boulder! But...it was time to move on...almost 4pm and I still had a bit to go to get to Copper Harbor, check in to the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge and get to my kayaking lesson! And the sun was out without a cloud in the sky!