The Great Up North

Each year around this time some of Rebecca's family goes to their cabin in the upper peninsula for a snowmobiling trip.  This year since I (Mark) wasn't working I got the chance to go too, and I really had a blast.  Rebecca's dad, uncle, cousin, and I left on Thursday morning.  We had lunch in Mackinaw city and then headed over the bridge.

The Mackinaw bridge as seen from St. Ignace in the UP.

The road that the cabin is on doesn't get plowed so we had to park the truck and ride the snowmobiles the rest of the way.  This is the one I drove the most, it's a classic, 1979 or so.  Even though it's so old it still hauls and I really enjoyed driving it.

This is the family cabin that we stayed in.  Throughout the weekend we shoveled all the snow off the roof.  

The cabin is one room with a loft and a few sets of bunk beds.  The cabin came with "Fred the Dead Deer Head", mounted above the fireplace.

This is the view from the cabin.  There is a creek down there which you can hardly see because the snow is so deep.  There was about 6 inches of fresh powder which made the scenery very beautiful.  We snowshoed and cross country skied through the forrest and it was great to be in such a wonderful setting.

We rode our snowmobiles to Tahquamenon Falls, which was really flowing due to recent rain and some thawing.  The ice all around was spectacular and it was a beautiful day out.  Notice the rainbow created from the sunshine reflecting in the mist from the falls.

This is me standing by a massive icicle.  We walked up to the falls as far as we could but we couldn't go behind them because there was too much ice.

There were lots of really cool ice formations all over around the falls.  On our way back to the cabin from the falls we rode our snowmobiles on the river, which was a little scary, but Dad said that there was probably 3 feet of ice on there so it was OK.  It still was a little nerve wracking especially because some of the snow on top was melting and forming puddles.

We saw some cattails in a beaver pond that we skied to.

On our way home on Monday we went through Hulbert, the nearest town to the cabin.  There were lots of deer there feeding, right in town.

This was a great vacation, lots of time to relax and also lots of fun activities.  The best part of it all was being in the wilderness and being able to appreciate God's great creation.