6/21/23. Cheboygan to Roger’s City

 

Sunrise at Cheboygan

Erik up early,as usual, took sunrise pictures while Riva and Renee slept.  Before heading out we heated up leftover blueberry pancakes and maple sausage links for breakfast 🥞.  We headed up to the farmers market to see what goodies we could find.  We got a lilac air freshener and local farm raised chicken thighs.  While Renee cleaned the breakfast dishes Erik sprayed the midges off the boat.  As we begun to prep for our departure Renee heard a crash sound coming from outside.  When she got no answer to “are you okay?” she hurried outside to find Erik hanging precariously between the dock, boat lines, and the back of the boat. With a wet cell phone laying on the dock beside him, power cords still in his hand, and he could not stop laughing 😂🤣😂🤣.  Unfortunately fear and panic prevented the best photo of the entire trip!!!  After grabbing power cords and getting them out of the way, we managed to get Erik to stop laughing long enough to pull him up onto the dock.  Only a couple of scrapes and bruises, especially his ego, Erik wasn’t injured thank you God 🙏❤️.  Erik is celebrating 22 years sober today, and we have to assume that he is being honest when he says this happened 100% sober 😜.  While Erik got into some dry clothes Renee got the lines ready and finished putting power cords away so we could take off for Roger’s City.

40 mile light house(visited tomorrow)

We took off on a 4 hour, 40 mile trip arriving in Roger’s City right about 10am.  We had determined most places closed down early so we headed into town pretty quickly to see what we could see when e arrived.  We first went to the “Bradley House”.  The Bradley house was built in 1914 by George Radka who died suddenly before it was finished.  Later it was purchased by Carl D Bradley, president of Michigan Limestone and Chemical.  Bradley finished and added to the home, and at the same time was turning a small time quarry into a national supplier of limestone in what would become the largest limestone quarry in the world!  While I was not interested in a large whole in the ground when we first came to port, the (now) Calcite quarry was to be a highlight and learning experience of this stop.  There were several well done historical displays through the house about the family, the quarry, and the town in general. 

Look how clear the water is 🤩

Somehow this is the only picture we have of the trip to the museum 😛

Next we went across the street to the rest of the Presque Isle County HistoricalMuseum, the Hoffman annex, to learn more about this huge hole in the ground.  The curator filled us in on a great deal of the history of the town which was built by the limestone quarry.  It also suffered great losses with the sinking of the S.S. Carl D Bradley, which devastated the community, in one shipwreck 23 men were lost leaving over 50 children without fathers.  Only 8 years later the town faced another great loss when the ship, the S.S. Cedarville, sank windowing 9 women and leaving 31 children fatherless 😢.  There is a sailors memorial just outside of the marina to honor all who were lost and all who suffered. 

Memorial described above

 

Lives lost

Prop (part of the memorial)

While the curator filled us in on local legends, tall tales, and everything you could learn about limestone, one of the first and best things he told us was to stop at the Painted lady for ice cream.  So after leaving the museum we headed for ice cream, we had to, they closed at 6!  Along the way we stopped at Mr. Mustache toy store.  A very eclectic toy store with lots of wonderful toys, a player piano that played for us, and an attached art gallery.  Next stop Painted Lady!  As we entered the store it looked like anything but an ice cream store.  There was beautiful pottery, jewelry, Knick knacks, clothes, and many other things.  Towards the back of the store we saw signs for coffee so Erik ordered a Frappuccino.  While the young barista was making our Frappuccino Renee discovered the ice cream list!  One of the flavors was called Rush Hour, and this was the description…”coffee ice cream with creamy, caramel swirl, and chocolate-coffee candy chips”.  Since we had already ordered a large Frappuccino we asked if we could get a pint of the ice cream to go.  Not only did we get a pint of Rush hour ice cream, but I think it was our cheapest ice cream purchase this whole trip….. and likely the best 😋.  We headed back to the boat with our prize to put some burgers on the grill for dinner.  

Erik decided to take another of the museum curators suggestion and go check out the big hole in the ground.  There was a park called Harbor view that we were told was a great view of the quarry and the ships being loaded and unloaded.  Well GPS took us to a road that had a closed gate.  We biked up a ways to find the entrance but no signs marking the park or anything.  So we decided to try the closed gate entrance.  After biking along the coast for a while we determined the gate was closed because a good bit of the road had been completely washed away!  We set our bikes to the side and continued on foot.  When we could go no farther because the road was virtually gone, we climbed up onto the road that was running along side it (despite no trespassing signs 😳). We ended up with a pretty good view of the quarry, although I’m not convinced we were at the Harbor view park😛.  We hiked back to our bikes, then biked back to the boat.   There we had coffee and coffee ice cream, YUM!

Signs from plant entrance, while looking for park entrance

Also at plant entrance

Note the steam shovel was made in Cleveland

View of the “park”

View from the “park”

Ship waiting to come in to load up limestone

Rush Hour - best ice cream 😋

We have found the east coast of Michigan, on Lake Huron to be much more “modest” and “blue collar” than the west coast of Michigan on Lake Michigan.  The homes are much smaller, and very quaint and well cared for, compared to the massive, ornate, high dollar homes of the other side.

Sunset at Roger’s City