Mark_02DX

Just got back from a family reunion in Copper Harbor, MI last night. Copper Harbor is at the very tip-top of the UP, in case anyone doesn't know. The whole area is known for copper mines (hence the town name). Great trip, fantastic roads, and some family history I didn't know about; my great-grandfather worked in a copper mine.

This was our "home away from home" for the week... Lake Fanny Hooe campground (I don't know what the name means, so don't ask). The RV was a rental; my dad's thinking of buying one.


Sunset on Lake Superior, as seen from my cousin Joe's sailboat...


Brockway Mountain Drive. You can't see it in the pic, but someone wrote "No ****!" in magic marker at the bottom of this sign. This hill is a 15% grade! I had to go up in 1st gear.


But we made it. That's my uncle Bill on the right. He taught me to drive a stickshift, many years ago.


We toured the Quincy copper mine in Calumet, which is home to the world's largest steam-driven hoist engine. This thing is huge! The engine is several stories high. It's a four-cylinder inverted-V, built in 1920, that last ran in 1931. Check out those connecting rods on the far left; you can just see the top half of them. They're about 10 feet long. That huge drum (36 feet in diameter) is where the cable ran, simultaneously lowering one car into the mine and raising another one out of it.


Here's what the engine raised and lowered. The car on the left is for ore; the one on the right is to transport the miners to the bottom of the mine (9,200 feet down!!!).

(we also toured the mine itself, level 7 out of 92, but my pictures from down there didn't turn out.)

This is a hunk of solid copper they pulled out of Lake Superior. It's as big as a car and weighs 17 tons!


We also fought off grasshoppers (the campground was infested with them; walk anywhere and they jumped out of the grass by the hundreds), had a memorial service for my grandpa, who died this past winter (the real reason for the trip, actually), and spent hours going through souvenir shops (nearly everything in the shops was made of copper; go figure). I'm tired, I'm covered in mosquito bites, and the car is filthy. It's good to be home.