Found some good motorcycle roads up Yooper

Distance travelled: 396.1 km
Maximum speed: 126 kph
Temperature range: 16.2 - 20.8 C
NO other motorcyclers!

Our day started out at the gas station and we're greeting by this scene:

You can watch TV while you are filling up with gas.

None of us were entirely sure of what to make of a television being built into the gas pump. I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions but I think maybe those people should consider reading something. Anything.

We had our big ride up to the tip of Upper Peninsula (let's call it Yooperville)  and in the process, rode some very twisty and scenic roads.

Does this tell you anything? It was wet.

It is late in the season and at the very end of the road in Copper Harbor (I think they meant "Harbour"), they looked like they were rolling up the red carpet. We stopped outside a "general store", a euphemism for a fudge shop with other curios, and an employee emerged from inside to point out where a few things were locally. He commented that after Labor ("Labour") Day, it pretty much dies up there and businesses get shut down for the winter.  Normally, I just wait outside of these places while Nan goes in however, because we stopped outside the building, essentially in their parking lot, out of pity I went inside. It turns our there were about six employees in there all just waiting for an unsuspecting group to wander into the building and buy something. They were all pretty eager and it is mostly the same sorts of things you see at every tourist place but the one thing they had that I had not seen slesewhere was copper nuggets. This is a region with a long history of copper mining; in addition, the copper has been traded for a couple of thousand years, as evidenced by trace elements in the copper identifying the source, found in central America. Parrot feathers have been found in the Upper Peninsula region; seems like a fair trade.

This turns out to be our best day of seeing the trees changing colour. Because the change is a little late this year, there are only small pockets of red but it is very pretty nonetheless. I keep thinking to myself that I want to do a Grade 1 project of picking a couple of red maple leaves (not to be confused with Toronto Maple Leafs) and ironing them between two pieces of wax paper. I still haven't given up on the idea and maybe between now and the drive home, there will be an opportunity but even many of the red maples we have seen have been too high to reach the leaves. Bob tells us that the flipside is having red leaves much more plentiful.... but on the ground, having fallen off.

But the ride up to Copper Harbor is some of the best, funnest riding of the trip. Tight corners and undulating roads, covered in a canopy of yellowing trees. Our only regret is that the roads are not perfectly drive, which prevents us from riding the road a little harder.

Here is a picture of Nan taking a picture.

The motorcycler's favourite road sign!

And favourite colours.

Weather was a real mixed blessing this day: sun shone at times and other times, liquid sun.

This is the actual Copper Harbor.

There was certainly still evidence of past mining operations on the peninsula as well. Near the town of Hancockth, there was the old Quincy Mine with many historic building associated with the retired mine.

Hancock

Part of the old Quincy Mine

Looks almost like a scene from the 30s

The Quincy Mine, a very prolific copper mine and at times, the best producing copper mine in the U.S., operated from 1846 to 1945 and formed from the amalgamation of two companies, both of which believed they had bought the property upon which the mine was later built. Since there were no phones in those days, they got together and decided that rather than fight about it through the pony express they would merge the companies. Isn't that nice! Let's be friends!