September 4 The Au Sable Light Station

Friday Afternoon:  Remember that sign we saw that told us there were two paths to the lighthouse? One ON the beach, and one ABOVE it? Well ... what the sign did not tell us was that if you walked the 1.5 miles to the lighthouse along the beach, there was NO WAY UP the dune to view the lighthouse.

We really enjoyed our beach walk; however, if we had known there was NO WAY UP to the lighthouse, we would have stuck to the non-beach pathway!

These photos:  After waiting 10 minutes for all of these photos to LOAD, they loaded in opposite order of events. I'm too frustrated right now to try to re-load them, so I'll have to tell you the story backwards I guess.

This first picture is of us crossing the bridge, late evening, on the way back to Mackinac City (from Grand Marais). I love this bridge! I love crossing this bridge! SO, since these pictures loaded in reverse, I am going to go to the last picture and begin my narrative just like nothing is amiss here. SO ... scroll down to the bottom and move on up ...

Here are a few distance shots of the Au Sable Point Light Station, situated on the Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore, built in 1874.

We were able to walk around for as long as we liked on the grounds. By now, though, my feet were seriously aching. I have something on the bottom of my left foot called a "Morton's neuroma". I know this because I typed it up many times as a medical transcriptionist when I worked for the docs. It's just a nerve condition that makes it feel as though you are walking on a marble or a rock, and the discomfort is right at the base of the 3rd and 4th toes ... kind of a burning, stinging kind of discomfort. That's all I know about it, except that walking in closed toe shoes (as I was wearing) only aggravates the problem more. But in order to walk the 93 steps to the top of the lighthouse, visitors had to wear some kind of closed shoe--no sandals allowed! 

Above is the automated light that now shines 12 miles out into Lake Superior. The original Fresno light reached 17 miles. This several miles of Lake Superior coastline is known as the "shipwreck coast" because of the rocky sea bottom, the high winds, and the shallowness of the water here.

David asked if I would be willing to do a "selfie" from up on top. Yikes. It was very windy. I look about 100 years old.

The above picture shows the view below once you climbed all 93 steps. There was a guide at the top that gave us interesting information about the lighthouse too.

Isn't it so lovely here?

We got an official (and free!) tour of the grounds by a young guide named Ann Marie. She was a really confident young lady, who gave us a lot of history about this place. 

These are pictures I took once we reached the top and could see the entire lighthouse.

Once we reached the top of the dune, we were in the clear. We hung on to tree roots as we climbed (above).

I love this beach ...

This (above) probably would have been the easier way up, but we were growing frustrated with NOT finding an official directive about it.

Lots of beach. Lots of rocks and trees. No stairs up.

But as we walked past this little dune pathway, we were still searching for a stairway UP. David went on ahead to scout it out for me ...

This is the dune we climbed in order to get back up to the upper pathway. There were NO STAIRS, no other designated way to get to the lighthouse. Goodness!

September 4 The walk to the lighthouse

Thursday afternoon:  With the help of David's GPS, we found the parking lot to the lighthouse. There was one of those signs with a map on it and it gave us two choices for our walk to the lighthouse. We could either use the designated pathway, which was NOT on the beach but within sight of it; OR, we could actually walk the beach.

It was a no brainer! We chose to walk the beach . . .

Isn't this the sweetest little bridge ever?

We walked along on the beach for quite awhile ...

But then we reached a point where the rocks were too jagged and the shoreline too skinny to be walked any further!

Thankfully, there was a staircase upwards to the pathway above ... and a beautiful pathway it was!

I took SO MANY pictures looking down the bluff to the rocks and lake below ...

These will all make beautiful cards some day ...

After walking for quite a bit, we looked below and it looked as though the beach had widened and would make walking there possible once again ... so we did.

Aren't the rocks so cool? You would have thought that I planned ahead and brought a container to collect the rocks, right? Sigh.

Just imagine the Scripture that will match this gorgeous place!

Isn't this a nice picture of David? And the one below too!

It was right about at this point when I was pointing my camera south down the beach when my "charge battery" light/message went on. I could not believe it. It was fully charged the day before! I was so bummed.

Thankfully, I did have my phone in my pocket; but I so badly wanted to take pictures of the lighthouse with me camera. The following pictures, and every single lighthouse picture thereafter, was taken with my phone.

Look at these crazy beautiful stones.

Oh! I forgot to mention. The beach walk option boasted that we would see the remains of THREE shipwrecks. Hmmm. 

Here is what is left of one of the ships that wrecked in the late 1800's. I guess it's cool, but I was hoping to find something more ship-like than just a few boards . . .

We saw this rather precarious stairway leading back up to the pathway. We did not take it because there was still very visible beach to walk.

What we soon found out, though, was that we SHOULD have taken this stairway UP ...