Hello All,
Hurray! Hurrah! Huzzah! Huzzah? Sorry, I'm a historian, so I picked that one up from my Civil War studies.
Hurray, etc. because I finally made it up to the Upper Peninsula for a few days. A few glorious days. Yes, the drive up was long. Yes, I had to work like a maniac to get huge amounts of snow off of roofs. Yes, it was too short of a time. However, any time - good, mediocre or bad - in the U.P. is better than the best time anywhere else.
Our main purpose in going to our house in Houghton, on the Keweenaw Peninsula, was to maintain the house. Snow was the biggest problem. From photos that our neighbor sent us showed what I had heard about - massive amounts of snow on top of our camper and on our porch roof. The Keweenaw had almost no snow at all when we were there over New Year's weekend. Since then, however, they have been socked and socked hard. In January sixty seven inches fell. In February they got fifty one. Our daughter had been up in the beginning of March and there had been at least a foot since then. That's over ten feet of snow in a little over three months. Holy Wah!
Some people would say to that: "Why would anyone ever want to live in a place where you get so much snow?" To that, *I* say: "That's exactly why I like to live there."
You see, winter in downstate Michigan is this on again, off again, thirty degrees then forty degrees, snow/rain/ice/mud kind of season. Most of the time here in the Great Lakes Bay region, you really can't do anything outdoors. It's just miserable. I'd rather have some snow to play on - snowshoe, ski, snowmobile, etc. Fishing can be done through the ice - because we have solid, stable ice on the inland lakes. If you're going to have winter, let's have a real winter. Otherwise let's go to Florida or Arizona, eh?
Yes with great opportunity can come great challenges. I had to carve out a cube of snow from our driveway about equivalent to our mid-size Honda Element. The snowplows had piled up about five feet of snow in the mouth of our driveway. And I needed to do that excavation before the end of the day we got there because you are not allowed to park on the street overnight in the City of Houghton. The plows don't like dodging around vehicles as they work at night. However, the driveway adventure was do-able. That's what snow blowers and good shovels are for.
The next day was doing some "you've got to be there in person" kind of banking and also for clearing about two feet of snow off of the top of our camper. Also found time to get some good food.
Saturday we took the dogs up to the Delaware Mine, just south of Copper Harbor, to go snowshoeing. It looked dicey for my wife and our elderly dogs as there was about four feet of snow on the ground with no snowmobile tracks to pave the way for us. However, Intrepid Jim was able to break a trail through the drifts and fun was had for all.
Sunday called for climbing out the second story bedroom window out to the porch roof. Three to four foot drifts were up there threatening to do harm to the porch structure. All in a day's work. A Yooper day's work, eh?
Add in some good Keweenaw food and some great Keweenaw beer and it was a very good trip. My wife had some much needed R&R after organizing and leading a huge fundraising event for the foundation she directs. I got some much needed time away from school, work and family illnesses. We even survived with little or no Internet access and sometimes limited cell phone service.
On the nine hour trip back we worked on plans for getting us back up to the Keweenaw for good. It could happen.
In closing, I'll note that as I write this the Keweenaw has a winter storm warning with 12-17 inches of new snow possible. Holy Wah!
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