TWO PEAS AND THE POD: A TRIO OF NIGHTS IN A PAIR OF FORESTS (WI-MI)

MONDAY - Tonight will be the first of our three one-night layovers as we quickly make our way east across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Actually, we'll be dipping our toes back inside of Wisconsin for tonight at the Lost Lake Campground in the Nicolet National Forest.

We had barely left our campsite on Lake Superior when we encountered an obstacle in the road. Thankfully we could see something was in the middle of the road from quite a ways off and when we got closer this is what we found.

You never see a young one like this all by themselves. Sure enough, mama and it's sibling were already safely across the road and were glad to see when the slow poke finally caught up.

We have two preplanned stops along our route today and I bet you've already guessed what we're stopping to see.

I can here you all groaning from all the way up here in Michigan, "NOT MORE WATERFALLS"!

YEP, you're right! Both of these waterfalls are listed as OUTSTANDING in our handy dandy "Waterfall Guide of the Upper Peninsula" we were handed when we checked in at the State Park last week.

Roughly at the half way point of our travel route today is where you'll find both Agate Falls and Bond Falls about 8-miles apart from each other on the Middle Branch of the Ontonagon River.

Agate Falls was up first and we arrived to an empty parking lot, that alone should have clued us in that this wasn't going to be an OUTSTANDING experience.

In the parking lot were the typical vault toilet and signage that the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources uses everywhere. When we started down the ¼-mile path to the falls we noticed how unkempt it appeared.

Once on the other side on the roadway the trail improved and so did our expectations of seeing some outstanding waterfalls.

We soon arrived at the end of the trail and were dissappointed that the falls were nearly completely hidden behind the undergrowth surrounding the observation deck. Why go to the expense of installing a trail and observation deck if there's nothing there to observe?

Let's hope the next waterfall lives up to the OUTSTANDING comment found in our guidebook.

Upon arriving at the Bond Falls parking lot we immediately had a good feeling about this one. To begin with, the parking lot was more than half full and they had sectioned off a portion of the lot exclusively for the use of vehicles with trailers. That's always appreciated!

UPPER AND LOWER BOND FALLS

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The boardwalk approach perfectly frames the outstanding water falls you're about to see.

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From this angle the trees block half the view of the falls. Let's go find a better spot!

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Much better! Here you get to view the entire lower section of Bond Falls.

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On the right hand side of the falls there is a set of stairs that will lead you to the top.

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Halfway up the stairs they have blocked off the first viewing platform.

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I can see why, the waterfall is spraying the entire platform.

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This is the beginning of the Upper Falls section.

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They just seem to keep going on and on all the way upstream.

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There's a half mile trail full of waterfalls if you have the time to see them all.

The Lower Falls at Bond Falls

Looking sideways at the top edge of the Lower Falls

The Upper Falls

We were glad when the second stop turned out much better than the first. About an hour later we had arrived at Lost Lake Campground and quickly backed into our site for the night.

We are far enough out into the forest to be away from town and therefore any cell signal. To make matters worse there is no way our Starlink satellite is going to grab any signal through the tree cover over our site.

If it looks like THE POD is unlevel it's because it is. We left it hooked up to ROVER to save some time hitching back up in the morning and the front is nearly a foot higher than the rear. It means we're walking uphill to get to the bedroom and we can sure tell the difference.

Behind our campsite we have a trail that leads right down to the edge of Lost Lake...

...where is meets up with another trail that appears to follow the lakeshore for quite a distance.

Lost Lake is 544 acres in size and has a maximum depth of 22 feet.

This will be our view of Lost Lake tonight because once again it's supposed to start raining.

TUESDAY - Once again we have two scheduled stops on our route today.

Stop your groaning, neither one is to see a watefall.

The first stop is for bruch at a famous local bakery. They are famous for one thing, making some of the best pastys in the Upper Peninsula.

What is a pasty you ask? A pasty, pronounced (past E), originated in Cornwall, England in the late 1400s. It is the favorite meal of the Cornish miners who would take them to work, deep into the mine and eat them for lunch.

A traditional pasty consists of meat, potatoe, onion and spices, all wrapped in a round crust, folded in half and then baked. Where the crust is doubled over and pinched closed to seal in the filling is called "the handle".

The pasty is eaten by hand and due to there being arsenic in the mines, the miners would discard "the handle", the only part they touched with their hands, to make sure they ingested as little of the arsenic as possible.

Today there are all different varieties of pastys. This morning I had a Breakfast Pasty that contained sausage, egg, potatoe and onion. Tricia had a Spinach and Cheese that did not have the potatoe and onion ingredients. We then shared a Traditional Pasty before we ordered a dozen frozen ones to take with us which nearly filled our tiny freezer.

In all the excitement of trying something new we totally forgot to take any photos. No worries, I'm sure we'll remember sometime soon as we have enough for six more meals.

Here's a photo of an 8-oz. frozen one. Just imagine them baked, with a brown top like a biscuit.

Our second stop for today is at Walmart, to fill our refrigerator with groceries and fill our water bottles for the upcoming week.

Soon we pulled into our campsite at Little Bay de Noc in the Hiawatha National Forest. We have a new lake to look at out our back windows. Little Bay de Noc is part of Lake Michigan, the second Great Lake of our visit.

This site is huge and nearly perfectly level.

That's good because once again we left ROVER and THE POD hitched together...

...to make a quick and easy launch tomorrow to our next campsite.

But tonight we're expecting a beautiful sunset right here in our own back yard.

WEDNESDAY - Today was quite an uneventful drive through the Hiawatha National Forest for 67-miles to our next campsite.

Colwell Lake is in the middle of the forest, so zero cell signal, and almost exactly halfway to our final destination for tomorrow. It was the perfect layover to break up a little bit longer drive, plus we had a nice view of the lake.