In the Western Upper Peninsula, the drive is kind of the point. There are no big cities, not many stores or restaurants or museums (though we’ll visit one museum on our way back through Houghton as we drive to the Porkies). What there is is scenery and lots of it.

If you’re up around Copper Harbor, I highly recommend that you take Brockway Mountain Drive on either your way there or back. Especially if you’re lucky enough to visit when the leaves are changing in late September.

We were there in June and it was marvelous even cloaked in unending green. In the photo below, the town of Copper Harbor is on the left and Lake Superior is shrouded in mist on what was a cold morning (for us trolls — people who live below the Mackinac Bridge — in June, anyway).

Zooming in a bit, we could pick out the dock from which the ferry left for Isle Royale earlier in the morning and, right next to it, our motel.

Don’t see it? It’s right here.

Further up the mountain, the views were spectacular.

At the top, there was a nice trio of signs that explained a bit of the history of the region.

Coming down from the mountain, the views are still lovely, and along M-26 you just might drive past a roadside waterfall or two. This is Jacob’s Falls, a sweet little cascade that goes right under the road and out the other side.

Here is a nine-year-old boy for scale.

What came as a lovely, almost ethereal surprise about five minutes down the road from Jacob’s Falls was this gorgeous scene on the Eagle River.

Someday I will attempt to paint this. The boy and I lingered long on the little historic Eagle River Bridge, staring at this magical scene. We’d been reading books in C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia series and looking at this waterfall and the tapestry of trees around it made me feel like we were getting a glimpse into Aslan’s Country.

Reluctantly, we moved on, back toward the center of the Keweenaw Peninsula, back to Houghton to dip once more into our shared passion for geology as we explored the A. E. Seaman Mineral Museum on the campus of Michigan Tech University. But that’s a post for another day…