yes, this.

note from me:  I’ve been trying to get this post out for a few days  week or so, but my computer has been glitchy – especially when trying to use the Photos app – and I went down a wrong road trying to fix it, and then a long right road;  but I finally have it resolved.  And then we had visitors, but more on that at another time.

So, below when I say “last week”, I mean from Oct 5 onward.  This post takes us through about Oct 9.  I really hope to catch up quickly.

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(Note:  See my Flickr page for more pictures)

Last week ended well, with an incredible weekend to cap it all off.  I finally, for real, got my head in this “Marquette extended stay” game.   I even got oddly excited about putting trash out for pickup on Monday night.

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One thing I like to do to help us feel more at home here – in this vacation rental – is to use my own sheets/comforter.  Because, who doesn’t sleep better in their own sheets?  Well, for some reason, I didn’t swap the VRBO bedding right away this time and that was a mistake.  I feel like everything fell right into place when I finally made the swap.

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We went out for an easy ‘test our new lights ride’ on the North Trails one night.  Since we forgot our bike lights at home, we decided to buy a couple of NiteRider Lumina 750 (wireless!  usb chargeable!) lights from Amazon and wanted to test them out.  The short review on those is that they are incredible.  Light, bright, and completely cordless.  So. Much. Win.

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On Friday, we went for a run on a most beautiful section of the Iron Ore Heritage Trail.  I totally forgot to take any pictures.  But trust me, it was incredible.  The Iron Ore Heritage Trail is rail trail, but this section seems incredibly steep compared to other rail trails I’ve been on.  The 2 mile climb had my calves all tight and screamy but the 2 mile descent back to the car was so worth it.

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Upon reflection, I think a big source of my funky mood these first couple of weeks was some inner-angst about spending a weekend in Copper Harbor.  I love it there and I really wanted to go, but after being overly-scheduled for the entire summer, I felt like we were overly-scheduling ourselves here now too.  This past weekend was our only chance to go to Copper Harbor, if we were going to go.  And, I guess, I just wasn’t ready to spend a whole weekend away from Marquette.  So when we decided to make it a day trip, it was like a cloud had lifted.

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With our newfound freedom, we had dinner on Friday at my favorite – The Vierling – with my folks, their (our) friends and my aunt who happened to be in town.

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We were going to kayak on Saturday but it was crazy windy so we took the dogs out to the beach for a bit and then I went grocery shopping.  We were planning on leaving the house around 7 the next morning for Copper Harbor, so it was a pretty mellow day.

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Of course, because its cave-like dark here until what feels like noon, we didn’t actually get out of the house until 8:30 the next morning.  But that was fine.  We would have been driving for an hour in the dark if we’d left when we wanted to, and we really would have missed out on some beautiful scenery.

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I know some people would think its crazy to drive all the way to Copper Harbor and back in a day.  Especially since we really only rode the Point Trail (and a few miles of dirt road on the phase 2 Point Trail section) but its such a pretty drive.  And Copper Harbor is breathtakingly beautiful any time of year.  In October .. well, there really are no words.

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I might have to dedicate a post just to my Spearfish.  Its really pretty great.  I felt like I was flying through the Point Trail singletrack.  And then we drove down to Calumet and rode the Sweedetown Trails.  I’d only ever ridden there on a hard tail bike, and while I appreciated the design of the trail, I just couldn’t love it.  I always left feeling like my teeth were going to fall right out of my head.

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Riding Swedetown on a full suspension was like riding an entirely different trail.  It was so much fun!

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We capped off our day with some pizza and KBC before heading back to our Marquette home.

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Once again, I hardly took any pictures because I was really just too busy taking it all in.

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