With the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in the rearview mirror, I prepared to put the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the frontview mirror. But before I could do that (or even figure out how to do that), I had a state park to visit. But before I could do that, I had to get there. One thing I noticed on this trip was that Michigan has frequent rest areas along its highways. And I don’t just mean the interstates, or even the U.S. routes. I mean that even the state highways seem to have rest areas every ten miles or so! Thus, it seems Michigan is a great place to drive across if you suffer from urinary urgency, as do I and many other folks with Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Or if you need frequent naps, as I tend to. Actually, it’s not just rest areas (which Michigan calls Rest Stops), but also a lot of Roadside Parks. Here are a few pics from one of the Roadside Parks:

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As state parks go, Tahquamenon (pronounced Tuh-KWAH-men-on) Falls State Park seems to be huge, though the main attractions are concentrated in two small areas: Lower Tahquamenon Falls and Upper Tahquamenon Falls. I’ll start with the lower falls, just because that’s the area I reached first, coming from the southeast as I was. Here, there’s an island in the Tahquamenon River, with multiple cascading waterfalls along each of the two channels that flow around the island. Let’s take a look, eh!

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You might have noticed a brownish tint in some parts of the waterfalls. According to the Michigan State Parks Department, this is natural, not some kind of human-caused pollution. They say it happens due to tannins leaching into the river from marshy areas upstream. I didn’t know there were monkeys in Michigan! And I certainly didn’t know that dead monkeys would turn water brown. What’s that? Tannins aren’t monkeys? OH, that’s right! I was thinking of tarsiers.

Unlike the lower falls, Upper Tahquamenon Falls is a single precipitous drop – a sheet of water, if you will. And you will.

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Being at the bottom of the canyon, the last stop (Gorge View) requires walking a long way down, then back up. Here’s what I had to contend with:

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I ended up walking probably two or three miles and going up about 360 total stairs. Hard to believe just four days earlier, I was feeling like I needed to check into a nursing home. I wonder how long I can keep going like this…