Adventures with Big Blue

[campfire]

Those are quite the sights!

They are indeed! Let me know if you ever want more a higher picture density.

great thread, love the pics!

It sure is beautiful up there, definitely on my bucket list...

Thanks! I figured somebody would enjoy coming along for the ride.

I started this thread after mosesburb's travels out west significantly lengthened my bucket list. I figured there are lots of folks out there who haven't seen the glories of the midwest. No matter where I go, there is always much more than I am able to visit. Even where I've gone, I can't capture even half of what there is to see.
If I can lengthen some bucket lists I will have achieved my goal.

But, as I personally find these trips to be funner in an ol' square body, I'd also like to encourage folks to get their iron out of the shed. Being out on the road is just more fun than watching it rust away in the driveway.



I'm a little surprised, though, that in the last 2 months this thread has logged ~1400 views with comments from only 4 people. Does that mean the thread is boring or just that the board is full of lurkers? I'm new enough to the board to not yet know what's normal.

Either way, I have several trips' worth of pictures in backlog. Bit by bit they're making their way on here. It is awkward writing about stuff from 2 years ago, though. As I look through the pictures I see all the changes that have happened to the truck since then. A lot of little things have been improved. But my chronological approach means my cool project from last weekend may not make it up here for a while.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Lurkers.

 

[kennyw]

Or four people open your thread everyday as they stalk you.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Shhhh.


Don't mind us staring.

 

[campfire]

Or four people open your thread everyday as they stalk you.

Shhhh.


Don't mind us staring.

 

[euzoa]

cool stuff man! keep at it

 

[swettysblazer]

I need to go on another road trip. My brother and I took my K5 from Jersey to Missouri to Michigan and back this year, and it was a lot of fun.

 

[campfire]

Southward bound (somewhat)

Having completed our tour of Gooseberry Falls, we turned the truck back Southward for the next leg of our journey. Back in Two Harbors, we ran into our twin at the grocery store:



Despite being in moose country, We didn't see any wild moose on this trip. We did see this one, however:



And his sign just seemed to fit with the region:

 

[campfire]

I need to go on another road trip. My brother and I took my K5 from Jersey to Missouri to Michigan and back this year, and it was a lot of fun.

Cool stuff. I hope your trip was as fun as mine.
Where can I find your adventure thread?

And nice timing - This thread is heading to (upper) Michigan next...

 

[jekquistk5]

Cool stuff. I hope your trip was as fun as mine.
Where can I find your adventure thread?

And nice timing - This thread is heading to (upper) Michigan next...

upper michigan is beautiful

 

[swettysblazer]

Cool stuff. I hope your trip was as fun as mine.
Where can I find your adventure thread?

And nice timing - This thread is heading to (upper) Michigan next...

Pictures may be in my build thread- I don't remember. If not, I'll put them up tomorrow

 

[campfire]

upper michigan is beautiful

Stay tuned!

 

[campfire]

Houghton

The photography rate dropped after the Gooseberry Falls visit, and some spots got skipped entirely. I'm not sure why. Some spots will be revisited later, others simply are lost in time. Unless I get back up there again...

Anyway, having headed back through Duluth, we crossed the northern edge of Wisconsin on US route 2. After stopping at Ashland to enjoy the lake (Superior again), we entered upper peninsula Michigan at Ironwood. Shortly thereafter we turned north toward Houghton:



And you can't visit Yooperland without encountering pasties and pasty shops:



One of the local shops (don't remember which one) had nice shots of the Northern Lights:

 

[campfire]

Keweenaw

Lake Superior's largest peninsula protrudes from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It extends about 50 miles into the water and roughly divides the lake in half. Houghton (MI) sits toward the base of this peninsula, but the waters of Lake Superior cut the peninsula in half and place Houghton at the edge of a 1000-foot wide portage. The land across the portage is called the Keweenaw Peninsula (although it seems like more of an island to me). Houghton and its twin city of Hancock are connected by a double-decked lift bridge, similar to the one in Duluth. The top of the bridge carries highway traffic, and the bottom of the bridge carries snowmobiles during the wintertime. The snowmobile trail is not very far above the waterline, and in the summertime the bottom layer of the bridge is raised up to the highway deck to allow boats room to travel underneath. Regular boat tours to Isle Royal require the bridge to rise still higher to allow the larger boat through:





Back in the down position:



I have pictures of Houghton/Hancock from more recent trips. But for right now I have Keweenaw pictures. So on to the Keweenaw!

 

[campfire]

Quncy Mine & Hoist Association

Immediately upon crossing the bridge into Hancock, the highway climbs a steep ridge. You get to choose whether you want to wind around it or if you want to charge right up it (guess which one we did )

On the top of the ridge sits the remains of the Quincy Mine. It is now open as a museum, offering tours of one mining shaft, one engine room, and one shaft house. The rest of the mine grounds are open for public exploration.



The mine, founded in the 1840s, was a large producer of copper back in its day (the large object underneath their sign is a solid copper nugget), and operated until 1931. It reopened temporarily during WWII and has been inoperative ever since. This is the #2 shaft house, visible from the other side of the portage. For folks who like old industry and engineering marvels, its silhouette up on the ridge is one of the first things to catch the eye when descending into Houghton.



The grounds are full of old machinery and buildings:





And inside the museum are pictures and dioramas of their glory days:

 

[campfire]

Tram

We made our way through the museum and lined up for the underground section of the tour. We donned our hardhats and went outside with a group of students. What we found was a cogwheel tram line descending the hill:



Here you can see the lift bridge in the normal "summer" position (bottom section of bridge lines up with top section of roadway, top section of bridge is unused):



Halfway down the hill the slope dramatically increased, and travelling toward the ground below started to look like a roller coaster. A very, very slow roller coaster.



Cogwheel and track:



At the bottom of the hill we were loaded into a small wagon for the 1/4 mile ride into the depths of the earth.

 

[campfire]

Underground

Underground we were treated to a tour of the mine's 7th level. This shaft has 92 levels, stretching 6225 feet below the surface (9260 feet of tunnel length). The 7th level is an adit connecting to the outside world at the bottom of the hill's backside (toward the portage), and was (and is still) used to drain water from the first 6 levels. The levels below this point are flooded. We were told that, after the pumps were turned off in 1921, that several decades were required to fill the lower mine sections with groundwater. Today a small stream runs out the adit.





Blueprints of the mine's many levels:



A presentation of mining techniques and conditions throughout several eras was presented. They didn't run any of the machinery (if I recall correctly), but we still got to see how it would work.



Edit: Wifey says they did short demonstrations of some machinery. I must be mixing up my mine tours.

 

[campfire]

Quincy Mine No. 2 Hoist

Quincy mine was also home to the world's largest steam hoist. The hoist was manufactured in Milwaukee and shipped up to the Keweenaw in pieces. Here is our tour guide standing below the hoist's drum (for size reference):



The hoist engine has 4 double-acting steam pistons (2 high-pressure and 2 low-pressure). This is one of the high-pressure pistons. The low-pressure piston housings stood about 6 feet in diameter.



Both ends of the hoist cable ran from the drum to the shafthouse across the yard (on trellises). Down in the shaft, each cable end attached to a skip. As one skip rose, the other descended.

The engineer's platform stood behind the hoist and contained indicators (the arrow arms) informing where each skip was at all times.



Our tour guide demonstrating how skips dumped their cargo up in the shafthouse:



Wrenches used in the hoist house (boot and chair give some idea of scale):

 

[campfire]

Over in the shafthouse, the 2 skips ran up and down on their tracks (they would not normally both be up simultaneously). The skip on the left is for water bailing (similar to the ore skips). The skip on the right transports people in and out of the mineshaft:



An old picture of miners on the skip:



Diagram of the shafthouse and the different bins that the skips can dump into. The ore was sorted by how much processing was required to extract the copper contents.

 

[y5mgisi]

Tour looks like way fun!