Spent our last few days in Michigan on the western side of the Upper Peninsula. Had a nice campsite fronting a lake, very peaceful; good base to explore what we had not seen. The locals, called "Da Yoopers", were very friendly, seemed to be good, hard working folks. Definitely beginning to feel like the heartland.
Went up to the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula, on the western edge, bordering Lake Superior. As you can see from the above, Lake Superior is the largest and deepest of the Great Lakes, all of which were formed after the last Ice Age, when a warming climate 10,000-20,000 years produced a receding glacier, which carved out the lakes. Lake Superior is really cold, even in high season in the Summer; nevertheless, we saw a number of people wading/swimming in the waters on our way up to the point. Also interesting, due to tectonic plate rifting, some of the oldest igneous rocks in Earth's existence (estimated to be approximately 1 billion years old) became exposed to the surface during the glacial retreat.
While the northwestern part of the peninsula is famous for its copper, further south was the discovery of vast amounts of iron ore, among three main formations, that produced quite the mining rush starting in the 1840s. We visited the Michigan Iron Industry Museum, learned about the booms and busts of the iron mining business. Much labor turnover due to the terrible Winters and the flies/mosquitos in the Spring/Summer. Many of those who hung in there to do the tough work, hungry immigrants, mostly from Scandinavia, looking for a better life. America's greatness was built on the promise that draws immigrants from all over the world; I think we have forgotten that (no apologies to Trump)
Finally, we kept seeing signs like "Suzy's Pasties" and "We have the best pasties". I thought they were talking about strip clubs. Turns out that pasties are a food, kind of like a meat turnover, with potatoes and onions. Introduced to the area by Cornish miners. I had one; not bad.
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