Vacation 2009: Day 2, Part 2

After the first part of our day at Tahquamenon Falls, we trekked across the peninsula, stopping briefly to pick up some delicious smoked fish for dinner, and arrived at my favorite place: Kitchitikipi. Or, depending on what sign you read, Kitch-iti-kipi. Or Kitchi-ti-kipi.

But what IS this remarkable place? you may ask. Well, it's a big spring. It's about 40-feet deep and clear as glass. And it's really, really awesome. We got there late in the day, which was a cool time to see the trees' reflections on the water. I can't do it justice with any more words, so I'll just post a small sampling of the approximately 43,000 photos I took.

This is from the raft on the spring. It feeds into this river. The raft moves along a cable, propelled by a big, kid-friendly wheel.

The view straight down.

Unshaven Uncle Erich being daddy-ish with Emily, looking down into the spring.

This is where the water bubbles up.

And THIS is the spring in action. What's that sound in the background? That's Emily providing narration for what she saw, which was this:

It's a lot more fun than it looks.

All the BILs, and a glimpse of FIL, looking at this:

That's the best picture I could get of the gigantic trout swimming around. I hear there are usually a lot more (maybe earlier in the day?), but we just saw a handful.

I liked the way the light came through the trees.

Back at the house, this was a typical evening activity. Without TV or radio, the Cubs fans were reduced to "watching" the games via phone updates. At least Erich got good enough cell service up there for MLB Gameday!

This was Emily's favorite activity. She says "Boo!"; everyone else acts startled. In this particular game, the little princess learned how little she has to do to captivate an entire room of big people. Who needs TV when you have a toddler?