Hilariously, I insisted on returning our discard rocks to the beach. We have such a glut of unwanted Great Lakes rocks at our house now because I was not selective, and I didn't want to repeat that miscalculation. So our discards went into a bucket in the back of the car to be dumped onto Agate Beach, our primary stop of the day. The weather was absolutely stunning when we went to bed, so I opened the windows and we used nature's air conditioning. Imagine my dismay when Derek informed me that I failed to notice one of the windows did not have a screen. Immediately, I am imagining myself the victim of some rabid bat, clamping down on me in the night, and I text my SIL about whether or not I'm in danger of rabies.
I am less than likely to be a victim of a rabid bat swooping into our cabin and giving me a rabies infested nibble, she reports, but I am not so sure. I AM DELICIOUS, OK? I know what I look like to a bat. A straight up feast.
Agate Beach was an hour and a half away, and it was such a lovely day to be tooling around the UP.
This is the little stretch of road that is right outside of the cabin we were staying at. Secluded and quite pretty. I remarked that I would have loved to see more native wildflowers, but I am also not familiar with the native landscape of the UP, so perhaps it's just...brushy prairie land with forest? I am not at liberty to say.
We passed by Sunday Lake on the way out of the township. It's a cute little lake.
Rocks? Definitely. Our kinds of desired rocks? Perhaps. Stopped at to check? Not at all.
We headed right to Agate Beach. Not on time, though I'm sure that wasn't shocking to hear.
Cute!
We had read that this was a pretty primo spot for agate hunters, thus the name. But we were less than convinced. First of all, the offerings were...uh. Well, I know it's impolite to compare, but this beach has nothing on Little Girl's Point.
Hi. I'm at Agate Beach.
The scenery was very pretty, I am not disparaging Mother Nature's artistry on the lake beachfront aspect. Very pretty. No notes. But the rocks weren't really rising to the occasion.
We posted up at this river outlet to look for rocks, and I was delighted by this bird exchange:
We had also seen a bald eagle the previous day, but this was a far more excellent encounter.
Derek and I had been rockhounding for two hours when I said to him, "I can't help but feel like I'd rather be at Little Girl's Point." To which he replied, "You know what? Same." So we packed it in and headed back to Little Girl's Point. And upon arrival, found that the lake front here was placid enough to use our waders!
I say we, but I really mean Derek. I was wearing the shortiest shorts and decided to just get into the water to damn near vagina level and look around on my own. I didn't need to be chest deep. Derek was thrilled to be using his waders, though, so I left him to his wading and headed off in the other direction.
This was as far as I had gone the day before, and I decided to go much further down this time. What you can't see is a little jut of island impersonator waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay way down at a much further point of beach. Covered in seagulls. That's where I headed off to. Seagull Island.
Which was way further than I anticipated. It isn't like I mined the distance, it was my stupid water shoes. They were easily a half size to a full size too big for me, and they were fucking STUFFED with sand and pebbles, and walking with that was annoying as fuck.
But I made it! I made it to Seagull Island. Finding rocks along the way, obviously.
I was upset to find that my presence was NOT well received by all members of Seagull Island, one of them flew off in disgust at my arrival. Well. That's fine, I suppose.
I looked around for more rocks, and then headed back to catch up with Derek. About halfway to Derek, I noticed how pretty the sunset was, so I turned back toward Seagull Island for one last glance.
The beautiful sunset had not yet caught up to the seagulls. But it was fully enveloping Derek.
My dad maintains that this is his favorite photo from the trip that I sent him. Up to that point, perhaps. I didn't ask him to really weigh in on everything else.
It certainly was a glorious sunset, though. And I'll never see this sunset again. Derek and I had chatted about whether or not he wanted to look for yooperlites again. He initially said yes, so on the way tfrom Agate Beach to Little Girl's Point, I told Derek to just drop me off at the cabin so he could spend as many hours on the beach as he wanted without having to worry about me. He decided to not do that, that he had gotten his fill of yoopers the night before. I doubted that very much, but I was thrilled to have him go back to the cabin with me so we could check out our treasures.
My treasures!!! This is a 3 gallon bucket, and I filled it about halfway. Discerning as always!
The night before, Derek and I lamented the lack of light in the living room, and agreed to set up in the kitchen for our next treasure pick over. So we did!
With two beaches worth of rocks to look through, we tucked in and came up with a system of keep for us, keep to tumble, and send back to the beach.
We ended up with a very nicce tumble bag, Derek ended up with a very modest amount of rocks, and I ended up with a very immodest amount of rocks.
We ate our dinner, and went to bed, as we'd need to be out of the cabin by 10am and on our way back to Madison. But a very successful wrap up to the first leg of our rock trip!
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