After our lengthy day of
hiking yesterday in
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, we kicked off our first morning in
Marquette at
Sweetwater Cafe for a hearty breakfast. While there aren't too many choices in
Marquette for breakfast, this place stood out easily because a) we knew it wasn't a chain restaurant, b) they "select and purchase ingredients that are nearest their natural state". Done and done. Naturally, we both adjusted our typical omelette order that we've had the last couple of days to the Huevos Rancheros. In the
menu it was described as "two locally raised eggs cooked to your liking, topped with sour cream, melted cheese, and our bold Ranchero sauce. Served with organic black beans, brown rice, and two whole wheat tortillas." We held the sour cream, but devoured everything else remaining on our plate as it was certainly flavorful, fresh, and filling.
After breakfast, we took a stroll around the Lake Superior shore near downtown
Marquette to find the
Marquette Harbor Lighthouse. We couldn't really up close as that required a purchased tour, but we were able to get a decent view from the beach.
It was yet again another nice day in the
U.P. with not a could in the sky. On our hunt for the lighthouse, we encountered several families out walking their dog. While we appreciated the uptick of people out and about, we were a little confused by the amount of people walking their dogs until we realized that it was something like show your dog off day in
Marquette.
While we could have taken another day long hike, today, our main event was the
Michigan Brewers Guild U.P. Fall Beer Festival in
Mattson Lower Harbor Park. Since moving to Michigan in 2007, we have attended roughly 7
Michigan Beer events, thus, we figured we should just make our enthusiasm for Michigan Beer official by joining their
"enthusiast club". Part of
membership includes admittance into the festivals an hour early for sampling, thus, we figured, what better way to spend one of the hours in
Marquette! After signing up, Scottie and I heard as we entered the festival that we were #5 and #6 entries.
It was definitely a different feel here at the
U.P. festival from some of our previous
Michigan Brewers Guild festival experiences. Location-wise, besides maybe the Fall Detroit festival in
Eastern Market, this is hands down the best location for the actual festival. Instead of set in a nondescript park in
Ypsilanti at
Riverside Park for the
Summer festival or in the parking lot of
Fifth Third Ballpark in
Comstock/Grand Rapids for the
Winter festival, the
U.P. festival is also located in a park but with a backdrop of Lake Superior and the city of
Marquette, it has far more to offer than the others. In contrast to the
Summer festival, there wasn't a line wrapped around the park to gain admittance into the festival for the
enthusiast hour or even at 1pm when the event started, but it certainly picked up momentum by early afternoon.
This festival also didn't have every
Michigan brewery, but with
450 beers from 20 breweries, we were pretty happy with the selection especially to recognize some new breweries for us including
Greenbush Brewing Company,
Blackrocks Brewing Company,
Red Jacket Brewing Company,
Library Brew Pub, and
Jasper Ridge. While I'm sure we have probably had their beer had a previous festival, these names stood out more since they weren't squeezed between a lot of the bigger names.
We spent the next few hours sampling some new beers, collecting loads of free stickers and buttons, munching on our pretzel necklaces, and chatting with a few of the brewery representatives. We even ran into a former co-worker of mine at the event. So here's the final list of our ratings...
The next day, we awoke fairly early to get on the long haul back to
Birmingham with a quick stop at
Third Street Bagel to load up on our carbs and protein for the day! Instead of taking M-28 east backtracking through the
U.P. to
Mackinaw City, we decided to take 41S to M-2E for a more scenic route. Along the route and throughout the
U.P., we passed these signs so I'm guessing the
Hiawatha National Forest is a large part of the
Upper Peninsula.
Our route would took us through the town of
Manistique offering us scenic views of Lake Michigan and the
Manistique East Breakwater Lighthouse. From there, our drive was a bit tree-covered until we hit a stretch of M-2 that is the
Lake Michigan Scenic Highway.
We pulled aside at one point to get yet another view of the
Mackinac Bridge from the
U.P. side before completing the 7.5 hour drive back home!
More photos can be found in my
photo album and here's a
link to the map we used to guide us throughout the trip. This is also a
great site with guides to the
U.P.
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