Chasing Waterfalls

I had a coworker ask “Why Michigan?” when I told her where we were going on vacation. Bless her, she splits her time between Vermont and Portugal. The Midwest is a foreign country. For me, vacation involves rocks, trees, and water and the UP has all in abundance.

We like to go between the crowds of summer and fall, so the first week of September had us hitting the road, looking for adventure. We’ve been to the UP (Upper Peninsula for the rest of you) before, but the western bit. This trip was a loop around Lake Michigan with stops at botanic gardens, state parks, beaches, and historic sites.

There’s just something about water falling over rocks that enchants us humans. We’ve visited all kinds from the breathtakingly enormous Iguazu Falls in Brazil, to the tiny rill bounding over a ridge. I love them all. Waterfalls are hard to come by in the flatlands of Illinois, so I make do with a fountain at home.

An elegant bamboo fountain at Meijer Gardens.

First, the manmade falls of the The Richard & Helen DeVos Japanese Garden at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. I am that horticulturist that gets there when they open so I can go straight to the pretty gardens. The sculpture is also pretty awesome. They were newly installed the last time I saw them and they are developing beautifully.

As with any Japanese garden, the landscape is tightly controlled. These boulders have been carefully placed and tuned to create a rustic music of their own.

With a seven-son flower in fragrant bloom, too!

From manmade, we went to Tahquamenon Falls State Park, which had lovely trails and is clearly a favorite. The 200-foot Upper Falls is one of the largest east of the Mississippi River and is usually sort of amber in color from the tannins in the water.

Then it was humbler waterfall hunting in and around Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. I have deep respect for state and national park trails marked ‘moderate’ or ‘difficult’. Me and my dodgy spine are meant for ‘easy’ trails for now. Turns out waterfall hunting is a bit of a sport in the UP and private property owners don’t appreciate hordes of sticky children and adventurous adults clambering over their scenic spaces.

We tackled Wagner Falls and Munising Falls to, er, get our feet wet. On a rainy, misty day, it was pretty quiet. Plus, I got to play Name That Plant with the park rangers. Want a frustrated professional plant nerd? Do not have a plant ID book in the gift shop. Any gift shop. I finally found an excellent one in the bookstore in Manistique that turns out to be a textbook for ecological restoration. Yay!

Anyway, back to waterfalls. The sound of moving water just seems to instantly calm us humans. We can’t resist getting close, risking an ankle or a knee to crawl inside. We’re giddy when we can sneak behind a falls.

Trees, rocks, water. A small slice of nature’s magic.

Wagner Falls in action.