The last week of August my sister and I planned on traveling to South Dakota for a little vacation. Why South Dakota you ask? Well…I have a friend there who lives on a ranch and the skies are really dark. Exactly the perfect sort of place for night sky photography. So we arranged to spend a few days there, watching the sky by night and exploring the area by day.

But the title of this post is “Camping in the UP” you say? How does that relate to South Dakota?

Well, sometimes life gets in the way of plans, and it turns out we needed to be closer to home this year. Luckily Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Michigan’s UP had just reopened after some bathroom renovations and there were lots of open camp sites.

I snagged one and we adjusted our plans.

There’s so much to see in the eastern part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, so we used the campsite as a home base and set out exploring. On our very first day we stopped by the Tahquamenon Upper Falls AND Whitefish Point!

And that’s after driving all the way up there, across the Mackinaw Bridge and deep into the northern woods. It was a long day, but we had beautiful, hot, blue sky kind of weather.

And in Michigan you know not to waste a second of it! It could all change tomorrow! And of course it did.

It was still cold and windy the third day when we visited Grand Marais. Usually the stone picking there is spectacular, but it was so windy we didn’t stay on the beach long.

We did end up at the local diner for some lunch.

And on the last full day of our trip we explored the coast of Lake Superior, heading east along the Byway to Sable Falls…

…and Point Iroquois Lighthouse.

We had a beautiful day and found some beautiful rocks to remind us of our trip.

We explored the back roads and found a unique bakery.

And then we had lunch at a sunny little inland lake before we headed back to camp for our last night.

We enjoyed a last fire at our campsite before we turned in for the evening. It would be an early morning the next day if we were to beat predicted rain and get camp packed while things were still dry.

And then it was time to head back home.

Oh…what about night sky photography? Did we get any of that done?

Well. I guess you’ll have to tune in to find out. But what do you think?