Marquette, MI: Marquette Harbor Lighthouse

The catalyst for our entire trip through Michigan was that one of my best friends, Ali, is spending a couple of years in the Upper Peninsula during medical school. A considerable amount of our travel incorporates seeing our friends along the way, and we thought it would be a great chance to see Lake Michigan and be able to spend some time with her. (And since she's done up there later this year, we knew we'd need to go in July or not go at all.) We had an awesome time. She lives in a really old house that was turned into apartments, and it is within walking distance of all sorts of things in downtown Marquette, including the Marquette Harbor Lighthouse.

These photos were taken from the parking area behind the Marquette Maritime Museum (which is a terribly-designed website; check out the TripAdvisor reviews for more information), and were the closest we got to the lighthouse. We unfortunately went to the museum at exactly the wrong time for a tour, but did spend some time within the gift shop of the museum (we didn't go into the rest of the museum). The gift shop had some pretty neat things, actually, and we picked up several mini lighthouses for our collection (which is now turned into our lighthouse-themed guest bedroom).

The museum has limited parking so it's better to walk or bike if you can (it's right on the bike path that goes along the lake), and the cost for this attraction was a little higher than we would normally pay for lighthouse tours ($5 to see just the lighthouse or just the museum, or $9 to see both), but if we hadn't had a full day planned we may have waited for the tour and done the museum. Have you been? It certainly looks beautiful out there.