Munising, MI: Munising Front Range Light

Did you think we were done with lighthouses? I hope not, because there's still, uhh, at least 7 left after this one ;) Several of the lighthouses we saw on the second half of our trip (which comprised the UP, Wisconsin via Green Bay and Milwaukee, and Chicago) were of the more random variety. Besides intentionally following roads that were close to Lake Michigan and using Eric's supernatural ability to find lighthouses, we also found these by actually seeing the lighthouse from a distance and then figuring out how to get to it. The Munising Front Range Light was one of those that we could see from the road.


Luckily we had this handy pamphlet that told us the street name to turn on, so getting to it wasn't too bad. We were driving through Munising on our way to spend the day at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, and the morning was cold and cloudy!


There is a big parking lot right beside the lighthouse, and we were the only people checking out the lighthouse. We got out of the car to take some photos, and there were a couple of men working by the lake. They were giving us a "who are these crazy people" look and it was pretty funny (well, in hindsight - at the time I was freezing!). The grounds are open to the public, but the tower is definitely not.


We also spent a while trying to find the Rear Range Light, but had no luck. Later (while searching for another lighthouse) we learned that it can be hard to find some of the lighthouses that are set back from the lake because they get covered by trees. Isn't the point of a lighthouse being able to see it from the water?


Even with the advances in transportation technology, I like knowing that there are still active lights, and I like to go see them before they are all retired. A lot of the time they are not as pretty as the restored or no-longer-active ones, but I like to think that these over-one-hundred-year-old lighthouses are still being used for their original purpose.
Munising, MI: Munising Front Range Light Munising, MI: Munising Front Range Light Reviewed by Maria on 3:00:00 PM Rating: 5

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