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It was a bright sunny Sunday as we drove down the main drive in Copper Harbor. Later we learned the day before was the Thimbleberry Festival and a couple thousand people had been in town. I like people, but not crowds so I was happy we missed it all by a day. Copper Harbor is a small town so I couldn't help but wonder where they all parked.
The Town of copper Harbor Even so, today the town seemed pretty busy with all kinds of people walking around. Normally we'd stop at the Mariner to eat, but I had read something about this little bar called Zik's and wanted to check it out. I didn't realize it until we'd drove past so I pulled into what I thought was a gas station. So did the Harley rider behind me. Both of us were a little disappointed the place was closed. At the time I didn't know there was another gas station in town as I heard him muttered under his breath, that there better be or he was in trouble. It was later that I found out from talking with the bartender at Zik's that apparently a couple years back the owner of that station pulled up and left in the middle of the night, leaving the town without a gas station. Now there is only one gas station in Copper Harbor and he's located at the south end of town at the light. I was told that in the event of emergencies you can give him a call and he'll open up the station for you. You can't beat that for small town hospitality. My wife and I both like a bar that serves up a good bar burger with an ice cold tapper. That's just what we got at Zik's. The bar was empty when we walked in. but the bartender said it was rocking the night before. When I later asked if she like a biker crowd, she said sure "They take less parking spaces and we can crowd more in the place". You have to love her honesty. Turns out she also owns a motel in town and does the town taxes. She told me there are only 50-70 permanent residents in Copper Harbor, but they get a lot of workers who live there in the winter to help take care of the snowmobile crowd. Zik's is a good place to relax and enjoy a good burger and I recommend a visit if you're in town.
After a couple beers and a full tummy, we decided to walk it off. Leaving the bike at Zik's we started at one end of town and visited all the shops along the way. On the way we found a nice board walk that led down to the lake with a couple of benches where we could just kick back and look at the water. There wasn't much going on. An occasional wave-runner went by, but all in all a pretty peaceful place.
If I were going to make this run again, I would have allowed for a night here in Copper Harbor and made it a Saturday night so we could enjoy some of the night life in town. The same goes many of the little tourist towns that dot the lakeshore of the U.P. I know I intend to stay on Drummond Island my next time back there. After buying a a couple of reminders of your trip, we walked back to the bike. If we'd had another day we'd probably would have gone into Fort Wilkins State Park. It's worth the time, but I wanted to make one more stop today.
I figured we'd take US-41 back this
time rather than M-26. I figured it would be faster than M-26, but I
never expected the ride I got. Page 5 of 7
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Motorcycle Service U.P. State Parks - there are at least 19 good reasons to buy a park sticker.
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