Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan's Upper Peninsula

A visit to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the heat of the summer, when the place I call home scores daily heat indexes around 110°, well, it just sounds like a preview of heaven.

It was August when I first escaped the heat of the lower Midwest to check on the situation in the U.P. and I couldn’t believe what I had been missing all of these years.

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Then imagine a pleasant refreshing breeze running its fingers through your hair, the temperature about 70°, humidity levels around 40 or 50%, and the warmth of the sun’s rays absolutely forcing you to tilt your face its way and smile.

That’s what these pictures feel like.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in the Upper Peninsula

These images were taken in the Munising area near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. You know us and our love affair with the National Park Service.

Pictured Rocks was designated the nation’s first National Lakeshore in 1966 to “preserve the shoreline, cliffs, beaches and dunes, and to provide an extraordinary place for recreation and discovery.”

How wonderful is it to remember that, despite the dysfunction we see in Washington this hot summer, the United States government did come together once to preserve “an extraordinary place for recreation and discovery.”

We took a boat cruise along some of the 40 miles of protected lakeshore to see what was so spectacular that would cause our elected officials to actually agree on something.

And it was so simple:

Some things are just so very agreeable…

… particularly in the heat of the summer.