Category: Uncategorized

Tuesday, 8/9/2016
Susan and I went up to the Soo Locks this morning to visit the weather station museum. This was one of the first of the US Weather Service stations from the mid 1800’s whose task was to try to watch the weather and give early warning to ships. It was a small but nice museum with what else, a gift shop. We got some ship cards, sort of like trading cards for Great Lakes ships/boats. We got a couple of iron-on patches to add to our collection. These are all stuck to the window trim with velcro. They make a colorful addition to the decor and a reminder of where we have been. Susan got a TShirt, “Lake Superior- salt free, no sharks” and I got a nice Weather Station TShirt.

There is a drive-in restaurant called Clyde’s near the campground. They are supposed to have great food. It looks much like an old drive-in with the slanted windows and neon lights. The Campground manager suggested another called the West Pier. So we went to try that. It was about the size of a two car garage. Somebody came running out to get our order, one cheese burger, one onion rings, one butterscotch shake. Quick service. We took our lunch back to the park next to the locks.

Lunch was great. A massive half hamburger each. We were stuffed. THe Algoma Enterprise was just exiting the lock so we had entertainment as well.  They were repairing a valve in the bigger second lock so thery were using the slightly smaller first lock.  It is about 30 ft from where we were eating our lunch.  This boat was huge!

Our friends Douglas and Amanda arrived today mid afternoon. They were coming up from Indiana and had to cross the Mighty Mac. Good for them, I am not sure Susan could do it.

Douglas, Amanda,Rudy, Carolyn and Susan.

They brought their bikes with them so we rode around the campground checking out all of the other camper and camping things. And then around again. Then up to the the boat launch and next to Clyde’s to check it out. Looks good so we will try that place too. Then we rode down to the Sugar Island Ferry. Cars are lined up there all the time for the ferry ride across the shipping channel to Sugar Island. The ferry ride is less than a quarter mile but it is the only way to the island.

Ships, boats of every size go by all the time. There were passenger ships that went by.

 And the .”footers”, the 1000′ long bulk carriers right out the front door.

A very nice campground right on the river.

August 10, 2016

A footer went by this morning and so Amanda and Douglas and Susan and I piled into cars and hightailed it down river to the Rock Cut.  It was about 15 miles downstream.  The St Mary’s river is a 65 mile run from Lake Superior to Lake Huron and requires these big boats to make more than 20 major changes in course. In the original route there was a single channel only 300′ wide that forced ships to pass very close to one another or wait.  So in the early 1900’s the West Neebish Canal project was started.  It was and still is called the Rock Cut but the West Neebish Canal sounds good too.  It is more than 300 ft wide and about a mile long and 20′ deep.  The depth has been increased over time to now more than thirty feet.  Huge piles of rock are still everywhere. Looking at it now one would think it was dug just a few years ago.

More boats all day.  We went to Clyde’s for diinner and had s’mores for dessert. Stayed up late again with the youngsters.

More later, 

Roger and Susan

8/8/2016

The 10 AM ferry ride over to Mackinac took a detour out to the Mighty Mac Bridge. We didn’t know that, just our luck. The bridge is huge close up.

And a motorhome going across looks tiny.

The speed limit for trucks is 20 mph and cars 45. 

We worked our way from the ferry docks to the west because it was the shortest way out of the town area. The 8.3 mile road around the island is Michigan State Highway 185. It follows the shore and is mostly pretty flat. It is the only state highway in the US where cars are not permitted.  Two lanes, all of the appropriate paint lines, all you have to do is avoid the frequent road apples. 

It seemed like 80% of the bike riders went the other way for some reason. But the horse drawn carriages went both ways.  You can rent a drive-it-yourself horse carriage as these were or you can rent horses to ride on top of.  We didn’t check those prices.

Most of the road is like this, through over-arching trees, partly shady and quite nice.  It was a pretty easy ride with lots of places to stop.  There are some houses along the way side.  About half way there is a rest area with an ice cream shop and bathrooms and lots of bikes.

And the “Waste Management” truck.

A bit further on there was another ferry dock. A service ferry was there with two large dumpsters full of horse manure. Wheew!

We stopped for a break about 3/4 the way around and then continued on to a bed and breakfast we had stayed at several years ago.  There was a small cafe behind the B&B. Good food, no crowds, quiet.

A couple of small tubs out in the back.

Then we went to the Great Turtle Toys shop (eventually found it after going up and down the street few times) looking or kites. I found one that Iiked to add to my collection (of two). Then on to a small park to wait for the next ferry. A young boy asked me about my new kite, where I got it, how do you fly them, do they come with string, 20 questions sort-of-thing. The kite store people were at the other end of the park and I suggested he go see what they were doing. He did and they let him help get a big kite up in the air. He was a pretty excited kid. Mom and Dad and Gramma and Grandpa were there at the next picnic table. They though it was amazing that he came and talked to me (or anyone, they said) and pleased that I took the time to talk to him. It was fun.  

Windy and wavy ride home.  Not too tired or sore.  Bikes did well. Us too. Slept like bricks.

More Later.

Roger and Susan.

It is Wednesday 8/3/2016. Today we went by ferry to Mackinac (pronounced Mackinaw) Island.  Once there transportation is by foot, horse, carriage or bicycle.  There are about 800 horses and a bazillion bicycles on the island. There is one motorized vehicle on the island, an ambulance. There is a small airport as well so I guess maybe the few airplanes count.  There are 500 permanent residents and 15-20,000 visitors each day during the peak of the May-September summer season. Visitors are called “fudgies” since they almost all buy some fudge at one of the more than 15 fudge makers, most with several shops.  They are everywhere.  

We got a pretty good view of the Mighty Mac Bridge. We did not drive over the Mighty Mac. We came in from the west. It is famous for how much it moves side to side in a good wind. The Mackinac Bridge Authority has a Drivers Assistance Program that provides drivers (for a fee) for those uncomfortable with driving across the Mackinac Bridge. It is possible that the deck at center span could move as much as 35 feet (east or west) due to high winds. Gulp!  The roadway is about 200′ above the water and the bridge is five miles long

We bought tickets for the carriage tour and waited for just a short while for the appointed time.  The first half of the tour is on a smaller 20 person two horse carriage.  This part wound through town and up a big hill by the Grand Hotel where a night in a basic room will set you back $385.  Imagine a suite.  Lunch was available at the Grand for about $40 which also got you into the Hotel.  If you want to just go in and look around it was $17.  

The first half went by the horse stables and Carriage Barns and ended near the Carriage Museum.  

That’s Rudy.

From there we boarded a bigger 35 passenger carriage pulled by three horses. The segment went through the State Park on the island to the Arch Rock, 

by a couple of cemetaries and the Post Cemetary and finally to Fort Mackinac.  It was originally built by the British about 1780 who occupied It until 1796 long after the American Revolution.  The British retook the fort during the War of 1812. The Americans got it back in 1815 and occupied it until it was decommissioned in 1895.  From 1875 to 1895 the fort was part of America’s second National Park, Mackinac National Park which included most of the island until it was closed in 1895.

We got off at the fort and went into several buildings that showed what everyday life was like at the fort. It is a living history museum so there are lots of folks dressed up in period costume. Soldiers were doing their daily duties.  Flintlock rifles were fired and once a day they shoot a cannon. The fort is up on a bluff and the views were grand.

We walked down the hill towards the town past the garden areas for the fort and had lunch in a small place. Lunch was good.

We walked up and down the street looking for fudge and a kite shop.  Fudge was found, kites not.  We got our 10,000 steps in this day. And it was unseasonably hot (90 ish) and somewhat humid.  We were all pretty pooped so we wandered in the direction of the ferry dock, waited a bit and in spite of the wind and waves that had come up sat on the upper deck to enjoy the breeze on the way back.

A light supper and an early bed time for us.  We are on Eastern time so things seem a bit out of whack.

Tomorrow will be an off day, we need it.  Friday the plan is to go back to Mackinac with our bikes and ride around the island.

More later.

Roger and Susan.

We are off on a Lake Superior South Shore adventure with Rudy and Carolyn from TX in their coach and we in ours.  We will be meeting Douglas and Amanda in a week or so in their coach.

 

We fixed his big awning arm support and made some storage improvements.

Nice beach on a lake.

And the normal de-bugging process at the end of a driving day.

Big green and yellow ones this day.

We got some beach time in, some wading, a bunch of walking and a good night’s sleep. 

The next day we had a grueling two hour drive up the north shore of Lake Michigan to OB Fuller County Park near Escanaba, MI.  Another nice spot.

Can’t get much closer to the beach than this.

More Later.  

Roger and Susan

A little slow getting this one done…

Whitewater State Park is one of Minnesota’s favorite state parks. It is about 90 miles south of Hastings between Rochester, MN and Winona, MN. This part of Minnesota is big rolling hills with lots of rivers heading east to the Mississippi River.  And the Whitewater River does just that, flowing through a valley with abrupt bluffs on either side.  Other rivers like the Trout Run River flow through their own valleys into the Whitewater.

This part of Minnesota was not smoothed out by glaciers in the last Ice Age but as the glaciers north of here melted and retreated huge water flows carved the valleys that now contain the Whitewater and its tributaries.  All of this would make one think the Whitewater River was a good sized river.  We did. We thought it would be fun to rent kayaks and try them out.  The truth is is is a fairly small stream, good fishing, a small dam and a swimming area but a Whitewater kayaking river?  Not quite.

This is the original Park Entrance sign built by the CCC in the mid 1930’s. The park is much bigger now and there isn’t even a road here anymore.  Quite amazing though was that the original CCC camp  was in use until WWII started.   Then the focus changed on what was important to do next.  But the camp was still there and German prisoners of war were held there from 1943 until the end of the war.  They worked on local farms to help raise the food the country needed at that time.  After the war the camp was a summer camp for kids until it was destroyed by a tornado in the mid 50’s.  It is hard to imagine a tornado in this deep valley.

We checked out the park maps before we went and it looked like there was a pretty limited chance to go biking so we left them home.  Plenty of hiking trails to try out. Campgrounds looks nice, plenty of room in each site.

We went for five days, a quick trip. But these are always nice, just pack up a few things and go. When we get there all the stuff we busy with at home just stops. It is really pretty amazing. We are just there, the two of us with with time to do just what we want.

There was no cell phone service and no TV.  So it was a couple of old favorite Foyle’s War episodes and some long overdue reading.

The swimming beach was at a bend in the river were the was a small CCC built dam to make a pool. Lots of day users here. It is not too far from Rochester.  This little girl and her swim toy caught my eye. This was only a week or two since a kid about her age got killed by an alligator at a hotel at Disneyworld in Florida.  It came right up out of a pond and grabbed him.  I’ll bet she hadn’t heard that bit of news.

One day we went on a hike through a meadow of tall grasses along side the Whitewater River. There were people fishing and actually catching fish.  On the far side of the river the cliffs rose quite high.

The tall grasses along much of the trail were just going to seed.  As I walked along I pulled handfuls of seed from the tall grass and stuffed them in my pockets.  When we got home I had a good sized plastic bag full.  They went out in our back woods.  Maybe they will grow.

Another day we went on a hike along the Trout Run River.  Hardly a river but it might have been bigger many years ago. This river was much clearer with a rocky stone bottom compared to the Whitewater River, just what trout like.  There has been great conservation efforts in the Whitewater River watershed to improve water quality and fish habitat. The Trout Run River is said to be what it was like before settlers arrived in the 1800’s.

The trail follows the winding river.  At some places the trail is almost a road. Not by chance because this was the path the CCC boys took to an old quarry far upstream. 

At the site of the quarry the cut faces of the rock can still be seen after more than 80 years. The trail ended on top of a rise next to the river. It was a man made hill of rock and dirt that served as a ramp to a rock crushing machine powered by a steam engine.  The crushed rock and the quaried rock were hauled out on small trucks, perhaps even horse drawn wagons for use in building roads and structures in the park.  

All that is left today is the trail and the hill. One can imagine the path of the road as you walk along the river and marvel at the effort put forth by young men whose work we still enjoy today.

So that is this trip. Home for a month, stuff to get ready for our next adventure, a six week slow trip from Mackinac Island to Duluth along Lake Superior’s South Shore.

More later.  

Roger and Susan

Normally you would have been hearing about some adventure here or there when we headed south for some part of the winter. Well things happen, we stayed home.

Sunday morning our friends Bob and Ani Flagler from Duluth and Ed Schulze from Brainerd came for a visit. So first thing in the morning we baked the last of our apple pies from our harvest from last fall. They all arrived about 10. After some visiting we went up to Gooseberry Falls State Park to check out the falls and the river. Lots of water coming over the Lower Falls. There were kids all over running around in the shorts and bare feet. The water was quite cold but the sun made the rocks warm.  

We went on a hike on the Gitchi Gummi Trail along the bluff on the north side of the Gooseberry River. It is a view of the park, the river and the Lake most visitors never see. It leads out to an overlook and a spectacular view of the mouth of the river and the lake.  

The trail heads a bit north along the lakeshore and then back inland along Nelson’s Creek. The creek flows over a cliff edge at the lake in a small waterfall.  The Nelson’s Creek side of the loop is wetter and cooler than the Gooseberry River side of the loop. This gives you two distinct looks at a local ecosystem. But everywhere up here the Birch trees are suffering as they have been for the past 30 years. The Birch borer beetles are moving down the lake slowly killing most of the Birch trees. There was a big ice storm a few years back too and many trees that had been weakened broke off under the ice and wind loads. In some areas the birch trees are all broken off about 20 ft above the ground.  There are significant restoration and replanting projects going on in all of the State Parks along the lake. And many tall fenced sections to protect the new trees from the deer.

After our hike we came back by the Upper Falls of the Gooseberry River. 

It was Sunday, Mother’s Day and there were many visitors. We stopped at the Rustic Inn for lunch but so had everyone else. So we went to Judy’s Cafe in Two Harbors for a tasty lunch and then back to our coach for pie. Yum. Bob and Ani headed back to Duluth. Ed hung around and ended up staying over night. Our first ever overnight visitor in the coach. He got the coach couch. It actually worked out fine.  

Ed left for Brainerd after a hearty oatmeal breakfast. We packed a picnic lunch and headed up the lake for Tettegouche State Park and the Baptism River Gorge, one of our (mostly mine) favorite places to hike. It was a brisk day, temps in the 40’s and a brisk wind. The Baptism River flows through a deep gorge carved over millions of years through the hard lava rock down to the lake. Trails go up and down each side of the gorge from the lake to the High Falls where there is an old swinging foot bridge. From the north side trail there is a stairway down to the pool below the High Falls. It is 218 steps down and back up again. I counted each one down and then confirmed the count coming back up.

Remember it was in the 40’s.

Further down on the south side of the gorge is the trail down to Two Step Falls. It is not two steps to the falls but more like two hundred, another cardio workout. For both of us coming off winter and somewhat limited activity for me this was a test. We took a few rest stops but kept on chugging along back up to the top.

We ended up back at the visitor’s center for a great hot chocolate and our picnic lunch inside where the warmth felt good. Getting up north felt good. Seeing old friends felt good.

And then back to Two Harbors. We have an app that tracks ships and we could see in the distance a ship heading our way. It was the Presque Isle, one of only 14 Great Lakes boats more than 1000 feet long, headed for Two Harbors just 52 minutes away.  

Burlington Bay is where the “s” in Two Harbors is.

I drove down to the harbor where the wind was blowing up significant waves, white caps all over. I walked out on the breakwater – all the way to the end – to see it come in. It headed right at me and then turned out in to the lake. A couple miles off shore it dropped anchors. With no tugs at this port it was just to much wind to get into the port.

Sometime over night it got into port and took on a load of taconite and in the morning about 7:30 we saw it leaving. Very fun to watch it as close as it was.

So Tuesday morning we did our normal hit the road routine. Clean up a bit, put things away, check the oil and the tires. All set to go and it started to rain. We drove up to a flat spot in the campground and hooked up the Jeep, double checked all the connections and stuff inside, check the tail, brake and turn lights and set off for home.  It rained most of the way until just before we got to Hastings. We made a short side trip to the city owned public “restroom” for RVs where we emptied our waste tanks. Our coach has all airbag suspension so when we do this necessary task we let some air out of the tank drain side of the coach and add air to the other side to tip the coach to one side to help drain the tanks. Works great!

And then home. We disconnect the Jeep on a straight level part of the road leading into our place.  Susan drove the Jeep on ahead. I followed with the coach. I pull up just past our driveway and back into the driveway making a left turn past the shop, around another left turn and right into the coach house (fancy name for the barn, sounds better too). It took about an hour to move from one house to the other and have the coach ready for another nap.

We were amazed at how much greener it looked here after only four days. Springtime in Minnesota sort-of-thing.

We are going to try for one more short trip before we head toward Mackinac Island at the end of July for a leisurely trip along the South Shore of Lake Superior all the way to Duluth with our friends Rudy and Carolyn from Houston in their Foretravel and Douglas and Amanda from where ever they were last in their Foretravel.  Maybe John and Kathy, more Foretravel fulltimers, will join us as well.  And we are meeting Ed Meyer and Barb Jackson on the way over to Mackinac for one day as well.  They are renting an RV for a week or so, giving it a try.  We are hoping they like it.

That’s all for now.

It was pretty close to 4-1/2 hrs from Adrian to Hastings. Maybe a bit more, there was some construction.  It is hard to say but after almost 5,000 miles through North Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming and South Dakota some of the worst roads we have seen are right here.  I 90 and US 52 are in pretty poor shape. It was a stark contrast between I 90 in South Dakota and Minnesota. So why is this? What is it about Minnesota? I 94 heading NW towards Fargo when we left was the same way.  

Our last stop before home.  

We left the Devils Tower National Monument after two nights. It rained a bit overnight. We went up over the top of the Black Hills into South Dakota and then down towards Rapid City and then east. It started raining again, the wind was blowing from the north at 20-30 mph.  We had to stop at one point because one of the awnings was trying to unwind in the wind.  We pulled into a gas station parking lot where there was another coach there with the same problem. We added a couple of ropes to hold the awning in place.  It was fine. So it just poured and blew all the way across the wasteland. This has to be the most boring drive we have ever done.

It was still raining when we got there and slowly stopped while we got set up so we got a walk in.