Day 17 - Thursday, September 30 - Another Day in Sault Ste. Marie

 The weather was beautiful again today. Solid cloud cover would blow in at times and then blow back out. There wasn't much in the way of surface winds.

It appears that there are quite a few people who come to this campground for at least a month. Quite a few left today, on a Thursday, but the end of September. We leave tomorrow so we won't know how many come in for the weekend.

We enjoyed sitting outside, reading, watching the river traffic and enjoying the weather. We made one trip out of the campground. We drove down and checked out the other Sault Ste Marie campground that is on the river, the Anne Osborne campground. It is much larger than this one but we think we would prefer the Soo Locks for any future trips we might make. Neither the Soo Locks nor the Anne Osborne campgrounds have sewer hookups. The showers here are kept clean, but they are dated. If/when we come this way again I think we would also spend some days at the casino campground in Brimley. It is close enough to drive to Paradise Point and back and forth into SSM. You can't beat the $29/night rate for a full hookup. The rate here is $40/night and no sewer hookup. (I saw several people with  20-30 gallon "poop tanks" on wheels. They can dump their gray water into the carts, pull the cart up to the dump station and empty it.

Also during our excursion out of the campground Kathy got a carmel apple, I got an ice cream cone and we topped of the tank with fuel, $3.29/gal.

Tomorrow its off to De Tour, MI for Friday & Saturday night. Current plan is to head south across the bridge Sunday.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Day 15 - Wednesday, September 29 - Day in Sault Ste Marie

 Weather was absolutely beautiful again today. Down in the 50's last night and sunny and high in the low 70's today. PERFECT!

We took a 2 hour boat ride through the locks and up and down the St. Charles River today. There are going to be a LOT of photos of "stuff". I was an Engineer, I can't help myself. Consider yourselves lucky not to get paragraphs on the railroad lift bridges that show in the photos.

Kathy noticed the smog first thing this morning. That is not a low cloud, it is pollution from a steel making facility on the Canadian side of the border.

Then it was a short drive and a walk down to the tour boat docks.

While waiting to board we saw a sight that we don't think is common. A tug pushing a barge. The barge probably is full of iron ore.

There are two active American locks here. The MacArthur on the left (80' wide x 800' long and 29.5' deep) and the Poe on the right (110' wide x 1,200' long and 32' deep).  A new lock is being built and scheduled to open in 2030. It will be the same size as the Poe Lock. When the lock doors/gates are closed golf cart traffic moves people/employees back and forth to the buildings you see.

We are entering the MacArthur Lock, where we will be raised 21', to the level of Lake Superior.

The boat is tied off to the side of the lock and water from the Lake Superior side enters through the bottom of the lock as gates are opened. The water level of Lake Superior is about 3' below the top of the lock doors in the photo below.

We have now been raised the 21' and the lock doors are opening to allow us to exit into Lake Superior.

This is the Canadian steel plant. The dark piles are coal and the white is limestone.

The "purple" pile in the photo below is taconite iron ore. (When high grade iron ore became scarce a method to make use of lower grade ore became necessary. The low grade ore is ground, at the mines, the iron is separated and the mixed with bentonite clay and "pelletized."

As we headed back to the locks we "sped" by a freighter, the Oakglen, that was also headed for the locks. 

We won the race to the locks. For some reason they put us, a single small boat, in the Poe lock and the Oakglen in the MacArthur lock. The Oakglen is 760' long and carries over 22,000 TONS of cargo. She was still slowly getting stopped in the center of the MacArther lock when we had already been lowered to the Lake Huron level.

 Passing by the Soo Locks Campground on our return.

The window you see in the back of the trailer to the left of the trees is ours.

After the boat ride is was off to Zorba's Greek American Restaurant for a late lunch. We first went there when we were up here in 2011. We had a pizza & Greek salad and it was awesome. In 2018 we went back, the pizza and salad was just as good. It was still just as good today.

After lunch we walked around town, killing time until the Farmer's Market to opened at 4:30. We got cups of coffee ($1/cup) at a little coffee shop/deli, and sat outside drinking our coffee.

The fall colors are coming, but we will miss them at their peak. These trees were in the yard at the Methodist Church. I didn't take pictures of the church, but should have. It was a beautiful building constructed in 1873 from a red sandstone that was waste material when the first locks were constructed.

We are hear for 2 more nights. We leave Friday morning. We weren't sure of our routing when we leave here, and still aren't. This afternoon we made reservations for Friday and Saturday nights at Paradise Point RV Park in DeTour Village, MI. I'm not sure what you can make out in the cut and paste photo but DeTour is basically at the east end of the UP mainland.

PS. One of the workers at the boat tour place mentioned that they no longer were allowed to go through the Canadian locks. The Canadians are in a snit over US border crossing protocols. This person claimed that it is relatively easy to go into Canada but you have to jump through hoops, and wait in long lines, to get back into the US. We did notice that the volume of traffic on the bridge across the St. Mary's seemed to be less than half of what we remembered. Perhaps the Canadians just need to start crossing the river illegally. Then the US would provide them with free food, shelter, transportation and health care.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

 

Day 14 - Tuesday, September 29 - Traveling Brimley, MI to Sault Ste. Marie, MI

Tuesday weather was awesome. 

Not a big distance to travel today, which was good. We didn't have to be out of the Casino campground until 1PM and that worked well with only have to travel 20 miles to the Soo Locks Campground.

What didn't work well was what I found when hooking up. Don't know when I did it but somehow I managed to pinch the pig tail connecting the truck to the trailer. The brake and tail light wires were completely sheared. (I always check the trailer brakes when leaving a campground. I know they worked when we left Ishpeming.) The insulation on the power wire was nicked enough to see copper. I has some electrical connectors with me so after making a repair we were on our way. (I will buy a new pig tail and have it with me so that I can replace the damaged one when I get home, or before

We weren't even completely set up when we saw the first boat on the river, a tug. Soon after this one a freighter went by but I didn't get a photo of it.

After dark I was sitting in front of the window reading. It was so cool to watch the lights of freighters go by. I actually saw a westbound and an eastbound pass each other. It was dark enough that the only way you could see them was to watch the lights on the Canadian shore wink off and then back on as they passed by. The freighters have a lot of lights, but other than the cabin area the lights don't look that much difference than the lights along the Canadian shoreline. 

We say the Objibwa (boat in the photo below) go by yesterday. This (Wed) morning it went by westbound and then, a half hour later, back eastbound. The crane on it looks like it may be used to lift pallets on and off its deck.

I blew up a section of the above photo. The speck on the right side of the photo is a float plane that landed on the Canadian side of the river. A half hour later it was taking off when I took this photo.

A half hour later I saw the first freighter of the day go by. I don't know how big this one is, but the ore freighters are 800-1,000 feet long.

Weather looks like it is going to be awesome again today. Yesterday I visited with our "neighbors". The guy on the east side is from the Grand Rapids, MI area. He has been coming up here for 35 years. The guy on the west side is from west coast of FL, midway between Tampa and Tallahassee. This is at least his 3rd trip up here. The last time he was up here he only spent a couple of days in Sault Ste. Marie and then they went west, out through the badlands, before heading back to FL. He (they?) liked the campground and this trip they are spending 9 days here before heading back to FL.

This is the last week in September and the campground is full, on a weekday. MI's UP is awesome! 

Time to get out and have fun this Wed AM.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Day 13 - Monday, September 27 - Whitefish Point

 Today we drove up to Paradise, MI & Whitefish Point. When we were here in 2011 we went to Whitefish Point sightseeing and happened across Brown's Fisheries in Paradise. GREAT FISH, low key environment. We made sure to hit both places again in 2018. Today was the day to do both in 2021. Much to our chagrin we learned that Brown's was not open Sunday or Monday. We were sad.😞 Not only was Brown's closed but the ice cream place across the street had been torn down and replaced with a storage place. Doubly sad!

We ate a a newly opened restaurant just down the street from Browns. My fish and Kathy's hamburger were both good, but the new place will never have the charm of Brown's. Browns building is in need of a lot of TLC. We hope that it will still be open should we manage to get up here again.

Then it was on out to Whitefish Point and miles of Lake Superior shoreline.

All along this shore there are smooth rocks, most no bigger than eggs. They have unique colors mixed in each rock. Kathy could spend hours checking them out. The temps were in the high 50's-low60's while we were out there. The sun was shining but there was a BRISK breeze blowing in off the water. We did do a little wading, the water didn't seem all the cold but I'm sure it would have had we gotten more than just our feet wet.

It is about an hours drive up there from the campground, through absolutely gorgeous country. Below is the view from one of the many Scenic Outlooks 

I obviously need more practice doing selfies. I think I need a selfie stick.😀 Those were such a rage several years ago when we went west. Does anyone use them now?

It is beautiful the way the trees arch completely over the road in some areas. 

Michigan would be such an awesome state if the politics weren't controlled by Detroit, a city so mis-managed over the years that it actually went bankrupt a few years ago.

As we walked around the campground this afternoon we ran across this apple "bush". It couldn't have been more than 6' tall. It was loaded with apples. Kathy ate one and said it was good.

Tomorrow we move about 30 miles to the Soo Locks Campground in Sault Ste. Marie. We love sitting next to the St. Charles River watching the freighters as they prepare to enter the locks from the east, and looking across the river to watch what is happening on the Canadian shore. 

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Day 12 - Sunday, September 26 - Nothing Exciting

 This morning we stayed at the camper until around noon. It was a good morning to do a little Bible study.

Around noon we drove about a mile to Pickles, for lunch. Below is the view from our table. The water you see is Waiska Bay. At the far left of the photo the land on the horizon is Canada.

Zooming in you can see a peninsula that extends out into Lake Superior to form the bay.

Kathy had fish tacos and I had a whitefish basket. The food was excellent.

After we ate we drove over and drove down the peninsula. It is fairly narrow. In some places it was so narrow that there were cottages on only one side of the road.

Kathy did some laundry after lunch while I sat outside and enjoyed the day.

This evening we picked up a pizza from a place down the road a few miles. It was also very good. Its a good thing we are doing a fair amount of walking, with all the eating.

Below is a pretty tree/bush across from our camper.

 

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Day 11 - Saturday, September 25 - Travelling Ishpeming to Brimley, MI

 Last night it rained part of the night, but it stopped before we needed to start hooking up. When we drove to Munising earlier this week we took county road 480 to bypass going into Marquette on US41. We did the same today but went south on US41 to MI94 and took it across to the east side of Munising. The entire length of US41 thru Munising is a construction site. They are totally removing the old road and building a new one. Traffic is one lane each way. It wasn't bad the day we were there, but I wasn't looking forward to pulling the camper thru the narrow lanes.

My Garmin RV GPS would have routed us through all the construction. Kathy did a check on her map app and found the MI94 option. It was good, two lane highway the entire way. My Garmin kept telling us to make a U-turn until we were maybe 15 miles down the alternate route.

Today's drive was 170 miles. No rain while driving or setting up here. We  stopped at a rest area (MI has rest areas and scenic turnouts all over the place) and had lunch in the camper. 

We are staying at the Bay Mills Resort & Casino Campground. The casino complex and campground are located on the Bay Mills Indian Community reservation. The reservation consists of 2,400 acres on the "mainland" and Sugar Island (640 acres) in the St. Mary's river. The Tribe owns another 430 acres but  I don't know it that is technically part of the reservation.

The campground is across the road from the casino complex. In the photo below the You Are Here icon is at the west edge of the casino complex.

Kathy is standing near the You Are Here sign. The water in the bay is quite calm but the sky sure looks stormy.

Below is a photo of the casino complex taken from the campground. There are quite a few vehicles in the parking lot.

As we walked back over to the campground this is looking toward the west. The building at the left edge of the photo is the rest room, shower, laundry complex.

Below is Kathy on her way back to our camper, on the east end of the campground. It is a big place and while not full there are a lot of campers here.

I had read that the campground office was often unattended and that you had to go over to the casino to check in. When we arrived there was a sign on the office door saying pick out an empty site, but don't park there, go over to the hotel check in and check in, then go back and get set up. It had rained here and a lot of the grassy areas between the site contained ponded water. I walked around and found one that didn't, walked across the road, got signed up, came back across the road, drove to the site I had picked out and we set up. Shortly after we got set up it rained for maybe 5 minutes. It has rained several times since then.

The rate for the hotel rooms is $99/night for a regular queen room and $109 for a king with a jacuzzi. Campground rates are $29/night for a full hook up, wifi, and cable. ($20/night for just electricity) No sales tax on the reservation. Our total bill was $87 for 3 nights.

You have to wear a mask to enter the casino complex. It is noted on their website on posted on the doors. When the girl at the registration desk told the guy next to me, who had a room reservation, that he had to wear a mask while in side the complex he said, "I'm not wearing a mask. Cancel my reservation. I don't do business with Nazi's." He left. It was somewhat humorous. 

Saw another Trump sign today, still no Biden signs.

My supper is ready. I better get this sent, shut down the PC and get to eating; or I will be in trouble with the cook.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Day 10 - Friday, September 24 - Ishpeming

 The weather today was absolutely gorgeous! I could think of nothing that would have made for nicer weather than what we had today. 

Mid-morning we went into Ishpeming, parked and walked around the downtown. The "birth" of Ishpeming occurred in 1854 when iron mining got under way. 3,000 tons of ore were shipped that year. Its population peaked at a little over 13,000 in the year 1900, the current population is less than 6,500. Sadly there are lots of vacant stores along the main street. Iron mining provided jobs in the area since the 1850's, but the mines are almost all shut down now.

Over the past 10 years the population of the UP has dropped by a lot. I don't know why businesses are relocating up here, and why people aren't buying property up here. With global warming this will be prime farm country in 50 years. Buying up some property next to Lake Superior seems like a no brainer. Global warming people project that the water level in Lake Superior is going to go down over the next 100 years.

Ishpeming's City Hall is interesting. I should have checked out the inside but didn't.

Another interesting downtown landmark is the Eggbeater. It is a 162' tall vertical axis wind turbine that was built in 2010. It was supposed to provide power for a multistory housing complex. It has never generated a kwh of electricity. The Town Council has been trying to get the owner to remove is since 2013. From what I can tell he admits that this one will never generate electricity, but he has a new, improved model almost ready for production and he will replace this one with the new model. The new improved one just never seems to make it into production.

We then went out to visit Da Yoopers Tourist Trap again. We thought we should check to see is it had changed much from previous years. It hadn't. Look at photos from around August 17, 2018 if you are interested.

Back at the camper we sat outside reading and enjoying the fantastic weather. Mid-afternoon we headed to Sheri's restaurant, a few miles west of the campground. Kathy had read about their Friday fish specials. It was the best meal we have had in the UP this trip.

We did have an interesting experience while at Sheri's. Kathy was facing the door and shortly after we ordered she said, "Is your brother (David) up here?" I said no. She told me to turn around and sure enough the guy looked like my brother. She said, "Hey David." and he came over to the table with a puzzled look on his face. His name is David, and he sure looks like my brother, but he is not.

My brother sent me a selfie to show that he was restoring one his stampcrete surfaces in Coldwater. Together they don't look so much alike, but I did really think he was my brother.

Then it was back to the campground for a nap, more reading and just plain enjoying the day.

Late this afternoon the bottom started dropping out of the thermometer. Today's high was 73. Now, at 10:30 it is 50 and has been raining for a couple of hours.

Tomorrow the plan is to move to a campground in Brimley, MI, about 170 miles from here and about 15 miles west of Sault Ste. Marie.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Day 9 - Thursday, September 23 - Marquette, MI

We went to Marquette again this morning, late this morning. Downtown Marquette is about a 25 minute drive from the campground. We seem to by getting around later and later as the trip progresses. Soon we may not even be out of the camper by noon 😀. I did a walk around the campground, 0.57 miles, before leaving; checking to see if anything significant had changed since my walk around last evening. Nothing had.

SLOWLY the fall colors are coming. While driving we have seen an occasional tree with vivid red leaves, but not many so far.

Then it was on to Marquette. No climbing Sugarloaf Mountains today (Kathy is still feeling the effects from our earlier climb).  We parked about a quarter mile from the pier and walked down to it, stopping at a bakery place we had heard about. We mostly enjoyed some of the same sights we did when we were here that last time.

It was good to see an old downtown theater still operating.

A great playground at the park at the pier and boat launch.

Our tax dollars at work. The EPA's Lake Guardian was docked. It has been roaming the Great Lakes, between March and October, since the early 90's. Onboard are multiple labs for testing water quality, testing all types of aquatic life, etc. It is 180 feet long and "berths" 42 people, 14 crew and up to 28 "scientists".

Below I managed a quick snapshot of Kathy leaving after placing an order for us at the Fish Express. It was 57 degrees and WINDY as we sat at a picnic table and ate our fish. The fish was good, but it wasn't twice as good as Long John Silvers, even though it cost over twice as much. (Our mouths are still watering waiting for our trip to Brown's Fisheries Fish House when we get near Paradise, MI. We loved it in 2011 and again in 2018.) We had planned on experimenting with a Thai restaurant but they did not allow inside seating, and had no outside seating. Several of the downtown restaurants seemed to be the same. Don't know whether they are terrified of COVID or just can't find anyone willing to work. As you can see in the photo there aren't a lot of masked YOOPERS.

After our walk at the pier, and our outdoor lunch the Fish Express, we headed back to the camper for a nap and some afternoon reading.

Have I mentioned that retirement/travelling is great?

I didn't take many photos because the photos from our 2018 trip are still on the blog. That year we arrived in Ishpeming on Day 8 of our trip, August 16, and left on Day 11, August 19. That year I went to a couple of interesting local museums that we didn't visit this trip, at least so far. Let me know if you are interested and have trouble finding them.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

PS. Finished my six session online study of Genesis, through Hillsdale College, this afternoon. It was interesting, but some of the big words used by the Professor stretched my mind.

Day 8 - Wednesday, September 22, Munising, MI

 Today started with a bleak look.

Kathy had called the Picture Rocks boat tour people in Munising and learned that their 2 PM trip had been cancelled but the 5 PM trip might still go. We decided to take a chance headed to Munising, a little over an hours drive from the campground. When we arrived I went in and talked to the people. They said that they had not cancelled the 5 PM trip yet but they doubted that it would go. They said that if they did go the ride would be ROUGH. We went down the road a bit to see what the glass bottom boat people had to say. They were going to run their 1 PM tour but they were only going to go to do half the normal tour. They were going to stay on the lee side of Grand Island.

Looking at the above map you have to wonder how much time could you spend in the little area between the mainland and the island. The answer is, a lot. Grand Island is 13,800 acres. It is 8 miles from north to south. I didn't check how long we were on the water, but it was a nice boat ride. Note how the flag is standing straight out as we left the dock. The temperature was in the mid 50's and there was a strong wind. The captain said that we would encounter 3-4 foot waves during our trip. If we ventured outside the protection of the island the waves would double in size.

I was wearing a tee shirt, a flannel shirt, a hoodie and a rain jacket. I was cool, but not cold during the trip.

The old Grand Island lighthouse is on the left of the photo below.

The photo below shows the lighthouse and the attached home. 

The sunlight reflecting off the water made a beautiful scene.

The average water temperature of Lake Superior in this area is 48 degrees. Because of the current the water between the mainland and the island does not always freeze over. The island receives an average of 300" of lake effect snow during the winter.

After the boat trip we headed back to the campground.

We stopped a one of the many Scenic Outlooks on the way back. Kathy had to go beach walking. I stayed up where the sand was solid, and the wind was a little less strong.

Yes, she really is wading.

It was a good day.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.