Thursday & Frday, July 21st & 22nd - Locks & Moving

 Thursday:

It rained on and off part of the day. Fortunately it was dry when we went to see the locks. A disappointing experiencing, to start with, the main building is closed on Wednesday's and Thursdays (OK, we should have checked earlier). It is where you can read about the history of the locks. I assume that inside the building  there is information about the new lock that is under construction. There was none in the lock viewing area.

There are two active locks at the Soo Locks. The MacArthur Lock, built in 1943, is 800' long by 80' wide by 29.5' deep. The Poe Lock was re-built in 1968. It is 1,200' long by 110' wide by 32' deep. The Poe Lock handles almost 90% of the tonnage that travels through the locks. 

Congress approved a new Poe size lock in 1986 and again in 2007, they just never bothered to include money in the budget for construction. Finally, in 2019 $75 million was included to start Phase I of what was supposed to be a one billion dollar project. Phase one included deepening the river, the bottom of which is rock in many areas, to provide a channel to the new lock. This month it was revealed that the Army Corp of Engineers were a little off with their original cost estimate. Instead of a $1 billion dollar price tag the cost is now estimated to be $3 billion. The completion date is 2030 so who knows how high the cost will actually go. 

There is no doubt the new lock is needed. If the Poe lock has to shut down during the normal shipping season the steel mills along the Great Lakes wouldn't have enough iron ore to keep producing. River traffic seemed to move in an orderly manner the first few days we were here but the last couple of days it seems that freighters idle for extended periods of time while waiting to get into the locks.

RV mix at the campground remains about the same. Typically 5 or 6 Class A's, about that many Class C's and about an equal split between 5th wheels and travel trailers. There is some tent camping and also 1-3 truck campers, but they aren't your grandpa's truck campers.

This one gets hauled around by a  Dodge Cummins 350 dually.

The vast majority  of our hot water has been heated using the electric side of our water heater. When we were at Mom's we used the propane side because there is only a 20 amp circuit down at the pond. (It was also powering a refrigerator and lights in a travel trailer part of the time we were there.) It worked fine but then it didn't want to keep burning. I pulled the burner electrical connections apart and cleaned them, raked a piece of coat hanger around in the burner chamber and sucked, then blew, the combustion chamber out with a shop vac. It will stay burning now but the flame doesn't sound right to me. Something to have someone smarter than me look at.

Friday: Moving day

We packed up and left our beloved Soo Locks Campground this morning. Lord willing we will be back next summer. I was talking to the guy next to us as I was packing. He has been coming to the campground to 27 years. I think he and his wife spend most of the summer there.

More thousands of bales of hay on the 20 mile trip to Brimley. We have seen only a few head of cattle. It doesn't seem possible that hay is worth transporting to lower Michigan when fuel is $6/gallon.

We stayed at Bay Mills Casino and RV Park a few days last year, when we couldn't get in to Soo Locks Campground. The casino is on an Indian reservation. Sault Ste. Marie is in the upper right of the photo below and Bay Mills is in the lower left. The river is the St Mary's and the solid line down it is the dividing line between Canada and the US. 

I'm not sure how many sites are here. We are in 118, the lbue dot. We had reservations. When we checked in at 1 PM there were only  4 sites available for us to choose from.

We saw these guys while we were walking around the campground. I think this is how we indoctrinate our children to prepare them for electric vehicles. They were pushing it back to their campsite, which wasn't far, to plug it back in.

It amazes me how time seems to fly by. We have now been living in our coach for nearly 10 weeks. We left Missouri 3 weeks ago today. The other thing is how late it stays light here. Today sunrise was at 6:07 and sunset at 9:21. This compares to sunrise at 6:02 and sunset at 8:29 in Centertown.

We are most definitely enjoying the cooler temperatures. Weather bug says today's high/low in Centertown was 102/71. Here the high/low was 80/61, still a little warmer than we would like but its the only day in the 10 day forecast with a high in the 80's.

We definitely need to top oof our fuel tanks before leaving here. Gas/fuel is much less expensive at a station just down the road from the campground. Diesel $5.59 and regular $4.64. Typical prices are $5.89 & $4.74. Maybe the station is on the reservation and its a tax thing.

Amusing RV anecdote: If you have seen the move RV and remember the tank dumping incident you can appreciate today's event. I dumped our grey and black water tanks as we left Soo Locks. I left a little in both tanks to slosh around as we drove to Bay Mills. Once here I hooked up the sewer line and the water line that  "flushes" out the black tank. I drained both tanks and turned on the flush water line line. After a few minutes of flushing I closed the black tank valve and let water build up  in the tank a little while I hooked up our water line and turned off the flush water line, at least I thought I did. Kathy called me to come in and eat lunch. As I was making a sandwich when she noted water running off the front corner of the roof. We had the AC on because it was humid and I said it was probably condensation off the AC unit. She replied that it was  a LOT of water for condensation. I looked and agreed. When I went out and checked I had not turned of the flush line and water was coming out the rooftop plumbing vent.  It appears that I did a pressure test on our wastewater system and it all checks out OK. The water coming off the roof looked as clean as if it was coming directly out of the hose.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.