Four States in One Day

Well kind of. But first things first.

Before crossing back into the US we stopped in St. Catherine's, ON. This is the town where my Mom was born and raised long before becoming a Texan. Her dad was a tailor and had a shop downtown. We found the building easily identified with the "Hoffman" name which now houses a bistro. Like most downtown areas this one looks to be struggling but there does appear to be life with many businesses still open. And like most cities this downtown is competing with the "burbs". Still cool to see our name on the building.

The "Hoffman" building

We first crossed back into the states at Niagara Falls. Cynthia had never seen the falls before and it was on our way so we made a quick top. As crowded as ever we only stayed long enough to get a view of the two main falls then we moved on.

The power and beauty is awesome

The "Maid of the Mist" takes you close to the base of the falls

Need I say more?

From here we travelled a little further east to the first of three NY state parks that we stayed in. We stopped for the night close enough that we could easily get to Rochester the next day. There we wanted to go the George Esatman House and to also visit a former colleague of mine that I had not seen in 30+ years. Micheal is a Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). Along with other schools RIT has one of the best photo and art schools anywhere. The facilities are amazing and of course the price of tuition goes with those amazing facilities. But as they say you get what you pay for! Also while visitng the schools Cynthia was apple to get an appointment with the curator of the RIT book collection. She presented her handmade book which was well received. Hopefully they will add hers to their collection.

That afternoon we visited the GEH, which is of course the home to the inventor of modern photography and Kodak. His mansion was spectacular and an addition has been built to house the curatorial staff, exhibits spaces and collections.

History of photography room with camera displays and photo exhibit

Music room

Gardens

Newer section at back

From Rochester we continued east driving through the Adirondacks. Late in the day we stopped at Lake Pleaseant and had a wonderful evening on the lake shore being entertained by the ducks swimming by.

Early morning fog on the lake

We had one more stop in NY, near Glen Falls. While driving south we decided to shop for the weekend in the area. I was able to get a bike ride in but in reality it was hike than bike but it was good to get some exercise.

Now for the four states in a day. We left early the next morning and were quickly in New Hamshire, then just an hour or so later we passed into Vermont and then finally into Maine.

Today we arrived in Camden and will be here for a few days. Friday we head to Boothbay for our final family event, the wedding of another cousin. The next Monday we head south or rather southwest, time to get back home. With a few stops on the way we should be back by the end of the month or thereabouts.

More to come...

Posted with Blogsy

The Soo Locks

One the great tourist "to do's" is a boat ride through the Soo Locks. For only $25 you travel up the St. Mary's River into the locks and then into the Lake Superior side of the river. You then go up river a bit get closer to the Canadian side of the river and back through the locks again. This point of the river has a 21 ft drop from the Lake Superior side to the Lake Huron side of the river. There are actually 4 parallel lock chambers but two have been shut down and only the Poe and MacArthur locks still in use. The largest of the two, the Poe, is over 1,000 ft long and 100+ ft wide thus allowing the largest of the cargo ships to pass. Of particular interest is that the ship's captain pilots these huge vessels into the locks without the use of a channel pilot or tug boat like would be used in coastal shipping. In about 15 minutes the water level rises or drops 21 feet all due to the power of gravity. No pumps are used or needed to fill or empty the lock chamber. Here are the photos.

 

Entering on lower side

 

Exiting after the "raise"

 

Water level at full

 

Leaving on the "high" side

 

Ore carrier Edgar Speer-painted in the colors of it's cargo. Rust for iron ore, black for coal and grey for grain (IIRC). This is one of the larger vessels on the Great Lakes.

 

Return through the lock at low side

 

View at low side

 

We did the Valley Camp and lock tour on the same day so we decided to head downtown to the local Irish pub where we met some locals, played bingo and had an enjoyable evening.

 

The next morning we crossed back into Canada headed toward the Parry Sound area which is a couple of hours north of Toronto. We then spent the weekend at my cousin's wedding having a great time visiting the family and meeting new people. The wedding was beautiful and was held at the summer camp where the couple met-fortunately the rain held off for the entire day.

Monday was time to move on again, this time into New York.

 

More to come...

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sault Saint Marie, MI

Although we still had a week to go we needed to move closer to getting back into Canada. We knew we would be crossing at Sault Saint Marie, MI and on the advice from our WI camping friends we headed to the local municipal CG there. This was a pretty spectacular CG as it is on the St. Mary's River and literally just a hundred feet or so from the shipping channel. The St. Mary's is the river that connects Lake Superior with Lake Huron. All boats going into and out of Lake Superior must go through these locks and thus sail right in front of the CG. As the ships go by the campers all go to the water's edge to watch, sometimes even receiving a "captain's salute" from the horn on the ship.

Ore carrier at the CGs edge

 

There is quite a bit to do in SSM and as expected most of the activities revolve around the locks and shipping. The two most impressive things we did was tour the locks via boat and then tour the Valley Camp, a retired ore carrier, still floating, but made into a museum (for a description of the ship see the first photo below).

 

The Valley Camp

 

This tour was quite fascinating especially if you have never been on this type of vessel. It is huge! You enter about midship and only the rear half is used as a museum. There are numerous exhibits on Great Lakes shipping, the Coast Guard, types of ships, the "who" of Great Lakes shipping and two of the life boats recovered from the Edmond Fitzgerald. Below are photos from all aspects of the ship. These exhibits are located in the "hold" of the ship well below deck.

 

General exhibit area-notice the wavy floor caused by years of cargo beating on the steel

 

Ships gauges in engine room

 

Display of tools used in engine room

 

These ships were coal burners

 

Profiles of ships sailing the Great Lakes

 

Lifeboat from the Edmond Fitzgerald

 

Captains dining room

 

Galley

 

On the deck-note all the cargo hatches open to one massive cargo hold

 

The bridge

 

Communications gear

 

The pilot house

 

This was a great way to get an idea of the size and scope of theses ships. The vessels used today while more modern, are still the same basic design. The longest ships able to sail the Great Lakes is about 1,000 ft, limited only by the size of the Soo Locks.

Next up the Soo Locks.

More to come.....

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Upper Pennisula

Our next stop was at the Pictured Rocks National Seashore, still on Lake Superior. This is an area that was established both for it's beauty and historical significance. Again we were hampered by rain but the cliffs of the seashore are very dramatic when viewed from the water (which we did not do) and the shoreline contains several shipwrecks, some from over a hundred years ago. We set up camp in the NFS CG but much too our dismay was just like camping on the beach. We were located high above the shoreline in the tress but essentially we were still in the sand dunes and there is nothing worse than wet sand to contend with! But we finally arrived in an area with a noteworthy event we could partake in. The Au Train Light House was commemorating it's 140th birthday and the park service held a special evening shoreline walk to view several shipwrecks then on to a tour of the lighthouse. This was a very interesting evening. The next day we spent in the small town of Gran Marais, another very small lakeside town, not much there but we met some interesting folks. This was another nice area to visit (except for the sand!) but it was time to move again.

 

View of shoreline

 

 

Shpiwreck debris

 

Same wreck but different perspective

 

In Gran Marias we toured a small musuem dedicated to the lighhouse keepers. One item of particular interest. This bike from the 1890s was ridden from Montana to this small town (actually a man and woman each rode their own bike)! Note the direct drive assembly, no chain! Pretty remarkable for the time and in most all other aspects looks like any bike today.

 

1890s bike

 

Direct drive

We have been told to try to visit Mackinac Island so we headed that direction. Our campground was in the town of St. Ignace, MI which is where Lakes Michigan and Huron meet separated only in part by the Mackinaw Bridge. Mackinac Island is a short boat ride out into Lake Huron but is quite unique in that no cars or motor powered vehicles are allowed, only bikes and horse drawn carriages! It is really great to see streets lined only with bikes; bikes, bikes everywhere! Also watching the UPS delivery man pull packages from the back of a horse drawn wagon was unique. We rented cruiser bikes and rode the 8.2 island loop, very easy and a good way to see the perimeter of the island. Unless you are staying on the island your time there is limited due to the ferry schedule, the last boat leaves at 7 p.m.

UPS delivery on the island

 

No cars!

 

Bellman picking up bags at the dock

 

Another interesting tour in this area is the USCG Icebreaker Mackinaw. This ship, located in Mackinaw City just across the bridge from our CG, was impressive. Built for use during WWII to keep the Great Lakes free of ice so iron ore could be moved to help the war effort, it was decommissioned on 2006 and now is a museum. We took the self guided tour with docents in strategic places and information videos and placards elsewhere. It is important to note that this vessel never once got stuck in the ice (the new replacement has) and served the Great Lakes for over 50 years.

USCG Icebreaker Mackinaw

 

 

Ship's mission embedded on deck

 

We knew that our route into Canada would take us through Sault Sainte Marie, MI and our WI camping neighbors provided us with great information on that area.

 

More to come....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Wisconsin to the Upper Pennisula, Michigan

Sorry for the delay in posting. These next few posts go back a few weeks to get you caught up to date. There are not too many photos initailly but I do have a quite few in the next posts.

 

Our stay in Minnesota was limited and we continued east on Hwy. 2 reaching the Wisconsin border at Duluth/Superior. After a quick trip into Duluth to the Duluth Trading Post (don't we all get their catalogs?) for a look around and a few purchases, we then continued south toward Stevens Point, WI. It is here in Stevens Point that we were to visit with a grad school friend of Cynthia's, Guillermo and his wife Carol. It was a long day on the road but we arrived at the county park just outside the city for our 3 night visit. Stevens Point is a nice little university town, with the Univ. of Wisconsin, Stevens Point located here, which is a smaller school of about 9,000 students. It was a great visit with Guillermo and Carol but soon enough it was time to move on again.

 

A short drive from SP is Green Bay, of course home to the GB Packers. The road took us right by the stadium so we took the short detour into town to check this out. The area immediately surrounding Lambeau Field is ALL Packers! It was fun to see and realize just how much this team is the city and the city is the team! Weren't we all Packer fans once?

 

Not wanting to drive too much further that day we moved a few miles down the road to another city park in Oconto, WI. A beautiful day found us set up on the Oconto River which was once used to transport timber for the lumber mills, long since gone. A great camping encounter with a local couple provided us with great company, "spirits" and travel information for the UP. There is a great historical museum in town (unfortunately no photos were allowed) with some great items some of which were original to the family that lived in the house and other items donated by locals. In the carriage house were two electric cars, a "Waverley Electric Car" fully restored and a "Detroit 22" electric car waiting for restoration. Fascinating to see these early 1900s vehicles.

 

We decided to only stay one night here in Oconto as the weather was turning rainy again. We moved on the the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan. Our first night was in Gladstone, again at another city run CG. We then moved on to Marquette, MI on the shore of Lake Superior. We booked a couple of nights here hoping to get some riding in but as usual the weather came back to limit that. Our first day was beautiful and I managed a 10 mile MTB ride on trails surrounding the CG but that was all I got in. Marquette has a great MTB community and their local trails organization is strong thus creating miles of trails in the local forests. This would be a good place to come back to. At the end of my ride I stopped at the lake shore for a while to watch an ore carrier coming into dock and just sat there trying to grasp the size and scope of Lake Superior. It is the largest of the Great Lakes and holds 1/5th of the worlds fresh water! On a beautifully calm day it is also hard to imagine that come November (the most dangerous month on the lakes), the squalls and storms that blow create waves 10-20 feet high! Of course we all know about the Edmund Fitzgerald that sunk here-waves that night we reported to be 35 feet high, just incredible! In many respects looking out into Lake Superior is like standing on the Seawall at home and looking into the Gulf of Mexico-only the horizon line is visible and the lake seems just as big. It is really quite impressive. Marquette has a small Maritime Museum depicting the history of seafaring in the area and it does not take long to understand the importance of these lakes both to the local and national economies.

A quick note on the Edmond Fitzgerald. We all know the story as presented to us in Gordon Lightfoot's song. The true cause of the wreck is still undetermined-some say the ship broke in two then sank, others believe some cargo hatches gave way thus causing the ship to capsize. The ship was a little over 700 ft long (the largest Great Lakes carrier at the time it was built) and it sank in water over 500 ft deep. One amazing vision: if the ship sank as a result of the cargo holds filling with water then essentially taking a nose dive to the bottom, when the bow hit the bottom 200 ft of the ship would still have been above the water line!

Another rainy day pushed us on toward the Pictured Rocks National Seashore a little further east.

 

More to come....

 

Posted with Blogsy