Mackinaw City & Mackinaw Island

8/29/2007
This is the Mackinaw Bridge that scared me when I had to pass those trucks on such narrow lanes. The bridge is 5 miles long so you can't see all of it in this picture. These are the main spans the rest is more like a cos way but still narrow lanes. The bridge is celebrating it's 50th birthday this year. It was opened in 1957. So far it hasn't collapsed. :-) We are camped at the Mackinaw Mill Creek Campground. It's about 3 miles down route 23 from Mackinaw City. It has 600 camp sites and is full for the Labor day Weekend, so tomorrow we must move on. You should see the RVs poring into the campground. They have a man out on route 23 making the incoming RVs pull of the road on the right to keep from blocking the highway. The RVs are backed up a block waiting to get in and register.

The Mackinaw Bridge, remember to click on it, it is much more impressive in full screen.

8/30/2007
We took the ferry to Mackinaw Island today. The campground has a free shuttle to and from the boat dock. They pick you up with an old school bus that has a small trailer on the back to load your bikes on. The ferry cost $18.00 a person round trip and $7.00 for the bike.


This is the first view of Mackinaw Island as you approach it from the Mackinaw City side. There also are boats coming in from the north side of the bridge. They are coming from St Ignace on the north shore. The picture is of course the Grand Hotel. If you remember the movie with Christopher Reeves, "Lost in Time" this is where it was filmed.

A light house at the entrance to the Mackinaw Island Harbor.

This is a view of part of the harbor with people waiting for their boat. There are about four ship lines that bring people to the island. Ships are coming in and out continuously. Our ship runs ever half hour. The trip across takes 20 minutes on a fast boat.

A view of the shore line coming into Mackinaw Island.

A view of the bike trail which goes all around the island. There are no motorized vehicles allowed on the island. The trail around the island is 7.1 miles. There are more bikes per square mile on it than in China.

Arch Rock it is about two miles from town on the bike trail.

This is a black squirrel. We saw quite a few on the island. We also saw grey and red squirrels on the island. This fellow was scrounging in the picnic area.

This was one of the picnic areas on the trail. This one was about half way around the island and had rest rooms and a small restaurant with sky high prices. Peggy bought potato chips. They didn't have any of the regular kind, they only had homemade potato chips. She got a small paper sack full for $2.00. I'm calling it a trail but it was actually a two lane blacktop road. Since they have no motorized vehicles on the island they use horses to transport the heavy items. They also have carriage rentals. There is a man who goes around with a wheel barrow and shovel, cleaning up after the horses. I don't know which smells worse, exhaust from cars or horse s--t.

I got this picture on the return trip. This type of boat produces a picturesque rooster tail. Peggy has her bike helmet on to hide her hair which after wearing the helmet all day her hair doesn't look like she just came from the beauty parlor. Woman are are such vain creatures, glad men are not that way. :-) Just kidding ladies. To be truthful I had mine on too, but I was just keeping my head warm. :-)

Sault Sainte Marie

8/27/2007
We left Marquette and drove east along Lake Superior on route 28. What a great drive. It is right on the shoreline and mostly a two lane blacktop road with very little traffic.

This was the view at one of the pull offs along the road. The Canadian Geese were grazing along the shore. Hundreds off ducks were a little further to the left and the sea gulls were going crazy near the motorhome because someone had thrown out a couple of slices of bread. I took a picture of the gulls but all I got was a blur of feathers.

This was our campground in Sault Sainte Marie. It was right along the St. Mary River which is the entrance to the Soo Locks. It was a nice campground but didn't have sewer connections. It did have a dump station.

Here is a picture of a boat going by the campground on it's way to the Locks.

This ship is just getting ready to enter one of the Locks. They have a viewing platform which is raised about 20 feet above the locks so you get a good view. The platform is right on main street and there is a visitor center there with information about the boats coming to the lock. It tells the name of the boat and the expected arrival time. It also has a TV monitor which shows the boats down stream coming to the lock. They also show four movies about the locks.

Here is one of the boats just entering a lock. There are four locks on the American side and two older locks on the Canadian side. Notice you can just barely see the top of the middle part of the boat and since my camera doesn't have a very wide angle lens you can't see the back part of the boat.

This pleasure boat has just entered the lock on it's way down stream and is tying up.

This is the same boat after they have lowered it to the level of the down stream river.

Now it is on it's way out after having been lowered 21 feet.

Here is the ore boat going out after being raised 21 feet. Note that now you can see the side of the boat. This boat was only about 700 feet long. The large boats are as much as 1000 feet long.

This is a view of the bridge to Canada from the observation platform. We only spent one night in Sault Sainte Marie. The next day we headed for Mackinaw City, Mackinaw Island and Mackinaw Bridge. I guess I'm just a cheapskate because I hate paying tolls. I think with all the gas taxes we pay the roads should be free. I always avoid toll roads when I can. However, I couldn't avoid the toll on the Mackinaw Bridge and it was $8.00. The bridge is 5 miles long. Sometimes the wind gets up to the point where they have to stop traffic from going across. The speed limit on the bridge is 45 miles/hour for cars and 20 miles/hour for loaded trucks. The passing lane on the bridge is a steel mesh and it throws you back-and-fourth. Naturally when we crossed there were two trucks in front of us. They must keep in the right lane and of course at 45 miles/hour I had to pass them. The lanes are barely wide enough and I was a nervous wreck passing two of them. I sure was glad to get off that bridge.

Houghton, MI.

8/22-27/2007
We spent Wednesday night at the Wall-mart in Houghton. Then Thursday morning we went to the Houghton City RV Park. It was one of the nicest RV parks we have camped in.

Here is a picture of our site in the park. Notice the blacktop parking and the view of the channel. It had full hookups and was only $23.00 a night.

This is the covered picnic tables and the bench to sit and watch the boats on the channel and the view across the channel. We have never had a campsite with covered a picnic table.

This is the west entrance to the channel it's about 10 miles west of Houghton.

View of the drawbridge across the channel to Hancock and the northern part of the Keweenaw Peninsula. Friday we took an 8 mile bike ride on the bike trail that runs along the channel. It is also a great trail, blacktopped and fairly level for the 4 miles out that we went. The trail then goes 3 more miles but is packed gravel, so we didn't take it.

This is one of the boardwalks along the bike trail. It's on the Nara River.

These were along the boardwalk. I don't know what they are called but they certainly added color to the area.

Another view along the walk way.

This is a view across the channel of the Hancock side and the ski lifts.

This is also a view across the channel of the abandon copper smelter. The mine was at the top of the hill. We left Houghton Monday and spent the night in the Marquette Wal-mart parking lot.

Minnesota Lake Superior Drive

8/20/2007
We left Grand Portage heading for Duluth, MI. Route 61 is a beautiful drive along the west side of Lake Superior. It was an over cast cool day with a strong cool breeze and a slow drizzling rain.
There are many stops along the way with scenic views and walk ways to other views such as the one above of the hidden falls.

This is the hidden falls and you can see why they are called the hidden falls. You have to go up on the overlook and peek around the corner to see the falls.

This was another stop along the road to see this scenic view where this river emptied into Lake Superior. There were fishermen here trying their luck. There was also a rapids on the other side of the road which I have pictures of in my picture album. We stopped at a bakery in a small town to get some fresh baked goods. We spent the night in the Wal-mart parking lot in Hermantown which is a suburb of Duluth. The next day was another drizzly day so we left for the Keweenaw Peninsula in Michigan.

Grand Portage

8/17/2007
Actually the first part of this is still in International Falls.

This statue of Smokey is right in downtown International Falls at the Smokey Bear Park.There is a museum right behind Smokey which has two parts. One part is about Bronko Nagurski, for those of you who don't know who he was here is a web site to visit, that tells all about him http://www.bronkonagurski.com/ . He was possibly one of the greatest football players of all time. He played for the Chicago Bears in the 1930s. The other part of the museum is about the voyageurs. I'll tell you more about the voyageurs when I get to the Grand Portage.

We took a bike ride on a trail they have constructed that runs along route 11 which goes out to one of the Voyageur National Park visitor center. The bike trail goes through the town of Ranier. We rode it about 3.5 miles one way so the trip was about 7 miles, it goes further but that was all we could handle. On the way back through Ranier we stopped at a little restaurant and had lunch. I had a great patty melt sandwich. It was made on home made bread with cheese, onions and a nice portion of cooked just right ground meat. Peggy order garlic bread on toast. She said it was delicious. It also was home made bread.


This sign and statue is at the entrance to the little town of Ranier.

These flowers were all over the place along the bike trail. I don't know what they are called but they certainly add color at this time of year this far north because all of the spring flowers are gone in fact they are getting ready for winter. Their tourist season is over about August 17th.

8/18/2007
We left International Falls and drove through Canada to Grand Portage, Minnesota. We were pleasantly surprise on entering Canada. It was the first time in about four crossings that we weren't searched. We were begining to think we looked dishonest. From the stories were heard we thought we would have a problem crossing back into the US. Again we were pleasantly surprised. The guard even was joking with us and let us go straight through. One of the things that probably helped was that we had our passports with us. I hate the thoughts of having to get a new one in a couple of years, the price of them has gone sky high. The drive on Canada route 11 was beautiful there are so many lakes. The biggest part of Rainy Lake is in Canada. The road is a good two lane black top with little traffic.

When we crossed back into the U.S. this was our first view of Lake Superior.

This was our campground at Grand Portage. It had this great view of Lake Superior. It had full hook ups and as you can see it had no trees so our satellite worked fine. It did have more RVs than the picture shows but it wasn't full by any means.

8/19/2007

The campground was just off route 61 which is a scenic drive along Lake Superior and goes all the way to Duluth. We went back up it to the Voyageur State Park, it is right at the border crossing. There is a falls in the park which is the highest falls in Minnesota. I guess that's why they call it High Falls. The following pictures are from the park.

I had to put both of these pictures in even though they are not real sharp. The little fellow wouldn't stay still for me but a fellow on the trail that was watching said, " He certainly posed for you, first a frontal view then a side view." So here is the frontal view

and here is the side view.

While most of the country was having 100 degree weather it was cool up here, about 60 degrees, with a cool breeze off Lake Superior. The blue coat Peggy has on she made. The red plaid coat is mine which she hates but in this Paul Bunyan country it is very appropriate. The blue wool shirt around her legs is mine also which I had taken off because I was too warm.

This view though not very scenic is across the river into Canada. The falls are to the left. If you blow the picture up and look close you can see the remains of an old flume. The loggers used it to get their logs around the falls.

View of High Falls. There is an other falls up the river about a mile but we didn't go to it. It's called the Middle Falls and isn't as high as this one. These falls are the reason for this area being called the Grand Portage. The Indians and the Voyageurs had to portage 9 miles around this area to start their voyage back to their forts or depots.

This portly gentleman was one of the park employees that dressed in period attire and told the stories about the times. He and some other employees build birch bark canoes and snow shoes. He was extremely knowledgeable. He has been doing this for 25 years and really loves his work. He explained that there were two types of voyageurs. One came from Montreal and brought the trade goods to this depot and returned with the furs the other voyageurs brought. The other type voyageur brought the furs from the Indians to this depot picked up the trade goods and went back and spent the winter with the Indians or at the depots. They didn't like each other and when they got together there usually was some blood shed. He told us much more and in great detail it was extremely interesting. one thing was that none of the voyageurs were trppers, they got all of their furs from the Indians who did the trapping.

This is one of the birch bark canoes they just finished building.

This is a view from inside the Grand Portage Depot. He told us the walls were not built for defence just to keep people out at night. I'm sure he was right because it certainly was nor strategically located. There was a hill right behind it that any one attacking the fort could shoot down on it.

This sign explains the next picture.

The reconstructed Great Hall. Just on the other side of the parking lot was the path of the Great Portage, a nine mile trek. We walk about a block of it.

International Falls, Minnesota

8/11-16/2007
Let me give you a little information about Voyageurs National Parks. It is the newest national park. It was signed into law in 1971 by Nixon. It was opened in 1975. It is 219,000 acres, one third is water, most is in the four lakes, Kabetogama, Namakon, Sand Point and the largest Rainy Lake. The center of the park is the Kabetogama peninsula. The park was names after the voyageurs that canoed this route from about 1660 to 1850. They were mostly French Canadians from Montreal. They traded with the Indians for beaver belts. I'll tell you more about them when I tell you about our stop at Grand Portage, Minnesota.

Note: It is the only sign at a national park that I have seen where the name of the park is not in big letters.

Since the park can only be seen by water they offer boat rides from two of the three visitor centers. This dock is at Rainy Lake visitor center.

This is from our first boat ride at Little America Island. There was a gold mine on it. It's not the type gold mining I have seen in California or Alaska. Here they looked for quartz veins and when they found them they would ship the ore to a stamping plant at the city of Rainy. There they would crush the ore and with a flotation process extract the gold. It didn't last long because it was not very economical.

This is one of the cabins the park has left.

The building in the middle is an ice house. In the winter they would cut ice from the lake, the ice on the lake gets 40 inches thick, store it in this ice house covered with saw dust. The guide said it would last up to two years. The manager at the RV park says it gets to 40 below in the winter here.

One of the many islands on Rainy Lake.

Young bald eagle in it's nest.

I know you really can't tell from the photo but these are loons. If you ever heard their call you would know where the expression "crazy as a loon" comes from.

This is one of the gold mines on an island in Rainy Lake.

This is from our sunset cruise. Unfortunately it wasn't one of the better sunsets. It would have been better if there were some clouds to reflect the suns rays, but the only thing there was to reflect the light was the haze. There are more pictures in the Minnesota album.