We continued our journey into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with a visit to the city of Sault Ste. Marie, on the St. Marys River that connects Lake Huron with Lake Superior.
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As forecast, a few thunderstorms passed through the area Wednesday night, but by Thursday morning the sun was out again. Tom was happy to find that the on-the-road mod/hack he had installed the night before had worked like a charm. He sleeps on the "bathroom wall side" of the bed, and during last year's shake-down trips had just kept his glasses, phone, and watch tucked up against the wall at night (the "window side" of the bed where Christine sleeps has a storage basket above it, but it isn't big enough for both of our stuff and is awkward to reach from Tom's side). That didn't seem like a good long-term solution for daily use, so before we left on the Trek we installed a small folding metal shelf (highly recommended by our friends on the TOWB Facebook group) on his side which is big enough for his phone and glasses, but not his watch. But being wedged in the crack between the wall and the bed kept the watch's Nightstand Mode tap-to-wake function from working half the time (after he managed to grope around in the dark enough to find the watch in the first place, since it seemed to be in a slightly different spot every night) so its placement was sub-ideal. For weeks Tom had been dreaming up crazy-complicated ways of building an additional shelf off of the metal one, and then realized one night as he was looking up: there are drainage slits in the shelf, and it'd be super easy to just put loops of Velcro through those to thread the watch bands through. We carry super heavy duty Velcro onboard (for strapping the unsafe awning closed) but Christine remembered that we're also carrying lighter weight Velcro cable ties which seemed more suited to task, so he used those instead.
They worked like a charm! The charger is twisty-tied to one of the loops so it doesn't fall out when the watch isn't there, and it takes just a few seconds to put the straps in and out; the natural arc of the band against the wall keeps it in perfect Nightstand Mode position while hanging. Tom doesn't even need to reach up to the watch to tap it wake it; he just needs to jiggle the cord hanging right next his pillow.
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Leaving St. Ignace, we stopped at the Bridge Timeline viewpoint to take some photos (catching one of the morning ferries passing under the bridge), and read about the history of the Mackinac Bridge.
In the little information center we learned all sorts of fun facts and history about the bridge. In our previous blog post, we described the bridge as "a mini-Golden Gate Bridge" - despite the fact that the bridge is actually "the longest suspension bridge in the Western Hemisphere". The disparity comes from how you look at things: measured end to end (from anchorage to anchorage), the Mackinac wins at 26,372 ft. (5 miles) to the Golden Gate's 8,981 ft. (1.7 miles). But the Golden Gate is larger from most other respects: width, tower height, height of roadway above water, span between the towers, and cable diameter. This website has a pretty good comparison table, if you're interested. But driving across the bridge, the Mackinac definitely visually looks and "feels" smaller.
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Then we drove northwest for about 51 miles to the city of Sault Ste. Marie, being careful not to miss our exit or make a wrong turn and accidentally end up taking the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge that crosses over into Canada.
Our goal was to visit the Soo Locks. The Locks are sort of in the middle of town and don't have their own (public) parking lot, so we parked a couple of blocks away and walked back. Along the way, we saw that Scooby-Doo and the gang were also in town.
As we approached the Soo Locks Park, we were surprised by the sight of a Torii gate within - not something we expected to see in Michigan! We'd need to take a closer look once inside.
We entered the Soo Locks grounds through the side gate, and received our second surprise of the day when a guard popped out of the guard house (which has one-way glass on it, so you can't see in) and wanted to search our bags before we entered. We had been to a couple of other locks before, and had never encountered security before. Luckily, we made it through despite carrying all of our "usual gear" 😉).
Inside the gate we headed over to the Torii gate, and found the explanatory sign a short distance away. (An internet search later revealed that the gate itself came from the town of Ryuo, Saul Ste. Marie's sister city in Japan.)
In the Visitor Center were lots of displays and videos about the Soo Locks and shipping in the Great Lakes, We asked one of the folks at the information desk about why security was so much higher here than at any of the other locks we had been to, and they said that they weren't sure but it was probably because of the "value of the goods being transported through the locks". Based on the displays, the "good" in question was most likely iron ore (moving from the Minnesota mines to the steel mills in the lower Great Lakes) - which apparently is a
big deal.
Christine had been using the
www.marinetraffic.com website to track ship traffic, hoping to be able to see a large container ship going through the Locks, but we had missed one earlier in the day and another wasn't scheduled to come through until much later. However, a smaller vessel was coming through so we headed out to the Observation Deck and got to watch it get lifted through the one of the locks.
After the Locks, we travelled about a mile down the road to the Yooper Pasty Company to try a regional specialty: the pasty (sort of a hand-pie). Although not much to look at from the outside, the shop had a ton of character on the inside. ("Yooper" is how folks on the Upper Peninsula refer to themselves: as in U.P.-ers.)
Tom got the "standard" beef (with the $1 gravy add-on) and Christine got the veggie. They were cutely decorated, good sized, tasty (although Tom's was a bit dry, and benefitted very much from the small container of gravy) and very filling.
Another hour (58 miles) west brought us to Tahquamenon Falls State Park, which would be our base of operations for the next 3 days (although moving between campgrounds, staying in the Rivermouth Campground the first night). Michigan State Parks require a Day Use Fee even when you're camping, and Day Use fees are $11/day - or a Michigan State Park Annual Pass can be had for $40. We decided to gamble on the fact that we'd be staying in another Michigan State Park at some point and paid the extra $7, so now we have a Michigan State Park Annual Pass on our windshield to keep the South Dakota State Park Annual Pass company.
We got found our campsite, and enjoyed some nice hot campground showers before dinner.
Later that evening, Tom started on another project that had been "in the hopper" waiting for some free time. Months ago, he decided that he needed a little trash can by the driver's seat to put his driving-snack wrappers and other little bits of garbage into. He started hanging a small plastic shopping bag off of the gear shift lever which worked reasonably well, but the mouth didn't stay open nicely and it wasn't great to look at.
Weeks ago he had seen some cute bee towels (you may recall that bees are a favored decorating motif amongst the Class B RV crowd) at Dollar Tree and thought about stitching one into a trash can - but didn't buy one at the time time, and then couldn't find them again (it was one of their transient / seasonal patterns) once he decided to do it. He did, however, eventually manage to find a placemat that went with the set that he decided - while not quite as cute - would work better anyway since it was stiffer to begin with. He dug out the "emergency sewing kit", and started sewing - roughly following instructions he had found online for making a bag of the shape he wanted, but stitching by hand instead of by machine.
It wasn't going to win any awards, but looked like it'd serve its intended purpose. But it was getting late, so attaching the hanging strap would have to wait for another night.
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