Today was another he of those half-driving, half-discovery days. We left the Bay City motel early in the morning, before 8, but with a fairly decent
breakfast in our tummies, and drove to Sault Ste. Marie, all the way up at
the tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (or UP). There is a system of locks
(Schleusen, for Imke and Uschi) that allows huge freighters to maneuver the St. Mary river that connects Lake Huron and Lake Superior, avoiding the
21-foot drop between the two that causes the rapids (“Sault” in
old-fashioned French) in the St. Mary River. There are four locks side by
side, and the biggest can hold a ship that is 1000 foot long and 105 feet
across (330 m long, 35 m across). I had read a to this place in a short
story and really wanted to see it, and it was interesting, but not a very
busy day at the locks, so we had to wait quite a while in rather cold and
chilly weather until the next big ship arrived at the locks. We got there
at 11:30 and the freighter was supposed to get there at 2:15! But we went to
have lunch in a cute Greek restaurant, wandered around the town a little
bit, looked at all the exhibits about the locks, each had an enormous ice
cream cone (the portions were double the size they had been in Bar Harbor!)
and then we could finally watch the huge ship go thigh the lock, with only a
few feet on each side. It was a bit too cold and windy for us to really
enjoy it, but it was fascinating. The ship, the Burns Harbor, was actually
one of the biggest used in the lake system, and has the distinction of
having carried the largest load ever to come through this lock system–over
70,000 tons of iron ore. We learned this from an announcer and also on
line, where one can track ship movements all over the Great Lakes and find
info and photos (at boatnerd.com).
After we had gotten thoroughly chilled through by the wind at the locks, we
warmed back up in the car, as we drove another hour and a half to a set of
waterfalls called the Tahquehemon Falls. It was nice to get out and walk
around a bit, first at the Lower and then at the Upper Falls, especially
since it had gotten sunny by the time we reached the falls, But we are a bit
spoiled as far as waterfalls go, and so weren’t super impressed. And it’s a
bit hard to accept the water color–it is brownish from the natural tannin
from the many coniferous trees in the area, so not as pretty and blue as I
would expect. But the area was very nicely maintained, with boardwalks and
steps up down to the water. After looking at both fall areas, we drove back
on what was billed as a scenic route but which, teasingly, went along about
one lot length from the coast through thick, wooded area, so that for the
most part we could only catch glimpses of Lake Superior. We stopped at a
couple of little beach coves, which were beautiful, and came out at a
lighthouse (Iroquois Point) where the view of Whitefish Bay was awesome. We even got to climb up into the teeny lighthouse and look at the bay from up there.
The remaining one-hour drive to St Ignace, right at the southern tip of the
Upper Peninsula was uneventful, although a little detour showed us that the
land away from the coast starts to roll gently and really consists of sand
dunes covered with just enough top soil for this lush vegetation. So
similar and yet so different from what I think of as sand dunes. So many
trees! In St. Ignace, we checked into our hotel (the Aurora Borealis
Motel, even though the silly people didn’t alert us to the fact that there
was actually an aurora borealis visible last night in many parts of the
northern US, so we missed our chance!) and then, since it was already late,
walked to the shore to find dinner on the harbor side. After we’d had a
nice, fairly plain meal in a seaside restaurant/bar with enclosed outdoor
seating, we walked and around a little as the sun was setting. The harbor
is really cute and very spiffed up–there is a board walk and a little
lighthouse replica on the site of the former railroad terminus, where a
cargo ferry would take the train cars across the Straits of Mackinac to and
from the Upper Peninsula. And there was also a little marina with private
boats as well as the docks for the tourist boats that go across to Mackinac
Island. The light was just beautiful, and we thoroughly enjoyed the evening
walk back to our hotel before crashing for the night.