{"id":1554,"date":"2015-06-23T22:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T22:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2018-09-08T01:52:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-08T01:52:39","slug":"tuesday-june-23-2015-bay-city-mi-to-the-upper-peninsula-434-miles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/2015\/06\/23\/tuesday-june-23-2015-bay-city-mi-to-the-upper-peninsula-434-miles\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday, June 23, 2015 , Bay City, MI to the Upper Peninsula (434 miles)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today was another he of those half-driving, half-discovery days. We left the\u00a0Bay City motel early in the morning, before 8, but with a fairly decent
\nbreakfast in our tummies, and drove to Sault Ste. Marie, all the way up at
\nthe tip of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (or UP). There is a system of locks
\n(Schleusen, for Imke and Uschi) that allows huge freighters to maneuver the\u00a0St. Mary river that connects Lake Huron and Lake Superior, avoiding the
\n21-foot drop between the two that causes the rapids (“Sault” in
\nold-fashioned French) in the St. Mary River. There are four locks side by
\nside, and the biggest can hold a ship that is 1000 foot long and 105 feet
\nacross (330 m long, 35 m across). I had read a to this place in a short
\nstory and really wanted to see it, and it was interesting, but not a very
\nbusy day at the locks, so we had to wait quite a while in rather cold and
\nchilly weather until the next big ship arrived at the locks. We got there
\nat 11:30 and the freighter was supposed to get there at 2:15! But we went to
\nhave lunch in a cute Greek restaurant, wandered around the town a little
\nbit, looked at all the exhibits about the locks, each had an enormous ice
\ncream cone (the portions were double the size they had been in Bar Harbor!)
\nand then we could finally watch the huge ship go thigh the lock, with only a
\nfew feet on each side. It was a bit too cold and windy for us to really
\nenjoy it, but it was fascinating. The ship, the Burns Harbor, was actually
\none of the biggest used in the lake system, and has the distinction of
\nhaving carried the largest load ever to come through this lock system–over
\n70,000 tons of iron ore. We learned this from an announcer and also on
\nline, where one can track ship movements all over the Great Lakes and find
\ninfo and photos (at boatnerd.com).<\/p>\n

After we had gotten thoroughly chilled through by the wind at the locks, we
\nwarmed back up in the car, as we drove another hour and a half to a set of
\nwaterfalls called the Tahquehemon Falls. It was nice to get out and walk
\naround a bit, first at the Lower and then at the Upper Falls, especially
\nsince it had gotten sunny by the time we reached the falls, But we are a bit
\nspoiled as far as waterfalls go, and so weren’t super impressed. And it’s a
\nbit hard to accept the water color–it is brownish from the natural tannin
\nfrom the many coniferous trees in the area, so not as pretty and blue as I
\nwould expect. But the area was very nicely maintained, with boardwalks and
\nsteps up down to the water. After looking at both fall areas, we drove back
\non what was billed as a scenic route but which, teasingly, went along about
\none lot length from the coast through thick, wooded area, so that for the
\nmost part we could only catch glimpses of Lake Superior. We stopped at a
\ncouple of little beach coves, which were beautiful, and came out at a
\nlighthouse (Iroquois Point) where the view of Whitefish Bay was awesome. We\u00a0even got to climb up into the teeny lighthouse and look at the bay from up\u00a0there.<\/p>\n

The remaining one-hour drive to St Ignace, right at the southern tip of the
\nUpper Peninsula was uneventful, although a little detour showed us that the
\nland away from the coast starts to roll gently and really consists of sand
\ndunes covered with just enough top soil for this lush vegetation. So
\nsimilar and yet so different from what I think of as sand dunes. So many
\ntrees! In St. Ignace, we checked into our hotel (the Aurora Borealis
\nMotel, even though the silly people didn’t alert us to the fact that there
\nwas actually an aurora borealis visible last night in many parts of the
\nnorthern US, so we missed our chance!) and then, since it was already late,
\nwalked to the shore to find dinner on the harbor side. After we’d had a
\nnice, fairly plain meal in a seaside restaurant\/bar with enclosed outdoor
\nseating, we walked and around a little as the sun was setting. The harbor
\nis really cute and very spiffed up–there is a board walk and a little
\nlighthouse replica on the site of the former railroad terminus, where a
\ncargo ferry would take the train cars across the Straits of Mackinac to and
\nfrom the Upper Peninsula. And there was also a little marina with private
\nboats as well as the docks for the tourist boats that go across to Mackinac
\nIsland. The light was just beautiful, and we thoroughly enjoyed the evening
\nwalk back to our hotel before crashing for the night.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today was another he of those half-driving, half-discovery days. We left the\u00a0Bay 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, … Continue reading “Tuesday, June 23, 2015 , Bay City, MI to the Upper Peninsula (434 miles)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roadtrip2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1561,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions\/1561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zjunk.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}