Cathy & Jan's Travels: September 2013

Ontonagon (Michigan) Breakwater Lighthouse at sunset

After leaving North Dakota, we headed toward Thunder Bay, Ontario where we had an air-ride system installed on our truck (for a smoother ride & to be less jarring on the 5th-wheel). While there we also visited the Terry Fox Memorial. He was diagnosed with bone cancer and when he was 18 in 1980 he decided to raise funds for cancer research by running a marathon-a-day across Canada on one good leg & one artificial leg. He started in St. John’s, Newfoundland and ran 143 26-mile days making it to Thunder Bay, Ontario before succumbing to cancer. He became a Canadian hero & more than $600 million has been raised since then in annual events with more than 500,000 participants each year.

After spending just 5 days in Canada this year we headed back to the states to Grand Portage, Minnesota & visited the Grand Portage National Monument & State Park. It was here that during the great fur trade in the 1700’s & early 1800’s, voyageurs would portage their canoes 8.5 miles from Lake Superior past the falls & rapids of the Pigeon River to reach navigable waters to the Northwest Territory.

While at Grand Portage, we rode on a people ferry out to and around Isle Royale National Park. This island (which is part of the State of Michigan) is out in Lake Superior & is 46 miles long and 99% wilderness area. The ferry goes half way around the island on the first day stopping on the Western end in Windigo & then in Rock Harbor on the eastern end for the night. Most of the visitors are backpackers, but we stayed in the lodge in Rock Harbor for a couple of days enjoying the peace & quiet before catching the next ferry that came by. Not only did we want to visit this National Park, but there are also 4 lighthouses that we passed along the way. On the first day we saw & took photographs of 2 of the lighthouses. However, on the return ferry ride, Lake Superior was covered with fog the whole day. Needless to say, it was disappointing to pass the other 2 lighthouses that we knew were out there, but we could not see them. We greatly enjoyed our visit on Isle Royale & now we have an excuse to go back to the island to see the lighthouses we missed.

We then wandered along the Lake Superior coastline in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and northern Michigan stopping for a few days in the Keweenaw Peninsula, Baraga, Marquette, & Munising. While in Munising, we went on a boat ride out to see the coastline of the Pictured Rocks National Seashore. The weather was really great & the colors of the limestone coastline were quite pretty. While there, we did have an interesting time during one of the nights. In the middle of the night we were awakened by a strong windy storm that came in off of Lake Superior and both of us got dripping wet in our pajamas getting the awning safely rolled up.

Continuing on our way we stopped at Lakenenland – a free place where you can drive or walk around to see some 80 whimsical sculptures made out of scrap metal. It was quite an interesting place. Then, we drove to Neebish Island (an island in the St. Mary’s River – between Lake Superior and Lake Huron). To get to the island we had to take the small ferry. The control bridge in the middle of the ferry was too low for us to drive under with our 5th-wheel, so the ferry had to turn around so that we could back off on the other side. While staying on the island, Jan went on a difficult hike to photo one of the least visited & in poor condition lighthouses. Maybe in the future, we should skip hikes like this (What’s wrong with skipping one lighthouse after you have seen over 1,200 of them?)

We then drove a short distance to Cedarville in the Les Cheneaux (locally called The Snow) islands area for a few days and took a short trip to photo some more lighthouses (without any hiking) on the St. Mary’s River & in Lake Huron. We were even serenaded a few times by the Sandhill Cranes flying overhead.

Then we drove to St. Ignace & on Labor Day, half of the lanes of the great 5-mile long Mackinac Bridge from the Upper Peninsula to the Lower Peninsula of Michigan are closed so that thousands of people can walk across the bridge. We waited until the walk was over & then drove to the Mill Creek Campground in Mackinaw City area for a week. While there we went on a 5-hour boat tour of the lighthouses east of Mackinaw City in Lake Huron & the Les Cheneaux Islands. The weather was super & we took photos of 4 (new to us) lighthouses. Another day we took a short ferry ride out to Mackinac Island for lunch at the Grand Hotel. This was our second visit there and much more relaxing since we were not trying to see everything in one day as before. After resting a couple of days, we headed out on another 2 hour ferry ride out of Charlevoix into Lake Michigan to Beaver Island. We lucked out in that the better ferry (Vessel Emerald Isle) had been out of service & this was the first day it was back in service. We took a tour of the island to see 2 lighthouses & to learn about the history of the island. After spending the night there we caught the ferry back to the mainland and on our way back to the RV stopped at The Legs Inn Restaurant in Cross Village for authentic Polish food, the unusual décor, and great views of lighthouses in the distance out in Lake Michigan.

Then it was time to drive down along the eastern shore of Michigan (western shore of Lake Huron) stopping in Alpena, Bay City, and Lapeer (where we are now) for few days each place. In Bay City we visited the Antique Toy & Fire Truck Museum to see hundreds of toy cars, trucks, etc. plus about 60 full size fire trucks including the largest one ever built – The New York City Super Pumper built in the 80’s (what a big truck). It took 15 people to operate it and after a few years was deemed too costly to continue its use.

We just finished a day trip down the eastern shore of the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, and part of the Detroit River (these go between Lake Huron & Lake Erie). We took photos of some lighthouses & also took the tour of the grand Edsel & Eleanor Ford estate (very good tour).

Tomorrow, we are heading down into Indiana to Elkhart to have our independent suspension checked on the 5th-wheel. Elkhart is where about half of all RVs are manufactured & the place where our suspension was manufactured. We don’t anticipate any major work to be done here before we continue our southward journey thru Indiana, Ohio, and other states on our way to Texas for Thanksgiving and the winter months.

Hope all is well with you.