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August 22nd 2010 finds us at Sault Ste. Marie, pronounced Soo Saint Marie, Michigan's oldest city founded in 1668. This is our 24th day on the road. The temps have cooled off some and the weather is very pleasant. We have really enjoyed our time in the upper Michigan Peninsula. We are still in the United States but just a mile separates from the Sault Ste Marie, Ontario port of entry. This will be our port of entry for the Canadian leg of our journey. An easy description of our location is on the most eastern end of Lake Superior.
We had planned to spend some time here in Sault Ste. Marie because of the many points of interest, therefore we needed a cheap place to hang out. We choose the Kewadin Casino RV Campgrounds. It gave us water, electric, and the important wifi internet connection. The Casino also gave us cheap meals and even a free one. Hard to beat and deal like that. We spent 3 nights here. During the time we spent in the many POIs in the downtown area, I would say that the area of the Soo Locks was the most interesting. We spent several hours watching the great lakes ship pass through the Soo locks. More than 11,000 ships pass through them each year and we were fortunate enough to see one of the 1000' foot talanite cargo ships pass through with only 3 feet clearance on the side and about 10 feet on the front. The locks drops or raises the ships a distance of 21' between lake Superior and Lake Huron. The locks are on the Saint Marie river also the home to 3 hydro electric power plants. The Edison electric plant was built in 1908 and has 36 turbines still running after 102 years. Another historic POI is the Mackinac Bridge and Mackinaw city that connects Michigan Upper and Michigan Lower Peninsula. Some of our time was spent at the museums arounjd the locks. We took a tour boat ride around the different parts of the Soo Locks and even traveled through the Poe lock. The locks are part of the Corp of Engineers. I enjoyed a 5 hour tour of the Valley Camp, an old Great Lakes steam powered coal freighter taken out of service in the 70s and made into a floating museum.
Just a note... Lake superior is a exciting place because of the important history all along its shores.
Our next adventure starting aug 24th will be spent alone the Canadian north shore of Lake Superior. We traveled highway 17, scenic and historic route alone the east and north toward a town called Wawa, ON. It is best known for the many natural waterfalls located alone route 17 and the fact that it was the connection point of the of the Trans Canada Highway some 50 years ago. It is also the home of the Famous Wawa Goose a often photographed landmark in north america. We stayed at the Rabbits Blanket Provincial park and the Wawa RV Resort. From Wawa we took route 101 toward Hawk Junction, Timmins, ON and Val-d'or in Quebec. We did a nice hike to the Pothole Falls near Hawk Junction. Just a note about the highways along here... A lot of nice road and lot of very poor roads some worse than anything on our Alaska trip. Timmins has an active gold mine that has scheduled tourist tours. Our travel plans are changing somewhat, the original plan was complete our Canadian leg and then come into the Bangor Maine area to visit my cousing and start our travel leg down the east coast. We made the decision to drop down into New York state via Ottawa, on to the Cornwall port of entry. This puts us in the Robert Moses State Park, in New York. We visited the Eisenhower Locks, 40' rise or lower of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. We spent 2 days on the Barnhart Island Beach campground. We visited the Power Project center at the St Lawrence FDR Hydro Power Project, a 2000 megawatt plant. Its length is 3300 feet and is divided into two sections, one half for the US and half for Canda. Just a few miles into NY is a GM power train plant and a Alcoa Aluminum making cylinder heads for GM. These are located in Messena Township, New York.
From Massena we traveled the 160 miles toward Altona, New York, the home of my second cousin Sandra. She lives just outside of the Androdack State park on a farm with 5 huge 3 megawatt wind turbines. She worked for Nobile Power, the company that owns and installed the turbines.
From Altona, NY, along with Sandra, we traveled 2 hours south to Hague, New York to spend 5 days with my cousin Dick Dykstra and his wife Rena. They live on a heavily treed mountain top in the Adirondack State Park. We have a great place to park the RV that gave us 360 degrees of scenic beauty. One evening we sited 5 deer, a fawn and a wild turkey in the yard next to the house. We took a day trip to Lake George for a ride on the Minnie Ha Ha steam powered excursion boat for a ride around the lake. Lots of visitors there because of the Labor Day weekend.
From Hague, our travel plans take us back north on I87 to Plattsburg NY and then back into Quebec, Canada to continue our adventure toward Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
For now that is all
John and Barbara on the road heading east into Canada
