The Ray Adventures: Marquette, Saulte Ste. & The cabin

This week has flown by, we've had up and down weather but I think winter is winding down. Wait did I say that last week too?

Tuesday, June 2, It's a nice day, we celebrate the little things. Mondays hard work must have wiped us out, we slept until 9:00. We ran some errands, including a trip to Ishpening to the RV sales and service for a latch for a drawer, ended up buying a new yard mat, the old one came with the coach and had seen better days. We were going to spend the afternoon geo cacheing with Luci at Presque Isle State Park right on the lakeshore. Well they don't allow dogs so plan B. We found another trail, ending up with 7 finds. Luci had fun playing in the river along the way. We found a cache atop some sand dunes, where of course the little snot rolled and rolled. We were halfway down the dune when Gary realized neither one of us had the leash. He climbed back to the top, not there! Backtracking, he found it at the previous cache. On the way back to the car we made sure Luci went swimming to wash off all the sand. We sat by the campfire while I BBQ'd a whole chicken.

Wednesday, June 3, Our task for the day was to get the printer out of basement so we could print our tax forms and mail them. Lots of hiking/biking trails near our park, we took Luci for a long walk, picking up 4 geo caches along the way. We left for Munising around 5 for our sunset cruise of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, extends for 42 miles up the coast with 15 miles of colorful sandstone cliffs that rise up to 200 feet above lake level. The naturally sculpted shallow caves, arches and formations that resemble castle turrets, human profiles or you can use your imagination and visualize all sorts of things. A trail runs along the top of the cliff to Miners Castle or you can kayak along the cliffs. The colors are created by large amounts of minerals in the rock from 500 million to 1.1 billion years, the streaks come from groundwater leaching out of the rock. The iron is red, manganese is black-white, limonite is yellow brown and copper is blue green. Several waterfalls cascade over the cliff, one named Bridal Veil because it looks like a brides veil, same as the Columbia River gorge. The cruise was about 2 1/2 hours, 18 miles, taking us all the way to the formation called Chapel Rock. The sunset cruise is supposed to be the best time for viewing the cliffs colors, it was mostly cloudy so it wasn't as spectacular as promised.

Thursday, June 4, Dang it, it wasn't supposed to rain but it did! There go the clean coach, we are moving to Saulte Ste. Marie area, about 150 miles east. We had to stop at a tire shop before leaving town, a back inside tire isn't holding air pressure. Turns out the tire had been patched! Brand new coach, supposedly brand new tires???????????????????????? We finally hit the road by noon, arriving at Bay City Casino RV park on Waiska Bay which is off of Whitefish Bay Lake Superior. Since we are not gamblers we didn't leave any money behind.

Friday, June 5, We woke up to heavy fog but it did turn out to be a beautiful day in the low 70's with a light breeze. I talked to Steve and Marty, friends from Bayview RV Resort in Rockport, Tx, they live in Michigan in summer, arranging a get-together. They live near Bad Axe, Mi, on Michigan's thumb not too far from Suzanne and Jeff's home near St. Clair, Mi. We'll get together after we make our way to S & J's house. We left Luci in the coach while we spent the day in Saulte Ste. Marie, mainly to see the Soo Locks, the lake freighters route to Lake Huron and eventually the Atlantic from Lake Superior. At the visitor center we watched a short movie on the history of the area and the locks. Saulte Ste. Marie, Mi. has a population of 14,000 while Saulte Ste. Marie Canada's population is over 75,000. The locks, located on St. Mary's River, consist of 2 canals and 4 locks. initially built in 1853 has grown and changed over the years to accommodate the large "Lakers", the largest now being 1,000 feet long and 105 feet wide and smaller vessels passage on St. Mary's River between Lake Superior and Lakes Huron and Michigan, a 21 foot drop in elevation. We spent Easter Sunday at Jeff's mom's house right on the St. Clair River where the "Lakers" travel through to Lake Erie. We saw ice chunks flowing downriver that day but no ships. More than 11,000 vessels carrying up to 90 million tons of cargo pass through the locks every year. The lock system is closed every year for two months during winter for inspection and maintenance. One 1,000 foot freighter cargo is equal to 6-100 car trains or 2,308 large trucks. The city is nice to tourists, we forgot to feed our parking meter, we got a ticket but the fee was $0.00. We got back to the coach about 5.

Saturday, June 6, A beautiful day just like they'd forecast, they didn't change their mind this time. We packed a picnic lunch for our day at Tahquamenon Falls about an hour NW of the park. Just up the road from the casino, which is on Indian land, we noticed a model lighthouse beside a pond that had a model freighter. Both were well done, then we noticed an ancient Indian Burial ground across the road, the graves all had what looked like elongated birdhouses on top of the graves, never have seen anything like that before. A few miles from there we stopped at Point Iroquois lighthouse on Whitefish Bay. We climbed the 72 steps (we counted) to the top of the tower giving us a panoramic view of Lake Superior, we watched as a freighter powered by on the way to Soo Locks. The drive to the falls seemed endless, heavy forest on both sides of the road with an occasional glimpse of the lake. The lower Tahquamenon Falls consists of several waterfalls cascading into a large pool, you can paddle up to the falls edge. If you go to the falls, especially in June (from what we were told) you need to take bug repellent. A 3/4 mile boardwalk/path take you the falls viewing area was thick with "skeeters" Gary was about to snap his first picture when he discovered his camera battery was dead, bummer, had to use cell phone. We could take the 8 mile rt to the Upper Falls, we opted out, too many bugs. (sure) This is the only state park we've ever been to that has concessions, you can buy snacks, t-shirts, and for $10.00 a can of bug repellent. We drove to the Upper Falls, this one had a mini-mall including a brew pub. Made Gary a happy camper. We walked the paved path to the Upper Falls, at the top you could take 96 stairs down to the viewing platform. Luci and I sat that trip out. We have noticed all the rivers and creeks have a "rusty" brown color, not the beautiful clear water we are used to, we theorized it was from all the iron ore and copper in the area. Wrong, the color comes from tannins, organic matter from decayed plant material. Now you know. Gary refreshed himself with a "cold" one after the walk. It took about an hour and a half to get back to the coach, we had shrimp salad for dinner and did some preparation for our move to Jeff and Suzanne's cabin near Cheboygan.

Sunday, June 7, The day started with light drizzle turning to heavy rain, nice day for a drive. It was a relatively short drive, 120 miles but really WET. We got to the cabin about 3:30. A beautiful place on a small lake, Luci is loving it here, no leash and gets to play with Keiley their black lab. We drove into Onaway for dinner.

Monday, June 8, Jeff and Suzanne took us up to Ocqueoc Falls, (don't ask me how to pronounce it) a pretty state park not too far from the cabin. We found a geo cache up one of the trails, now we have Suzanne hooked on geo cacheing. Jeff wanted us to see the world famous quarry, HUGE, Suzanne found another cache, geo cacheing is like potato chips you can't do just one. We did a little more sightseeing, stopped to pick up steaks at a real meat market and came back to the cabin. Jeff started a campfire beside the lake and cooked the steaks on a grill right on top of the fire. Yum Yum Yum! As our friend Steve said, mosquito's are Michigan's state bird. Jeff encircled our campfire area with mosquito repelling coils so we didn't have to spend the evening swatting bugs.

Tuesday, June 9, We left our dogs behind while we went to Mackinac Island, you have to take a ferry over and no vehicles are allowed. We took a 2- horse drawn carriage tour through the touristy downtown area up the hill past the Grand Hotel and the governor's summer residence to the top of the hill where the carriages and horses are kept. We walked around the area visiting the historic carriage museum. Suzanne found another geo cache. We then boarded a 3- horse carriage for a ride through the forest, cemetery and down along the bluff to Arch Rock. Our tour guide, Mitch, was a hoot. He talked how occasionally horses get "spooked" and run. Made me just a little nervous. We got off the carriage at 100 year old Fort Mackinac. Pronounced Mackinaw, the French decided to spell it with a "C". The summer residences along the cliffs are more like mansions, very few people live on the island year around, provisions have to come over atop the ice. No thanks! No visit to the island is complete without a stop at The Grand Hotel, the movie Somewhere in Time was filmed here. A true chick flick but since seeing the movie I've wanted to visit. To see the inside of The Grand you have to pay $10.00, Suzanne, Jeff and I were cheapskates, Gary really wanted to see inside. The Grand Hotel has their own carriages to transport their guests wherever they want to go. One thing you will notice about the island is the quiet. No traffic sounds, no sirens, just the clip clop of horses. After the ferry ride back into Macinaw City we picked up some pasties for dinner. When we were in the UP we'd see restaurants that offered "pasties" we thought that was the way Yoopers say pastry. It's really like a chicken or beef pie in a crust baked then topped with gravy. Sinful! Yum, yum yum!

That's it for this week, enjoy the pictures, I had 100's to choose from.

TTFN

Gary and Pam