Our RV Adventures

1, Watch Where You Walk.

2. Don’t Step In Yellow Puddles.

3. Bring Plenty of Money.

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After one of the muffins we got at Tim Horton’s yesterday, Jan and I headed about 50 miles south to St. Ignace, MI to catch the ferry over to Mackinac Island. To allow plenty of time to catch the 10:00 run, we left about 8:15. But making good time we got there about 9:15, just in time to catch the 9:30 trip.

Heading across the lake we found a lot of people already out there ahead of us.

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One of the reasons we wanted to make the 9:30 or 10am ferry, is that these two make a quick detour over by, and under the Mackinac Bridge.

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The two towers are 550 feet tall, and the suspended roadway between them is over 8600 feet long, making it the longest suspension bridge in the US, and the third longest in the world.

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The supporting cables are 24-1/2 inches in diameter and made up of over 12,000 smaller cables woven together. And even though the roadway is open grillwork to let the wind blow through, the bridge can still sway up to 15 feet during high winds. Hopefully not this Saturday.

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Finally approaching the island, the first thing you can really see is the world-famous Grand Hotel, site of two movies, including 1979’s “Somewhere In Time” with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.

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Pretty much everywhere you look is a postcard view.

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Getting our feet back on dry land, we spent some time walking the streets and checking out the scenery.

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There are flowers everywhere you look.

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Except for two police vans and three fire trucks, no motorized vehicles are allowed on the island. So this wagon is the UPS delivery van. There is a driver for the wagon, but a real UPS guy in his brown shorts actually delivers the packages.

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And this is why you need to watch where you walk when you’re on the island. I also think it’s why the flowers are so bright and the grass is so green. They’ve got to do something with all that ‘fertilizer’.

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Taking the Carriage Tour, we drove past the Grand Hotel, the only hotel I’ve ever seen that charges you $10 just to walk into the place. Needless to say, we didn’t visit.

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Our next stop along the tour was Arch Rock that looks down on the beach way below.

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Finally leaving the carriage tour at Fort Mackinac, we decided to have lunch at the Tea Room there that overlooks the harbor.

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One of the other ferry companies uses jet boat ferries, giving them this distinctive “rooster tail”.

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There’s even this beautiful two-masted schooner tooling around the harbor

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Sometimes there are so many ferries coming into the harbor it’s almost a traffic jam.

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Looking down from our restaurant perch, seeing all the neat, colorful houses, manicured lawns, and brilliant flower gardens, I almost expected to see a large white ball named Rover go bouncing by.

Walking back down the hill from the Fort, we once again walked along the quaint streets, checking out the many shops, even stopping to buy some of the famous Mackinac fudge from Murdicks.

Later we spent an hour or so sitting in the rockers on the big front porch of the Lakeview Hotel, just people watching. Very nice.

A little later we caught the 4pm ferry back to St. Ignace on the mainland, giving us this great view of the Mackinac Bridge, a bridge that we’ll be crossing in our rig this coming Saturday as we head for Elkhart.

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Before getting back on I-75N we stopped for gas, giving Jan a thrill and ending her day on a very moose note.

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Taking our exit off I-75 into Sault Ste. Marie, we drove through a nearby Holiday gas station to check out rig access to tank up with diesel when we leave here on Saturday.

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Thought for the Day:

We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.~Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

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We left for the Canadian side of the Soo Locks about 1pm. And after showing our passports at the border, we first headed down to the Bushplane Museum.

First up was this Canadair CL-215 firefighting amphibious water bomber, one of the premiere planes of the type.

It fills its tanks by landing at high speed on a lake or river, opening the tank fill doors,

and then waiting until water starts gushing out of this overflow outlet. In 8 hours they can may as many as a hundred bombing runs.

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Whenever I see one of these old Bell 47’s all I can think of is “Whirlybirds”, an old TV show.

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Next up is this replica Fokker Tri-Motor, built for the movie, Amelia, about Amelia Earhart. Although I never flew in one of these, I did fly in a Ford Tri-Motor a number of times when we were living in South America in the early 60’s.

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Here’s a neat little homebuilt amphibian, an Esperanza 4.

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And this is pretty much the “end all and be all” of bushplanes, the de Havilland Beaver. First designed in the 1940’s, over 1600 were built until production ended in 1967, with more than 1200 still flying. A real workhorse.

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And RC-3 Seabee

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And for some reason, they also had several old cars there. This the fabled Stanley Steamer, a car that I had never actually seen in person before.

Doesn’t look like you’d have to change the sparkplugs on this one.

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The next two are a couple of Fords. The only problem with the car displays is that there was absolutely no info on them anywhere, I even ask some of the guides and no one knew the make or year of any of them. Bummer.

After seeing a couple of good films on bushplanes and aerial firefighting, we left the museum and headed north up PH17, looking for moose.

Yep, we were on another Moose Hunt.

Jan had been told there were a lot of moose about 20 miles north of town in the Mile Hill area. So off we went. But although we found the area with a lot of “Watch For Moose” signs, no moose.

Sometimes I feel like Coronado searching for the Seven Cities of Gold. They’re always right over the next hill.

On our way north we had passed a Boston Pizza, one of our favorites, and by the time we came back past, it was 4:30 and we couldn’t resist stopping for dinner. And as usual, we ordered the large Meateor, to give us plenty of leftovers.

On a related note, what is it with the northern Midwest and cold drinks. First, pretty much every place we eaten since Bend, OR never has any sweetener on the table. And after they bring you your drink, they don’t even offer. You have to ask for it. What’s up with that?

And I’m sorry, but ordering a glass of ice water or iced tea does not mean three lonely ice cubes floating on top of a glass of tepid liquid. It’s usually pretty cold up here. Why do they have to ration ice cubes?

Leaving Boston Pizza and heading home, we stopped off at a Tim Horton’s to pick up some muffins for our next travel days, and also got Iced Hazelnut Cappuccinos to go.

Except for having to wait in line behind a bunch of semi’s, we didn’t have any trouble getting back across the border. I guess Jan’s past hasn’t caught up with her yet.

As I mentioned yesterday, tomorrow we’re going to drive down to St. Ignace and take the ferry over to Mackinac Island, and then the horse-drawn carriage tour around the island.

After we were home for a while, Brandi sent over a bunch of Landon school pics for this year. A real cutie. Can’t wait to see him in about 3 weeks.

Love the hat and bowtie.

Later, just as the sun was going down, I got this shot of a big freighter going by.

Don’t know what ship this is, but there are 13 1000 footers here on the Lakes, the largest of which at 1013 feet, is the Paul R. Tregurtha. The American Century we saw going through the Soo Locks the other day is also one of those 1000 footers.

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Thought for the Day:

“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” – Albert Einstein

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