Adventures with Big Blue

[Big Ray]

Man, I haven't seen an A&W since I was a pup back in Williamson WVa!


lord I feel old.....

We got up on Day 4 and trekked back toward the USA border. This area between Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie is desolate. In the 625 miles between Duluth and the Soo, Thunder Bay is the only city, and there aren't a huge number of tiny towns along the way, either. Not many places to buy groceries or spare tires. The closest thing I can compare this to (aside from the similarly desolate section of Ontario lining Lake Huron) is our trek across Montana from NW corner to SE corner. We spent all day and were still inside Montana when the sun set. But that was a shorter route, and along the way we found farming towns and groceries and we could have found a replacement tire without too much effort. Here there was no such infrastructure. We had no issues, but I'm not sure what we would have done if the fuel pump had failed.

It became monotonous enough that we didn't take many pictures. How that for weird?

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We did find the Yellow Brick Road.

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Trees, rocks, and water. This section from Marathon to Wawa came inland instead of following the coastline.

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One of the largest tiny towns that we encountered was White River (population 607). We rolled into town and encountered flags. And food. And diesel fuel.

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And Winnie The Pooh up in a tree.

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Turns out that White River is his hometown. We've learned some peculiar things on our expeditions, yes we have.

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The pooh pictures and the little lighthouse picture and the pictures of camping in Marathon are the only non-scenery picture that we took in the 450 miles between Sleeping Giant and the Soo. We both felt that there just wasn't a whole lot to see.

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We've since learned that we missed several lighthouses along the route. If we do this route again we'll pick more stopping points instead of tearing through all of Ontario in barely 1 day's worth of driving.

 

[campfire]

Man, I haven't seen an A&W since I was a pup back in Williamson WVa!


lord I feel old.....

Come to small-town Wisconsin. We still have them up here.

 

[campfire]

'Course, they come in at least 3 styles. That one looks like it's part of the gas station (this is the style we have in our town). Then there are the stand-alone restaurants. And best of all are the drive-ins. All 3 styles are still present around here.

 

[campfire]

Man, I haven't seen an A&W since I was a pup back in Williamson WVa!


lord I feel old.....

Looks like you'll hafta trek up to Norfolk to find your closest A&W. Or you could come up for next year's overland trip.

http://www.awrestaurants.com/locations?zipcode=north+carolina

 

[Blue85]

A real A&W is a drive in with frosty mug root beer. Any eat-in A&W combined with a KFC or whatever is a fake (like it's sooo hard to find a burger). The one in Baraga is open again as some other restaurant, I think. Used to walk down there for soft serve. In those days there was also a Dog N' Suds across the Bay in L'Anse. Is that how you spell it? We always called it "Arf and Barf".

 

[GWeakland620]

Man, I miss a real A&W too...

 

[campfire]

Man, I miss a real A&W too...

The solution here is obvious.

 

[campfire]

We always called it "Arf and Barf".

Haha

 

[campfire]

Once we completed our border crossing, we found ourselves in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Our intended destination here was the Soo Locks boat tour. We parked by the locks and then walked down to the tour boat dock. Onboard the boat, we took a picture of the S.S. Valley Camp museum ship that is moored on the other side of their shared parking lot. A few weeks ago I was on board the Valley Camp and took this picture from the other angle, looking out at the much smaller tour boat.








The boat cruised along the shoreline for a few minutes until we reached the locks.



We had to wait for a few minutes while a down-lake freighter vacated the smaller Macarthur lock.




Our turn!



Looking back as the doors closed behind us.



Watching the lock fill. There is a 12' elevation difference between Lake Superior (high) and Lake Huron (low).



Watching a freighter locking through the larger Poe Lock next door.




All done, doors open!



Having locked up to Lake Superior, the boat took us across the water to look at the steel mill in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Much of the country's taconite (iron ore) production comes from the Lake Superior region, but AFAIK, this is the only smelter in the region, the rest of the ore gets shipped down to the Southern Great Lakes ports. The reddish-brown piles are taconite pellets. The white pile is lime, used to purify the iron. Taconite is mechanically processed ore, roughly 2/3rds iron and 1/3rd impurities. The iron-rich rocks are run through a stamp mill and the dense pellets are sent down for processing (while the poor rock stays behind).




Mmmm...Taconite. It's what's for dinner.






Down on the processing end of things.



Finished products are loaded onto this barge for shipment down lake.



And there's your iron-processing lesson for today.

 

[campfire]

The finished product ready for loading into the barge.




The ducks clearly can't read the EXTREME DANGER sign.



Coming into the Canadian lock, the railroad has a turntable bridge instead of the lift bridge and draw bridge that the American side has. The poor train hasta go across 3 separate bridges to get across the border!



The man, scooter, and outhouse give a sense of scale.



Welcome back to Canadia.



These ducks followed us into the lock.



Watching the water drop back down to Lake Huron level.



Open the doors!




Canadian Geese. In Canada. So...Canadian Canadian Geese. I found this funny somehow.




The Ontario side has a bushplane museum. Haven't made it there yet, but it looks like a fun place to go. : )




Heading back to the dock.



I enjoyed the floating dry dock.

 

[campfire]

And then back by the dock we came across what was billed as the world's widest hydroelectric dam. Counterintuitively, the water coming in and out of the building is running at 90* to the natural flow of the water. So instead of traveling from right to left, it's leaving the shore and shooting out toward the boat. Kinda odd. This thing is also wide. Really wide. I wasn't able to fit the entire building into any of the shots.




The building has some really neat styling.



Here you can see half of the building.




After disembarking we walked back to the truck.



This large concrete edifice is called the "Tower of History." But it's not actually a building of historical significance. It was built 50 years ago as a church shrine, part of a religious compound project that never materialized. So it's now a tourist trap, offering scenic views over the Soo.



I never did figure out why they have a random obelisk along the shore.

 

[campfire]

We left the Soo and headed West toward the setting sun. This neat power plant sits where M-28 meets the interstate.





It's a historical relic, but I like it.



We drove until the light started fading and pulled off in Seney for the night. This is the best way to break up the monotony of the Seney Stretch.



We parked next to the running water.



Natural well? We weren't sure, but it produced a steady trickle of water that we enjoyed.

 

[campfire]

We got up the next morning and headed to Houghton. In Houghton we were scheduled to attend a wedding. Essentially we had turned a 2-hour ride up to Houghton into a week-long trek around the lake and through Canada. Efficient? No. But man it was fun!

We stopped for fuel in Munising, having come >850 miles since our fill up in Minnesota. I could have pushed it further, but I wasn't carrying any spare fuel, so I decided to play it safe.

Lake Superior (don't remember where).




Along M-28 there are a couple of these fruit stands that we visit periodically. Sometimes they have really good local fruit, other times it's just stuff trucked in from elsewhere.



Up by Houghton we took a tour of the covered road. Very pretty.





Also snapped a couple of pictures on top of Mont Ripley.

 

[76zimmer]

I can't believe they don't charge freighters to go through the locks.

 

[campfire]

I can't believe they don't charge freighters to go through the locks.

They do, it's just not direct. The cost of running the locks is paid by the Lakes Carriers Association, comprised of the companies that use the locks commercially. Same for the ice breaking services that the Coast Guard provides. For smaller recreational vessels, there is no charge to go through the locks.

 

[GWeakland620]

I think they just call them geese...

Also, I would like to check out that "Bush Plane" museum.

 

[campfire]

I think they just call them geese...

Also, I would like to check out that "Bush Plane" museum.

Bring your passport for the border crossing. That's what kept us away from it last time we saw the Soo. The border crossing can take awhile. We've spent an hour waiting in line (at this checkpoint), and we've also driven right up to the checkpoint. Not sure how to plan for that kind of variance without either cutting into museum time or planning an overnight stop.

Bushplanes are neat. I have some family members who used to professionally fly them up in Alaska. I think they're all ground-based now, but it's still fun to hear their stories.

 

[campfire]

So, @GWeakland620, when are you gonna come up here and see all these things you keep saying you want to see? Dunefest? Overlanding trip? Both? Something else?

 

[GWeakland620]

So, @GWeakland620, when are you gonna come up here and see all these things you keep saying you want to see? Dunefest? Overlanding trip? Both? Something else?

Truck should be finished this weekend, er...well driving at least. Camper is coming in the next couple months. Then the new year brings more vacation time for me. We will be up that direction. I promise!

 

[campfire]

Truck should be finished this weekend, er...well driving at least. Camper is coming in the next couple months. Then the new year brings more vacation time for me. We will be up that direction. I promise!

Cool. So I'll expect you on January 2nd, then? The snow will be lovely that time of year.