Wandering Where We’ll Be

It seems strange.  We are on the last leg of this part of the trip.  Next week, we will be at the family camping weekend and we won’t have to set up the tent or take stuff out of the back of the truck (at least after the family camping weekend).  Jake wont be in back of us looking over our shoulder.  We won’t be living out of the truck anymore.  It’s odd how I now equate home with the truck, not a building.  I also equate home with our tent.  Well, it’s not over yet.

From Montreal, we drove to Sault Saint Marie.  It is a fairly boring drive; many ups and downs and a lot of the same old sights to see.  It is different than driving in Minnesota.  Minnesota is fairly flat and you can see “far away”.  If there is any interesting buildings or sights, you are likely to see them.  This drive was hilly with some rock outcroppings next to the road.  At times, you could see pretty far, other times it was like driving in a green walled tunnel with only more road to look at.  As a side note on this drive, we did see a “new” sign we haven’t seen before.  The road was turning into a one laner from a two laner and the sign said “squeeze right”.  It was like a “merge” sign.  We laughed about it and still occasionally bring it up if we see a “merge” sign.

Sault Saint Marie border crossing was looming.  We were a tad nervous because we had Jake.  We had heard stories regarding pets coming back into the U.S. — bad stories of being turned away because of improper papers regarding doggy shots (I could have used a “shot” at that moment).  So I had the vaccination papers ready.  We also didn’t know what to expect at the border for security.  Last time we had crossed back into the U.S. from Canada or Mexico, it was before 9/11/2001.  We get to the guy after waiting a little in a car line.  He says “did you get the dog in Canada?” No.  “Have any alcoholic beverages or….(can’t remember because I was nervous and you can’t look nervous or they will think you are a terrorist or something.  I just wanted to get back without any problems)?”  No.  “Okay, go ahead”.  That was it?  That was easy.  He didn’t even look at dog papers or passports (or he may have looked at passports but I blanked it out in a nervous tizzy). 

We made it back to the U.S.
We then stopped at the locks to watch a big barge go through.  It took awhile for it to make it into the lock because if it went too fast, it would “barge” right through it.  Once it was in there, it was fun to see it “sink” to the other level of the east side of the lock.  We then stopped for some fudge before going further.  The last time we were here, we got some fudge at the same place (across the street and to the left if looking away from the locks) and we put it into a container and then put it in a cooler.  The container had a leak so the fudge turned into sugar water.  This time, we made sure that wouldn’t happen.

We drove to Pictured Rocks National Park.  On the way there, they were having road construction.  It was a little confusing trying to decide which way to go to get to the campsite.  We figured it out and on the way; we saw not only forests but big areas of old stumps.  We later found out that these stumps were over 100 years old.  The area was logged way back when and then there was a fire.  They (meaning whoever/whatever type of scientist, ecologist, etc) haven’t yet figured out why the forest hasn’t reclaimed the area yet but it is slowly working on it.  One possible reason given was the bio-organisms in the soil normally there after a forest is chopped down, got burned up in the fire so the natural cycle involving them has been taken away.  Who knows?  I know I haven’t got the whole story written down here but I tried.  We stayed at a nice, uncrowded, open and natural Michigan State Forest campground.  We were next to a lake.  It was beautiful.  We decided to stay for 2 nights.  The next day, we went into Pictured Rocks.  We did a 10-mile hike.  The day started very sunny and we found out when we got there, Jake couldn’t go on the trail.  He would have to stay in the truck.  We parked in the shade.  The initial part of the hike brought us through a nice and “airy” forest.  We saw a water fall.  We then kept hiking and passed a really neat rock structure with a White pine on it called “Chapel Rock”.  Very cool.  It was the kind of rock structure thing you would see in a fish tank only way bigger and real.  Also, as is our luck in most places (Crater lake-previous trip, White Mountains, New Hampshire to name a few examples) it got foggy.  The sun was gone.  At least we wouldn’t have to worry about Jake being too hot.  Chapel Rock was on the shoreline of Lake Superior.  We went along the beach for a small while.  Then we continued on.  The trail went up high along the “cliffs” of Pictured Rocks.  It was very cool to see these.  The water has carved out “caves” or what looks like caves from up high.  Big arches of what could be sandstone colored rocks.  The forests we were walking through changed into close dense forest and the trail narrowed considerably.  It got even foggier.  We could hear the waves crashing on the lake and gulls calling but we couldn’t see them.  Some areas of the foggy forest were surreal, dreamlike as we walked through them.  Eventually we started nearing the end and the day started to clear.  We saw another falls (Mosquito falls- aptly named).  When we reached the truck it was sunny again.  It was a great hike even if the views were fogged out.  Tim wants to go back when it is sunny.  I agree.  The next day, we went to the lighthouse at Pictured Rocks.  There are some remains of some sunken ships that have washed ashore — mostly just wood frames of the bottoms of the ships.  Very cool to look at but of course I wanted to see masts half sticking out of the water in the “classic” view of a sunken ship as shown in the movies.  Still all around neato.  The light house was fun to hike to since it was a short hike out and back.  I recommend going along the beach when you go.  The trail is rather plain but nice. 

We then drove on to our next campsite, Twin Bear County Campground just south of Iron River, Wisconsin.  This was our last campsite before family camping weekend – a somewhat sad event.  So we went out for a drink at Judy’s Bar.  It was a fun little dive and a guy there talked about Al Capone.  He had a different view than what we have been taught about the big, tough gangster who kills people with a bat occasionally.  He said people loved him because he took care of them and looked out for their jobs (not illegal ones).  If they needed something, he made sure they got it.  Also, the towns he controlled had an extremely low crime rate (probably if a crook crossed him, it would be all over).  It was a different side of Capone I had never heard.  The nice side.

Next morning, we headed to Minnesota.  We stopped at Duluth to pick up some groceries.  Then we arrived at “home” for a little while at family camping weekend lake lot, owned by Tim’s parents, ‘til we go back to Shakopee, MN.

Write more another time,

Dan

Tags: Ontario, U.S. Segment 1

This entry was posted on Monday, July 31st, 2006 at 12:09 pm and is filed under U.S. Segment 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.