The Great Lakes

 The Great Lakes 

Because we could, we spent a month and a half camping along all five of the Great Lakes.  And we would go back.  it was lovely.  The lakes are indeed great -- first of all huge, and then there's the peace of walking their breezy beaches, some rocky, some sandy.  There's the joy of watching the sun rise.  There's the fresh air  smell of being beside the water,  and the ever-present call of the  gulls.  

The lakes are also just plain pretty.  The color of the water in this photo is pretty much true to what we saw, ranging from a Caribbean turquoise to a Crater Lake Blue.

The lakes impressed us and so did the rivers between them, the ships that travel them, and the uniqueness of the cities along the lakes and rivers that depend on them.   We learned a lot and counting our excursions in Michigan from our previous post, stayed in 15 campgrounds. 

A drop of water entering Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota, the western most point of the Great Lakes System, would flow through Lake Superior, seen here in our photos of its southeastern-most shoreline, between the towns of Musining and Grand Marais, MI. where we camped for several days.  (#4 on our map: Woodland Park Campground -- 5 stars from us) and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean.

Rockhounds searching for agates at the shoreline, using rock scoops (a mesh basket on a long handle). 

Lake Superior in Grand Marais, MI.

Bill standing on a bluff over the Picture Rocks National Lakeshore of Lake Superior, on part of the North Country Trail.  One has to take a tour boat to see the rocks.
 

Pictured Rocks is that part of the shore of Lake Superior formed by sandstone cliffs that reach about 200 feet above the lake.  The lake continually changes their shapes by various forms of erosion.


Lots of colors paint pictures on the rocks, or at least color the cliffs.  The 'paint' is the seepage of mineral ores out of the sandstone.  Iron makes the oranges and reds.


Blues and Greens on the rocks come from Copper. 

Manganese dyes the rocks brown or black

We loved the little hamlet of Grand Marais.  Good shops and restaurants and lovely people. We stayed there a week before moving on to Sault Ste. Marie.

 The small city of Sault Ste. Marie lies farther east at the outlet of Lake Superior. Much bigger than Grand Marais, it is a college town that totally supports the transport of  shipping traffic between Lake Superior and Lake Huron and beyond.

A bit of street art in Sault Ste. Marie

Lake Superior is only about 21 feet higher than Lake Huron, but that is enough to create rapids that made shipping difficult.  So locks were built in the early 20th century to facilitate transport of the ships entering or leaving Lake Superior using the St. Mary's River, the connecting river between the two lakes.

  

World War II was raging and the Japanese could bomb the shipping channel. so in the dead of night, during blackout conditions  locks were built in the dark to allow ships access to and from Lake Huron.  A little Google research confirms what we thought when we heard that one -- Nonsensical tourist hype.

There are two locks on the American side and one on the Canadian side  both now and prior to WWII.    One of the American locks was quickly widened during WWII because a lot of iron ore was being transported throughout the Great Lakes.  The work was done during the day and there were no dark of night black out conditions.  A third American Lock is under construction just now to allow longer and wider ships passage.

With the McArthur lock in the foreground, a ship is seen leaving the slightly longer and wider Poe Lock on the McArthur's left side, but not seen in this view.
 

A 360 view from the lock tower enables the lockmaster to work! 

A tour boat, behind the one we were aboard entering the McArthur lock from the St. Mary's River.  Below the lock has filled and the gate is opening for our exit into Lake Superior. 

As Great Lake neophytes, we were much impressed with both the amount of shipping traffic and the economic importance of these locks in this little city.  If the locks closed millions of jobs would be lost and if they stayed closed for very long, the automotive industry, the appliance industry, and the steel industry would probably close, or at least that's what AI told us. 

 

 

 We snapped these two views of the St. Mary's River from our campground on the shipping channel (Aune Osborn Campground -- probably a 4.5/5. #5 on our map).  Above is a view northwards towards Lake Superior.  Below is a view southwards towards Lake Huron. 

The post in the river on the small island (manmade, called a dolphin) and the lights are the visual landmarks for a ship captain to know he's lined up for the river channel after leaving the locks. Once through here, and on down the St. Mary's a ship will find itself in the straights of Mackinac.

The Straits of Mackinac is a 5-mile wide connection between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, making them, hyrdologically speaking, one lake.  Taken together, they form the largest lake in the world measured by surface area. The water to the west is Lake Michigan and the water to the east is Lake Huron.  The straights are also what separates the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan and these are connected by the Mackinac bridge. And, again because we could,  we walked over it -- all five miles of it.  Just us and about 33,000 other people. (#6 This was our first stealth camping experience.  We slept in a laundromat parking lot to be close to the start of the walk).

Michiganders residing on the Upper Peninsula are collectively called Yoopers (UPers) and those on the Lower Peninsula, or below the connecting bridge, are called Trolls.  

Ships that move freight through the Great Lakes are called Lake Freighters or just Lakers.  A Laker could head west from the Straights of Mackinac to any of the ports along the shores of Lake Michigan.  Charlavoix, Michigan (#7 at a Harvest Host site) is along the eastern shore and its where we toured the mushroom houses built by the designer Earl Young.  Mushroom houses is a silly name that can really only be applied to one of the 30 houses he built without blueprints.  The name evolved because of the roof of one house put on by a later owner.  The houses are characterized by the use of boulders that came from the lake, left there by the glaciers that formed them!  

On to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, the largest freshwater dune ecosystem in the world.  

The dunes cover about 71,000 acres of land, including the two Manitou Islands  You can barely see one  of the islands and the expanse of Lake Michigan in this rainy and cloudy day photo.

We joined an Escapees Hangout (meet-up).  We stayed for a week there among a group of about 30 folks in 15 rigs who all belong to a camping group called Escapees, as do we.  We enjoyed the company of folks like us who wander around in a vans or other rigs.  

Bill with one of our Hang-out Leaders, cleaning the beach at Sleeping Bear Dunes on a rainy afternoon.

Carolyn Miller and her husband Bruce had spent 25 years as biologists in Belize before returning to their native Michigan.  Their love of this area with its incredible lake and its lovely villages was palpable. We especially loved the town of Glen Arbor, Michigan.   We were lucky (and grateful) that Caroline and Bruce had volunteered to lead this group.

 We learned what a perched dune is (one that is formed on top of another structure), and how rare they are. 

 We learned the legend of the Sleeping Bear and her cubs who, mythologically speaking, swam across Lake Michigan from west to east to avoid a forest fire.  Only the Mamma made it, and she became the dune, while the babies were too tired and drowned to become the Manitou islands just off shore.  

Nearby towns and villages were quaint  We especially enjoyed Glen Arbor.  And we ate a lot of cherries in restaurants with 'cherries' in their names -- that's cherry orchard country. Bill may or may not have purchased whole cherry pies.  

Indigo Bluffs Campground, Empire MI 5/5 #8.

Dressing the waitstaff up to resemble cherries seemed a step too far, but the cherries were good!  Still have some in our freezer

One of the most-asked questions received from fellow hangers-out? Hang-outers? was where we might be heading next.   For us it was on to Great Lake #3.  We had Baby drive us across the Michigan Peninsula to camp for two nights at Lakeport State Park on the western shore of Lake Huron ( #9 pretty nice state park; get site 24 if you can).

Sunrise on Lake Huron

This areal view of the Blue Bridge in the foreground shows the town of Port Huron on the left side of the river  and Sarnia, Ontario on the right.  At the top is seen the expanse of Lake Huron. 

The Laker seen in the picture is heading north towards Lake Huron in the Saint Claire river.  The St. Claire is  the northern part of the channel that consists of the Saint Claire River, St. Claire Lake and the Detroit River to allow Lakers and other vessels passage to and from Lake Erie.

Toledo is the first city encountered along the western edge of Lake Erie.  It more than  surpassed our expectations as we walked and drove around it. It is a very pretty, modern city that calls itself Glass City.  (Both Libby Glass and Owens-Corning companies are there.)  And it is there that we met  our RV friends John and Sally for a lovely jazz concert at the Toledo Botanical Gardens.   

John and Sally were camp-hosting at Maumee Bay State Park, just east of Toledo We stayed there for a couple of days, camping on our 4th Great Lake.  (#10 & #11: Maumee Bay State Park Campground 5/5).  Seeing friends along the road is one of the highlights of our lifestyle, for sure.

 

 Here's Lake Erie seen from Maumee Bay State Park.  From there we drove east along the lake front, where we noted that Lake Erie seems to have mostly privately owned lake front without a lot of visible public access in Ohio.  We did see some nice municipal parks and a lot of lovely and presumably expensive estates,  but little lake view until we reached Pennsylvania and New York.  (Stops #12, Cleveland-- and 13, Erie -- both lot docking at Cracker Barrels)

There we found several state parks and a ton of beautiful vineyards.   It was mid afternoon by the time we caught up to the Niagara River -- the channel between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.  

The water from  Lake Superior will  reach lake Ontario via this river.  But no lakers will.   There's a 326 vertical drop between the two lakes, forming Niagara Falls. Ships are thus detoured through Ontario, Canada via the Welland Canal and Locks.  We didn't go there because we took a vote:  Should we drive through Ontario or revisit Niagara Falls, where we had honeymooned 42 years ago?    Niagara Falls won hands down, and we missed the canal and eight locks of the Welland Canal.  Maybe next time.

The tour boat is seen through the mist of Horseshoe Falls.  The top of the falls is on the left.  We had a snack near there and were 'misted' as the wind blew in our direction.  It was a delightful way to eat our samosas.  

 We Ooo'd and Aaa'd for about an hour and then went on to our last Great Lakes Campsite:  Hamlin Beach State  Park, in NY. ( #14, 5/5).  A bit of a walk to the lake itself rewarded us with amazing picnic areas full of trees  and buildings built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.  It was just a calm and amazingly pretty place and truly a 'people place'.  

Built by the Civilian Concentration Corps in the 1930's the pavilion is among the. picnic grounds and has this fabulous outdoor barbeque space.  

The gentle, sandy shore of Lake Ontario.

Remember the water droplet we dropped into Lake Superior.  Sources tell us that it would take about 250 years for that water droplet to make that journey through all the lakes and out to the Atlantic.  Evidently its biggest obstacle is Lake Superior, which of course, is the biggest of the lakes, and, if truth be told, our favorite.  

A Laker leaving Duluth at the same time would exit the Saint Lawrence Seaway and be on the ocean in 8.5 days.   Good to have some power behind you.

After Hamlin Beach we left the Great Lakes with a stop to visit the Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY and then on to Ithaca, New York to poke around some.

 

We thought we'd see cameras, and we did, but not many.  Mostly it was a tour of his rather impressive mansion, complete with this working Victrola.  His story was pretty impressive, too.

  Both Bill and son #4 went to school in Ithaca, so a stop there is required  nostalgia, and we got to spend a couple of evenings on the southern tip of Cayuga lake.  Cayuga is one of the finger lakes in New York and just more work of the ice-age glaciers.

   We camped there at Buttermilk Falls State Park.  Fabulous campground.  Get there if you can.  (#15; a definite 5/5).

Woyaya