Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan

This is what most of my pictures would have looked like on Thursday when we moved to Sault Sainte Marie.  It rained all day.

Friday was a little better so we got out and got out passport pictures taken and went to the casino for a little blackjack and brunch.  This is an old water tower in town.

We are seeing more color her in the UP.

 

Here is an architecturally interesting old house.

We are at the Soo Locks RV Campground.  It is on the St. Mary’s River close to the locks.  This is the view from our front window.

Tomorrow is football so no pictures.

Mackinac Island

  Monday morning we got up and went on the ferry to Mackinac Island.  This is the port area.

 

This figure of the type of man you would have expected to meet here on the island in the 1920s was sitting on a bench in front of a hotel.

This island has NO motorized vehicles except for handicapped wheelchairs.  Everything is done by horses.

We took a carriage tour around the island.  We are on the second row on the far side.

Looking up you see Fort Mackinac.

 

Up the road was the Grand Hotel with its long porch.

These trees near the Grand Hotel’s golf course were the only trees that showed any color.

This is an old horse drawn fire truck.

And this is the ladder truck that attached to it when needed.

When we got up to the Surrey House they had a more modern horse drawn fire engine. 

There were lots of different horse drawn carriages along with this sled and a hearse that is still in use.

The butterfly house is in this same location.  I’m not sure why the signage has a turtle instead of a butterfly but it was pretty.

There were lots of butterflies flitting around from flower to flower and on other things as well.

This one was on the floor and I’m afraid that someone may have stepped on it.

 

There are lots more butterfly pictures in my Picasa Web Album:  http://picasaweb.google.com/marynelle.  When we were through here we got on a three horse carriage as we had some steep inclines to negotiate.

We visited Arch Rock.

We stopped at Fort Mackinac for a tour.

We were greeted by a costumed woman.

Here is Wayne talking with two of the soldiers.

The fort had a beautiful view of the straits.

They even fired off the cannon.

We got dropped off near the Grand Hotel where we planned to eat lunch.  Here are some of the interesting items in the lobby.

The lunch buffet is held in the main dinning room.  All of the windows face the water.  The buffet was very nice and they knocked off the $10 each that we had to pay to get into the hotel so lunch was only $80 more.  The food was good and the buffet was fancy but it is not something that I would want to do again.

Here we are so we can prove that we were there.

 

We walked around downtown before catching the ferry back.  Here is the pink horse outside the Pink Pony.

 

Here are a couple of pictures of the downtown area.  Check out the Picasa album for more pictures of downtown.

       

We had a wonderful day and wonderful weather.

Sunday in Mackinaw City

Sunday afternoon I decided to drive into town to take pictures of the other wooden carvings of historic figures.  We had past some of them several times but I was unable to get pictures.  On the way I couldn't resist taking this picture of these trees in the park .

 

This is the carving of Chief Wawatam  by Jerry Prior who did all of the carvings.  He was an Odawa chief in the mid 1700s.    A coal-fired train ferry and icebreaker that operated in the Straits of Mackinac between 1911–1984 was named the SS Chief Wawatam in his honor. This carving is in a park on Lake Huron.

 

This is Alexander Henry.    He was a fur-trader at Fort Michilimackinac in 1761.  He was captured by Native Americans in 1763 and was later rescued by Chief Wawatam who had adopted him as a brother.    This carving is close to the drive to the lighthouse.

This is Perry Darrow a civic-minded village resident and friend of the Priors.  I’m not sure who he is.  His carving is in the Old School House Park.

 

This is British Major Arent Schuyler DePeyster.  He was the commandant of Fort Michilimackinac during the American Revolution.  DePeyster is often credited as being the military leader of British and Indian forces in the Western American and Canadian frontiers.  His carving is by Colonial Michilimackinac.

This is Hattie Stimpson.  Her carving is on the other side of the highway standing all alone.  Hers was the only one I got out to reed the plaque under.  She founded the Women’s Club in Mackinaw City.

This community house around the corner from the last carving was founded in 1929.

Sault Saint Marie

Here is an example of a tree in the campground that is changing colors.  We have been told that means that the tree is stressed and not that it is time for all of the trees to change.  I don’t care—I think it is pretty anyway.

We decided to drive up to Sault Saint Marie today to go through the Soo Locks.  We had forgotten that there was a tractor parade through town.  As you can see, they had the road that we needed to take to get to the bridge closed.

Some of the older tractors were on flatbed trailers.

We finally got on the bridge and guess what—the parade continued over the bridge.  This guy is enjoying the view as much as we were.

I guess this guy wanted to see what was way up ahead of him.

The parade took up one lane of the bridge as far as the eye could see.

These guys were part of a club for old tractors.

Of course not all of the drivers were guys—some were gals.

We made it over the bridge and into Sault Saint Marie with no problems.  This is the oldest town in Michigan.  This building still has old ads painted on its walls.

 

This is some sort of government building.  I liked its cupola.

We arrived at the Soo Locks Boat Tours and boarded a boat.

 

Here we are getting ready to enter the lock.  You can see the wall at the other end that is holding back the part of the St. Mary’s River that is 21 feet higher than the part we were on.

After the door closed behind us the lock was filed with water up to the water line that you can see on the side wall.  Here the doors in front of us are opening as we prepare to exit.

This is the international bridge to Sault Saint Marie, Ontario.  There is a railroad track running below it with a lift bridge.

The lift bridge operator lives on this side of the river and every morning he climbs the tower and walks across the catwalk to the other side.

It is from the little building below that he operates the bridge which is usually twice a day.  Then he climbs back up the tower and crosses over to go home.  Not a job that I would like to do.

After touring around in the St. Mary’s River and seeing an old but still operating steel mill we reentered the lock.  You can see where the water level is as we enter.

This time gravity works to quickly lower the water level.

Until we are down at the lower level and the doors open for us to exit.

The trees along the locks are also beginning to show color.

We went around on the Canadian side and saw this poor moose.  He has had his antlers stolen twice this year.

There is also this nice floating fountain in front of the park on the Canadian side.

This building is an operating electric generating facility using water as the power to generate electricity.

 

It sis a beautiful building made of hand cut stone from the area.

 

Down a short way is the Soo Locks Campground.  We had already visited it and decided that we will move here when we leave Mackinaw Mills Creek Campground next Thursday.

We decided to have a late lunch at Jeff’s 50s restaurant.  It was appropriately decorated with an old juke box.

Wayne had a good view of the Marilyn Monroe wall.  There were also areas dedicated to Elvis, James Dean, and John Wayne.

The checkered floor, red vinyl seats and stools all added to the nostalgia.

Heading back to Mackinaw Island, I got a better picture of the fort than I got the other day.

It was supposed to rain today but it held off so we had a great day with great, but cool, weather.