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                        Back in the ‘60’s National Geographic ran articles on individual States. My collection is in storage in Durango, Colorado so I’m not sure which issue it is but when I saw the accompanying photos of Oregon’s coast, Oregon made my Bucket List. That term Bucket List had yet to be invented (the movie of the same name did not appear until 2007) but the need for a collection of favorite places was not wasted on this young lad. Throw in Crater Lake (where we are planning to be later this week) and Oregon gets an extra star! 

                                                So, by now you’ve surmised that we are here on Oregon’s Pacific Coast. We were here two years ago visiting Liz and Beth in the bustling metropolis of Pacific City. Of course, we use the term “city” and “bustling metropolis” lightly here. With only about a thousand residents, a market, several RV parks, a brewpub, and an awesome hardware store, Pacific City has all that it needs. It sits at the base of Cape Kiwanda which sits directly across from one of those destination defining natural objectives, Chief Kiwanda Rock. This “Rock” is one of the three “Haystack” rock formations that help give the coast of Oregon its rugged appearance. They were all once part of the mainland and are volcanic in origin. The ‘softer’ materials that linked them to the mainland have long since worn away leaving these huge basalt boulders to fend for themselves out in the ocean.

                                    Our last trip here was filled with hikes that brought us through numerous examples of seaside environments from a kind of rain forest to oceanside dunes and mini-hardwood forests in between. This time we spent a little more time on the beaches.

                                    The tides here are not as vertically severe as say Maine, but they do have an immense horizontal effect on the beaches. Low tide exposes vast expanses of hard-packed sand that everyone goes out on looking for “finds”. Agate, shells, sand dollars, and the like are constantly being discovered. Liz brought us out on our first night here using a recumbent trike that has a battery power assist. Beth has MS and obviously some mobility issues, and these allow them to still get around nicely. It seems that these trikes stir up interest whenever they go out, so much so that Liz carries business cards of the dealer where they procured them. Case in point, I stopped at the top of the Dory Ramp on our way up from the beach when a man approached and asked where we got them. It wasn’t until we were into our conversation that I noticed that he had a prosthetic leg. I have a feeling that one of these will be on his procurement list pretty soon.

                        So Don, what in the name of “Finding Nemo” is a Dory Ramp?

                        I’m glad you asked that you “old school fisherman” you!     

                        Back in the day there was an entire fleet of these dories that would put to sea every day and row out as far as they needed to in order to catch whatever was running at the time. These include Chinook and Coho salmon, Dungeness Crab, Albacore Tuna and Rockfish. There used to be an old salmon cannery here in Pacific City, started back the late 1880’s and the Dory fisherman would battle the surf every day to launch their boats. Today the cannery is gone and with it most of the professional Dory men. But there are still some card-carrying Dory men that not only fish for a living but now take passengers out for a day on the ocean to try and catch those same fishes that have been their goal since the early days. You must be a member of their organization to use the aforementioned Dory Ramp. This allows access to the beach as these boats are launched and retrieved directly from the surf. It’s a hoot watching them come in and out as this is one of the only places remaining on the West Coast that still employs this technique.

Many old timers in town, along with some long-time visitors, claim Pacific City has changed a lot during the last 40 years. However, compared to other coastal towns, it remains a relatively undeveloped quaint village and has retained everything that originally attracted early settlers and visitors. Pacific City is still unincorporated and has no mayor or city council. Bordered on three sides by BLM land, and the Pacific Ocean on the fourth, further development of the area will be greatly restricted.

It seems that no one gets tired of going down to the beach and with the local population as small as it is, you seem to always run into someone that you know. I went down there yesterday morning to take a few pics and a gentlemen struck up a twenty-minute conversation with me.

Rick is my new best friend 🙂

                        Our last full day in the Portland area brought us to an experience that we’ve never had before.

                        We went to a Japanese Garden.

                        Not just any Japanese garden….

                        This is the Japanese garden that the rest of the country comes to visit when they want to see and learn how to start one of their own.

                        The backstory….

                        The year is 1957 and the memories of WWII are still stinging on both sides of the Pacific. A few thoughtful Portland citizens thought that building an authentic Japanese garden would help heal the wounds that were still festering within the communities. At first there was some opposition to the plan and things got a little dicey from time to time, but in the end it all came together.

                        Some land was appropriated from the old sections of the Portland Zoo and the site was dedicated in 1961.  A Professor Takuma Tono of Tokyo Agricultural University was retained to design the Garden. Professor Tono’s plan included five different garden styles laid out on 5.5 acres. This was quite a departure from gardens in Japan which typically follow one singular style. His intention was to represent different historical developments in Japanese garden architecture and through that communicate Japanese culture to create a cultural exchange.

                        Well…. It all turned out so nicely that when the former Ambassador of Japan to the United States visited, he proclaimed them to be “the most beautiful and authentic Japanese Garden in the world outside of Japan.”

                                    So here we are about sixty years later, the greenery has had the all-important chance to “mature” and the facility could not have been nicer. I will not explain any further as there are the obvious photos that accompany this Post. All I can say is that if you are ever in this area, you MUST make this a stop on your itinerary.

                                    Now without further ado,

I present for your viewing pleasure …..

                                    The Portland Japanese Gardens……

After we went to the Gardens, we dropped down into the Rose Garden. Portland has been called the Rose City since the early 1900’s, so this Rose Garden is a large part of the city’s identity.

Below you will find some of the pretty ones…..

And last but certainly not least, we visited the Pittock Estate. The Pittock family was an important ingredient in the local community, and they meant a lot to both the local charities and the businesses in the area. Their home has undergone an extensive restoration with many of the original family furniture pieces finding their way back home.

Well, that wraps up our stay in the Portland/Vancouver/Columbia River/Mount Hood area. We are looking forward to a return someday as there is still Mount St. Helens and some more wonderful seacoast areas to visit. No worries, Steve and Sandi already know that we’ll be back!

                        If you’ve seen the movie The Goonies (1985) then you have heard of Astoria, the setting for this film. I couldn’t help checking out the details of this movie as it’s been a long time since I’ve seen it.

What Rabbit Hole!

The cast is an essential Who’s Who of both veteran and up-and-coming very young talent.

The work of director Richrd Donner was complemented by a screenplay by Chris Columbus and producer Steven Spielberg.

I could go on and really plummet down this hole with all of the cast and other trivia but that’s not what this Post is about.

But…. it did put Astoria, Oregon on the map of its contemporaries around the country.

                        Astoria is the oldest city in Oregon and was named for one of the wealthiest men (and families) in the United States.

 You know… J.J.

As in John Jacob Astor.

(J.J. Astor IV perished on the Titanic)

J.J. owned the American Fur Company which was the parent company of the Pacific Fur Company which built Fort Astoria and used it as a base of operations.

That was in the early 1800’s as the city was founded in 1811.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition wintered down the road from here in 1805-06 and with the mighty Columbia River as its claim to fame, Astoria was primed for success.

                                    We arrived here mainly out of curiosity, The Goonies and a venerable museum, the Columbia River Maritime Museum, along with the coastal reputation for incredible storms and rough-surf conditions have made this location world-famous.

 Or should I say infamous.

This is where the Coast Guard comes and trains their members in rough water rescues using the incredible 44-footers, the standard around the world for endurance. These boats are self-righting and self-bailing which means that they can roll over, upside down, (hold your breath please) and pop back on top ready to plow through another giant wave.

We watched a film whilst there.

If you are so inclined, just Google “Coast Guard 44 mlb”, (mlb signifies Motor Life Boat) you will not be disappointed. And you will be able to witness how the training of the folks that operate these vessels makes them able to rescue people in seemingly impossible situations.

The Maritime Museum here highlights many of the obvious facets of this Columbia River port, but it does an exceptional job of showing and explaining fascinating specialties of the crews that work here.

                        One is the just mentioned Coast Guard’s National Motor Lifeboat School and the other is the Columbia River Bar Pilots Association. Now don’t be jumping to conclusion here…. this is not a social organization of pilots who do “bar crawls”, it is a team of highly trained individuals who possess the knowledge and understanding of how the sand bars that form and constantly shift in the mouth of the Columbia River confound the masters of visiting ships. The Bar Pilots ensure the safe passage of any commercial ship that needs to enter into the river system from the ocean.  There are not many Ports around the world that require Bar Pilots (although they all do require Harbor Pilots) and of those that do, the Columbia River Bar is considered to be the most dangerous in the entire world.

                                    They have a video of this also.

 One of the things that it shows is how the Pilots actually arrive at the incoming ship and then transfer to the same. And that was the easy part!

                                    The Crown Jewel of this Museum and one of the primary reasons that I wanted to visit here, is the nicely restored (just in the last two years) USCG Lightship, COLUMBIA. The Columbia and her predecessors have sat about five miles out at sea marking the entrance to the Columbia River since 1892. Think of a floating lighthouse and you will have this concept down pat. This Columbia is the fifth ship of this type and was launched back in 1951. She retired in 1979, replaced by a giant Light Bouy that only needed periodic servicing, not a staff of 18 sailors in rotating bi-weekly shifts.  

                        The integrity of these lightships is a testament to incredible design, engineering, and shipbuilding skills. These floating lighthouses don’t get to “run for harbor” when those fierce North Pacific storms come sailing in from Japan and points west. Eventually even that Light Bouy was replaced by more modern navigation tools, especially GPS and the like.

                                    I get the impression that one could make a lifetime study of all of the Maritime Museums around the world. The best part about that is that no two would be alike. Each location has a wonderful local angle attached to it that makes their homegrown seafaring folks proud to be a part of it.

                                    You and I get to watch from the safety of the shore.

                                    And have a nice lunch!

                                    Museum finished, time for lunch! And for the second day in a row, I had a really good meal! This time it was the Inferno’s rendition of a Philly Cheesesteak, using Tri-Tips instead of the usual shredded(?) steak. I took half home.

                                    The afternoon in Astoria was taken up with a trip way up top to a local monument simply called the Astoria Column.

The Column was erected in 1926 as the last monument (in a series) that the Great Northern Railroad erected from St. Paul, Minnesota to Astoria, Oregon. This series of monuments marked the trail and achievements of the Railroad on its way West. Someone wisely checked in with Vincent Astor (the great-grandson of J.J.) and asked if he’d like to “contribute” to his family’s legacy here in Astoria. His answer was obviously “Yes” as the monument erected is nothing short of a work of art. They hired the best designers and craftsmen, including one of the top Italian artists familiar with the process of sgraffito, a method that utilizes paint and plaster to create a frieze. There are twenty-two such friezes depicting the important dates and events that led to the eventual discovery and settlement of Astoria.

                                    This series of events and discoveries eventually led to Paula and Steve climbing the 164 steps to the top of the 125’ monument just so they could wave down at Sandi and me.

                        Their accomplishment is not memorialized in a friez

More photos…..

                      Mount Hood in North Central Oregon is a volcano.

                                    From up on its sloping sides, you can view its little sister Mt. Saint Helens, which is only about one hundred miles to the north. Both reside in the still scary (and active) Cascade Range. We all can remember the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens, (only forty-four years ago, a gnat’s life in geologic time) which measures its age with epochs and eons never mind years and centuries!

                                                Mount Hood is still venting, and the occasional whiff of escaped sulfur gases can be detected from time to time. The next eruption of this mountain is set for maybe some time next week, so we felt very comfortable visiting the old lodge and having a very nice lunch.

Only kidding!

Actually Mt. Hood is still monitored but Mt. St. Helens is considered the “Most Likely to Succeed” in an eruption any time soon.

Film at 11.

(I hope that someone in the class has noticed that I did not go into the Plate Tectonics of this region for fear of losing some newly acquired readers!)

                                                We are at our next stop after Spokane, and it is a bit further West. We are in both Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington which are directly across the HUGE Columbia River from each other.

We are visiting Steve and Sandi, friends from the World Cruise. You may recall we were with them this past February in Palm Springs where they stay in the winter. In the warmer weather they live up here directly on the Columbia River which provides a never-ending supply of passing ships, osprey sightings, and the occasional really fast speedboat!

Sandi and Steve have been our “Tours by Locals” tour guides for the past few days, and we keep joking about how many “Stars” they will be getting from us, the “Tourists”.

So far, so good!

This part of our country is dominated by a few notable natural features, namely, volcanoes, the combined river system of the Columbia and the Snake, and vast forested areas that are now prone to spontaneous combustion it seems.

                        We did visit Mount Hood, and it is quite impressive at over 11,000 feet in elevation. This elevation is more remarkable as the surrounding countryside has an elevation that is relatively low (about 1500’) and flat making Mt. Hood seem to just jump from the surrounding countryside. Mt. Hood also “makes” its own “weather” as evidenced by the stubborn clouds that hung just at the summit and quickly disappeared as they moved on. Still, seeing all-year-around-snow was impressive and this is the only spot in the country that offers skiing all year around. Many a ski-team ventures up here for a little practice in the off-season.

                        Clinging to the slopes is the Timberline Lodge which was dedicated by FDR in 1937. A combined project of the WPA and CCC, it was constructed using local materials, especially the giant wooded beams and posts. Local artisans weaved the rugs and sewed the curtains, it really was a labor of love that went into this exciting project.

A few years later, WWII broke out and of course the hotel deteriorated over that time. When the war was over and business resumed, bad management and questionable business practices brought the Lodge to its knees, and it was scheduled to be razed. Enter Richard L. Kohnst (RLK) a local guy who thought he could fix it all. Fix it he did because ever since that day in 1955 his company and family have guided this enterprise very successfully to international prominence. It’s interesting how one can tell that an establishment is not part of a “national” chain of management companies that vies for the business of running these great Lodges. That delicious lunch that I mentioned before was the key for me. The menu was not “cookie-cutter’ in any aspect and the offerings were unique enough to suggest that they were far from generic. I had a “French Dip” that was the best I’ve ever had, complete with that “dip” part being infused with a Bleu Cheese, which made it a tad creamy and very tasty. That’s how I could tell, and it was confirmed when I asked our waitress about the company that ran this Lodge.

                        There is nothing better than a family run operation.

                        The other prominent feature around here is the Columbia River. This thing is HUGE! We have over 2500 rivers in this country and the Columbia comes in at #8 for length at about 1240 miles but ups its game when calculating discharge…. It doubles its ranking and jumps up to #4!

                        The Columbia River Gorge is one of our Scenic Designations in the country. It was carved out a really long time ago when a really big inland sea suddenly lost its drain plug and carved its way out of Montana, Dakota, and Idaho areas and plunged down thru this expanse carving its way to the Pacific Ocean.

                        We plan on returning to the Pacific Northwest in the future. The opportunity to see the Snake River Gorge at over 8000’ deep is too tempting to miss. Plus, when we travel from Montana to Spokane we travel thru some really pretty parts of Idaho with beautiful lakes and pretty valleys all just waiting for us to set a spell in.

We’re here for two more days, so more to come!

                        When we looked at our route that would take us from Seeley Lake, Montana to the Vancouver, Washington/Portland, Oregon area and saw that we were a whiskers width away from Spokane, Washington, we knew that we needed to stop again and visit with Greg and Kim (May 7^th, 2022). We were here a little over two years ago and they graciously gave us a tour of their fabulous little city, Spokane. Here, “little” is not derogatory in any way. Spokane has all of the amenities that a “big” city has but it just feels just a tad more ‘cozy’ than those ‘others’. And that’s a good thing.

                        Spokane (spoke-ann) has obviously been lived in for thousands of years starting with those folks that trudged all over the North American continent, the hunter-gatherers. For our purposes we will fast-forward a few thousand years and drop in here during the late 19^th century, 1881 to be exact, as that is the time that (here it comes….) “the railroad came to town.” Yes, the Northern Pacific Railway arrived that year and two years later, in 1883, gold, silver, and lead were discovered in the area and (here comes another one of my favorite sayings….) “the rest is history”.

                        Now firmly established and growing at a fantastical rate, Spokane found itself building and burgeoning over the next twenty years or so. The Town Fathers (and I’m presuming that quite a few Mothers were kicking them forward at the time) were concentrating on making Spokane the capital of what was referred to as “The Inland Empire”. Railroads, minerals, timber, and furs were all important ingredients to this claim. Hastily built wooden structures from the early 1880’s were just ripe for a devastating fire which presented itself exactly 135 years and 15 days ago. On August 4^th, 1889, a fire started and when it was finished it had destroyed 32 blocks of downtown Spokane.

                        So, that’s where we come in for today.

                        There was a construction boom in Spokane which defied description. More “modern” masonry and steel edifices were becoming the norm which gave the city a more upscale feeling with those accompanying industries following suit.

                        Enter Mr. Llewellyn Marks (Louis) Davenport in the Spring of that fateful year. At just twenty-years old, he came to town from San Francisco to work for the summer in his uncle’s restaurant, The Pride of Spokane.

                                                Fire.

                                                Most of the City went poof!

                                                Young Louis salvaged what he could.

                                                Then he bought a tent.

                                                Davenport’s Waffle Foundry opened.

                                                And flourished!

                        Recognizing an opportunity, Louis quickly leased a brick building on a popular corner and expanded his menu to over a hundred items.

Within a few years, Davenport’s Restaurant was described by a critic as “the finest thing of the kind in the country.” Business was so good, Davenport expanded into an adjoining building within a decade. He hired up-and-coming architect, Kirkland Cutter to make the two buildings appear as one in 1904. Cutter offered a Mission Revival style theme. The white stucco walls and green tile roofs stood in marked contrast to every other building downtown. This remodel added the finest ballroom in the West on the second floor, the Hall of the Doges (modeled after the Doges Palace in Venice). The delicious Crab Louis salad was born here and is now world-famous.

The City recognized a talent when they saw one. Some of the Local Tycoons got together and presented their idea of a what they thought the City needed, a world-class hotel where groups could meet and have outside business partners stay when they came to town.

And they wanted Louis Davenport to run it.

And have his moniker placed upon it ensuring that a highly recognizable, and very successful name would be attached to it.

In the design, Kirkland Cutter was instructed to make sure “no more money than necessary was squandered on exterior ornament”, which resulted in a building with a relatively simple exterior with strategically placed ornamentation but an extremely extravagant interior. 

They built lavishly it in the Renaissance and Spanish Revival styles, the 406-room Davenport Hotel cost two million dollars to complete and included new technologies at the time of its opening in September 1914, such as chilled water, elevators, and air conditioning!  Cutter and Davenport shopped the world for ideas and furnishings for their new hotel. Cutter designed the space drawing inspiration from the great architects of France, England and Spain and decorated the interior with luxurious appointments with fine art and tables dressed in Irish linens from Liddell and set with 15,000 pieces of silver (said to be the largest private commission for Reed and Barton). 

The tower went up in just eight months (with only one construction related death, a rarity at that time) and the hotel opened for business on September 1, 1914.

  Ever since then, the hotel has promoted itself as “one of America’s exceptional hotels.”

And judging by what we saw and the fact that it is now owned by KSL Capital Partners (who also own The Grand on Mackinac Island!) we could not have agreed more.

                                    The hotel offers visitors a pamphlet entitled “Historical Walking Tour”, and it guides you around the ground floor and second floor where the Lobby (now part of the hotel’s restaurant) and the Ballrooms, where a wedding was taking place at the time. Someone was having a “ball” 😊 because they were using all of the ballrooms for their wedding……  Ceremony, Photos, Pre-Dinner Snacks, Dinner, Dessert, and Dancing were all spread out amongst the different rooms! Not sure what that event cost but the Guests seemed to be having a grand time!

                                  However, the entire history of the Davenport is not so grand. As with many of our older establishments, times and proprietors change quickly over the years, and with each new owner visions and operations change, and not always for the best. Eventually, the Davenport fell onto hard times and was just about to be demolished after being closed for about fifteen years. This was in the early 2000’s. Along came a local couple with more than a couple of bucks because they bought the place (they spent $40,000,000 of their own money) and proceeded to put it all back the way it was, and then some! The results are obvious!

                                    During our last trip here two years ago, Kim and Greg toured us around town and showed us some of the other wonderful aspects of downtown Spokane. These are found in the Post aptly entitled, Spokane (from May 7, 2022). Go to the Archives and scroll back. I’m quite sure that you will be as impressed with this “little city” as we were!

                                    Thanks for reading!

                                    We are nestled nicely thank you in our spot in Seeley Lake, Montana courtesy of Steve and Phillis. This will be a time of “west and wewaxation” as Elmer Fud would say. Our Reserved Pad is right next to the runway here at the airport in Seeley Lake. Steve and Phillis have a Home/Hanger here and we get to tag along.  

                                           Last year was our Year of Discovery here in Montana and while there is still plenty to do and see, we’re just taking it easy. We do, however, have a Mechanical Problem of Significant Proportions to report.

                                    Our large Slide-Out is partially fritzified (yes, there’s that new vocab word again!) This issue does not affect the driving of the motorhome unless it gets stuck in the “Out” position, and if that happens we’d need those accompanying Flag Vehicles that travel with the Wide Load crowd! We are not sure why this problem occurred, the candidates are some significant potholes that we encountered back at a campground and /or the fact that we “Full Time” with this rig. Explanations below:

                                    First one is a ‘out of whack” situation.

Imagine a shoe box.

Now imagine trying to slide another just slightly smaller shoe box into the first one. Now slightly torque the first (larger one) ‘til it’s slightly kanked and now try and slide the other one into it.

Instead of the “Wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt13:49-50), we get the “grinding and gnashing of gears” (Don9:30-54) which makes everything bind up and grind to a proverbial halt.

The second issue may be the fact that these motorhomes, travel trailers, etc. are not built for full-time use. The average family uses their units a few times a year for long weekends and a vacation or two.

That’s all they use it.

We, on the other hand, are constantly using ours and we put exponentially more use on the components than that average family does.

                        Either way it adds up to our very large slide out having issues and these issues and their consequences are non-negotiable. Although we can survive nicely with this slide tucked into the “In” position, it’s much nicer being able to move it in and out.                                               

                        The other factor here is that not everyone works on these puppies. And…. even if we were able to find one that does, their wait times for service stretch out several months. I know of just two places that I am positive that they: 

A.) know what they’re doing and

B.) are capable of completing the work.

One is Winnebago up in northern Iowa (we’ve been there before) and Country Classic Auto Body in Sussex, New Jersey who only work on motorhomes and other RV’s.

So…. it looks like we’ll be tracking back to the East Coast after this Western Swing because we couldn’t get into Winnebago until the middle of November at the earliest!

Tommy, clear out our Parking Spot…. We’re comin’ home!

(One word says it all.)

This could be the ultimate “Final Jeopardy!” question of all time.

                                                Answer: “This destination resort was designated as the second National Park in the United States in 1875” (three years after Yellowstone)

                                                Question: “What is Mackinac Island.”

                                    “Now just hold on there Donny, everyone knows that Sequoia in California is our second oldest National Park! (1890) Besides…. no one even knows how to spell or pronounce Mackinac/Mackinaw! And on top of that, what’s the deal with the no cars thing?“

                                    No worries mates!

                                    All of these queries and observations will be handled in this Post as you all will become Mackinac experts by the time that we’re finished here.

                                    Let’s deal with the obvious first.

                                    Mackinac? or Mackinaw?

            Both are correct spelling depending on which side of the huge Mackinac Bridge you are on. The Lower Michigan folks spell it Mackinaw and the Yoopers (the phonetic contraction for U.P. short for Upper Peninsula) spell it Mackinac, but still pronounce it with the aw sound at the end.

                                    Confused?

                                    So were the early French explorers that came here in the late 1600’s and conversed with the local Anishnaabek folks that resided here. To confound this entire phonetical pronunciation problem is the original name of the Island….. Michilimackinac.

                                    Ha! Easy for you to say!

                                    But the translation of which, while it may be easier to say, it is not that easy to use, it is…. “Land of the Great Turtle”.

And while we all love turtles, and yearn for the days gone by, it is just better to refer to this island as Mackinac. (The marketing folks were also quite happy with it)

                                    Let’s settle that question about the second national park. Yes, it is true that Mackinac Island was the second National Park, but it lasted only for twenty years and was then turned over to the State of Michigan which in turn made it a State Park. But that Jeopardy! question still stands!

                                    Now we’ll tackle the “No Cars” restriction on the Island. Not only are there no cars, but there are also no motorcycles, scooters, delivery vehicles, buses, street cars, golf carts, skateboards, roller skates, or wheelchairs. (only kidding about the wheelchairs!) Here’s the backstory:

                                    The year is 1898 and the horseless carriage is becoming a more frequent sight wherever you go. Someone was “zooming” along the main drag on Mackinac and scared someone else’s horses attached to their carriage. A petition to ban said “horseless carriages” was hastily drawn up and presented to the Village Council who approved it. Ever since that fateful encounter there have been no motorized vehicles allowed on the Island. In fact, Mackinac has the only State Highway in the nation, the M185, that bans all motorized vehicles! Now, let’s be a tad practical here and readily admit that some powered emergency vehicles are a good idea, so fire trucks and ambulances are tucked away for their use if needed.

                                    I have to admit that it was a little strange when disembarking on the Island to find only horse drawn carriages and carts along with 15 billion bicycles to rent, as the only transportation.

                                    Quiet?

                                    You bet!

                                    Better?

                                    In this case I would have to agree with that 1898 Village Council and their ban. Mackinac Island has a mission and that is to provide a resort experience that is a throwback to the late 19^th century, that is replete with the customs and service of that era.

                                    And they do it nicely.

                                    Even the deliveries that go to all of the hotels and restaurants here have to be delivered by a horse drawn cart. I watched the local Sysco delivery come in on a barge, to be met by the cart, and then proceed on a delivery route as if it was a hundred years ago. Even the garbage trucks are the horse drawn carts!

                                    Our original plan was to rent some bicycles and pedal around the Island, but I ended up with some old knee issues flaring up, which ixnayed the pedaling around. So, I hired a horsedrawn carriage (no fringe on top), and Melanie, Trigger, and Daisy spent two hours driving us around to the most popular sights, which also included Melanie’s running commentary. The back carriage roads of the Island are gorgeous and wind their way through many a wooded area of Mackinac Island which is over 80% covered by that Mackinac State Park.

                                    Trigger and Daisy are just two of the over five-hundred horses that are on the Island. That is a one-to-one ratio as the full-time population of the Island is just over that five-hundred number. With all of those horses comes the inevitable results of eating lots of hay and transitioning that hay into fertilizer. No worries there either as there were innumerable Manure Magnets pushing their little carts around sweeping up the evidence of horses gone by.

                                    We did not see any flies either!

                                    (I think they were banned with the cars!)

                                    Mackinac Island has been on my Bucket List for as long as I can remember mostly because of seeing images of the Grand Hotel. I’m afraid that those wonderful images, no matter how great they were, cannot do the real Grand Hotel justice.

We were only able to ride by and see it up close as they certainly restrict access to their guests only. This ensures that a return visit is in the offing for another trip here in the future.

                                    And the next time will include a stay at the Grand.

Our ferry ride back to St. Ignace was as nice as the one outbound in the morning. We really did not know what to expect with regards to our visit. My only previous experience were some photos of The Grand and the movie Somewhere in Time which given the nature of the timelessness of this Island was filmed in the perfect location. I will tell you that not one aspect of this venture disappointed and only whetted our appetites for a return visit that will last a bit longer!

                        Over the last few days, we’ve visited any number of historic sites and museums, some of which really deserve a Post of their own. But for many reasons (one of which is just beating you guys over the head with Museum Minutiae) I decided to give you a brief overview of the same. The Post from two days ago, Sault Ste. Marie, was one of the hardest that I’ve written only because there was too much information and the culling of which became tedious (in a good way!)

                        So….. here are two Museums that we visited that if included in the other Posts, would have been smothered and would not have received the distinction that they deserve!

                        I present now, for your Museum Musings….

                        Two collections of regional interest…..

                        One is of airplanes (No! Really?)

                        And the other is ships (Gasp! What a surprise!)

            Well, both are vital to this area. If Canada has anything, it has trees. And lots of trees together become forests. And when it gets hot and dry they like to show off what a spark can do and ignite into raging infernos. We all, as of late, have seen and smelled (even as far away as NYC) the effects of the huge wildfires in Canada. These places are hard to reach as there are not a lot of roads that cris-cross these vast arboreal areas. This is where this particular museum comes in as it highlights and documents the efforts of Canada’s Bush Planes and firefighting services.

            We poked over the Border to the city in Canada with the same name as the one in the USA, Sault Ste. Marie. The border crossing was uneventful in both directions, they just took a while as the lines were significant but not extensive. It took probably an average of twenty minutes to cross over. This was not the time for levity. No joking with the Border Patrol folks, just answer their questions politely and hopefully move on. You could tell that they are trained…. Small questions about where we’re from, the answers, if given hesitantly, may have morphed into a more serious discussion.

                        The Bush Plane Museum is in an old giant hanger that was used for seaplane service back in the day. It afforded a realistic space for all of the planes in their collection, which were many.

There were also two movie features, one on the firefighting process itself and the other was on Jane Goodall and her positive attitude towards what we can do to help our planet recover from abuse and further survive in the future.

Jane is a World Treasure.

The Maritime Museum, Great Lakes Freighter, Valley Camp

The next day we went to an old (1917) Great Lakes freighter that has been converted into a Maritime Museum, both inside her hull and out. The exhibits were quite extensive and very informative.

The exhibits were so well done that Paula (who I drag to every maritime/aviation museum we find and is not particularly drawn to same) was fascinated by the stories of these ships which did include a detailed timeline and narrative of the demise of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

The Great Lakes and their accompanying inclement weather are nothing to be trifled with. The evidence of these mishaps is overwhelming as evidenced by the exhibits in all of the Maritime Museums of this area.

                                    Today is your lucky day!

                                    It is time for another Class Trip and fortunately the weather is beautiful because today we’re all going on a Boat Ride!

You all may not be as excited about this as I am (as I will entertain any excuse for a Boat Ride) but I can assure you that this one is VERY interesting!

                                    Seeing as we are here at the Soo Locks, and even though we all saw them from the Observation Deck yesterday, what better way to experience these marvelous engineering works of wonder than to actually get into them and be raised and lowered the twenty-one feet that is the difference between Lake Superior and Lake Huron.

                                    We chose for our outing The Original Soo Locks Boat Tour which started in 1934 with a wooden cruiser named Bide-A-Wee. No one (banks) would loan Captain Beechgood the capital that he needed to start this venture up, because the Bean Counters did not think that anyone would want to go through the locks as everything was visible from land. So, the Beechgoods mortgaged their home and bought a boat. 90 years later we sailed on Bide-A-Wee III (built in 1953!) and there were two sister ships at their dock ready to go also. The family still owns and operates these boats 😊

                        Our two-hour tour consisted of a trip up to the American side of the locks, then we returned by the Canadian side. The Canadian side was once much larger and was the original, but when the American side was built and started operations, it took most of the business away from the Canadian side. The Canadian locks were eventually shortened and modernized to accommodate tour boats, pleasure craft, jet skis, and even kayaks. There is no charge to use any of these locks, even on the American side.

                                    Ok, it’s time to board, please watch your step!

So, what happens to the old ships? Some are sunk on purpose to create artificial reefs, the lucky ones become Museum Ships, but by far the most end up at the “breakers” to be torn down and turned into scrap metal.

I am uncomfortable talking about this.

We hope that you have enjoyed your Boat Tour of the Soo Locks, and we hope to see you again on one of our Tours of just about anything that we come across! Remember admission is always free and virtual snacks can be had for the asking!

Stay tuned for some diagrams of how the Locks work. If you have been bored to tears, feel free to exit now before we get really technical!

The absolute “End”

                                   

The legend lives on

From the Chippewa on down

To the Great Lake they call

Gitche Gumee…

If I were to select one theme that is pervasive here on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it would be that of the maritime thread that sews this region together and binds everyone to the history and drama of the ships and sailors that ply these waters.

                                    There are many others, but I’ll start here.

                        We are up here in Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan which as you can surmise by the spelling of the name, was founded by the French in the early 1600’s making it one of the oldest permanent settlements in the country. But, for us folks who took Spanish, etc. in High School, it’s pronounced Soo St. Marie and that’s evidenced by another accepted way of spelling it because when the Brits took over, they morphed it phonetically.

                        The Great Lakes do provide the bulk of the traditions of this area, and no one minds at all. This tiny area of the Soo is the home to the Soo Locks, a project started way back in the 1800’s and carried on by the indomitable force of the Army Corps of Engineers to this day. All of the ships that transport the commodities of this region have to transit through these locks in order to get around the elevation difference between Lake Superior and Lake Huron and the rest of the world. Lake Superior lies about six-hundred feet above sea level and unless you want to watch a giant ore freighter try and navigate some Class V rapids or go over Niagara Falls, then a system of canals and locks is quite necessary!

                                    We started our day with Darla and Sandra, our friends and tour guides, with a stop at a Native American cemetery. This particular one belongs to the Bay Mills Tribe, one of five recognized Tribes on the UP. These tribes have their histories intertwined with the Chippewa, Menominee, and Dakota.

                                    Our next stop was out on a point jutting into Lake Superior that had one of Michigan’s 129 lighthouses on it. Michigan has more lighthouses than any other state, coming in second is Maine with almost one hundred less!

Our primary objective of the day was a visit to the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum way out on Whitefish Point, near what is aptly monikered as the Graveyard of the Great Lakes. This area, just off of this point is, in fact, the site of the foundering of the Edmund Fitzgerald, which for better or worse brought the ever-present possibility of catastrophe on these waters to the forefront.

I am one-hundred percent sure that my opening lines of this Post were familiar to you. Gordon Lightfoot considered The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald to be his finest work. He wrote and recorded it just weeks after the Edmund Fitzgerald went down in November of 1975. This song is obviously used at the Museum as this is the organization that spearheaded a dive to the site (over 500 feet down) to bring the bell of the ship up to the surface to be used as a memorial. The families of the crew were all involved in this endeavor, and they replaced it with an identical bell inscribed with all of the names of the twenty-nine men that perished that day.

                                    We watched a film documenting this entire (very dangerous) process which ended with a ceremony where family members came up one by one and rang the actual bell in remembrance of their lost loved one. It was an ending that most families don’t get to have when there is a tragedy at sea. Mr. Lightfoot’s lyrics rang particularly true at this point…

                                    The church bell chimed ‘til it rang twenty-nine times

                                    For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald

We could have spent a lot more time here as the Museum had an exhibit on most of the ships that have gone down over the past hundred or so years. I would not hesitate to return to this area!

                        The Upper Peninsula is mainly composed of large swaths of forests and waterways. Bogs filled with blueberries and cranberries work their way in from the shoreline where the beaches are as sandy as the Jersey Shore, and the water looks like it could be in the Caribbean!

We drove long stretches of roads that had absolutely nothing on them until a small settlement would appear and then just as quickly disappear behind us. At the end of one of these roads was our next destination and lunch! We were headed to Tahquamenon (which rhymes with phenomenon) Falls State Park, the home of the falls and a local brewing company of the same name, and their accompanying restaurant.

                        Lunch over, we walked down to the Falls, which are quite impressive as these falls are second only to Niagara Falls in volume. In the Spring over 50,000 gallons per second drops over the edge of the falls on the river of the same name. I think they just like to say “Tahquamenon” 😊

                        We arrived “back in the Soo” just in time for ice cream and a walk across the street to visit the Soo Locks Visitors Center run by the Army Corps of Engineers. This viewpoint was multi-level, had loudspeakers which explained what ship was coming through, and was situated just a few feet from the edge of the Locks. The inside of the Center provided an incredible amount of information about shipping, lock technology, history, and the current ships and marine traffic at any given time. It was very well done!

                        One of the best parts of traveling around our country is discovering things that we never knew existed but are in fact very important and interesting. We are only one day in on our visit to the UP and this has already been exemplified well beyond our expectations.

                                                And there’s still more to come!