H O M E S

(Sault Sainte Marie, MI) Hi 76 Li 62 --  We planned a day on the road, but first I’ll have to tell you why.
When I was in the fifth grade we were studying geography and my interest has always been the great lakes. The teacher said to remember the lakes, remember the word HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior).  I never forgot that, and as kid I knew that seeing Lake Superior was out of the question, and so was the others, except for Lake Michigan.  I lived in northern Indiana and it was nothing to go to lake Michigan. It was almost a monthly visit, but the others seemed so far away and never in a million years did I think I’d make it to all five. Well, during the last month I got to see Lake Erie (in Buffalo, NY) and Lake Ontario (in Kingston, Ontario). Today I completed my quest of seeing all of the five great lakes. It's one more thing I can check off my bucket list.  We took off late this morning to Lake Superior, which is 16 miles from here as the crow flies. But we had to drive about 30 miles to get to Brimley State Park, in the very small town of Brimley. We were supposed to have a "recreation pass" on our car, but we told the ranger in the office that we would only be there long enough to get some pictures and he laughed and let us in.

The beach at Brimley State Park




Lake Superior, with a cargo ship in the distance.


While in Brimley we saw this small train museum, so decided to stop and check it out.


All of the exhibits were inside the two train cars. a nice lady was inside to tell all about the railway that was in this area back in the 1800's, and how they used trains to take steel and minerals across the St. Mary's River to Canada. The exhibits consisted of mostly old photos and some artifacts from life back in those days.




We then made our way back to I-75 and headed south to St. Ignace, on the south coast of Michigan's upper peninsula, to see Lake Huron. It took about 45 minutes and we  exited the interstate just before the toll booth for the Mackinac Bridge. We first went to Straights State Park to get a good view of the Mackinac Bridge, which connects the upper peninsula to the the rest of Michigan. Lake Huron is on the near side of the bridge, and Lake Michigan is on the other side.


We went into town to get some lunch. We stopped at Macinac Grill.



We sat on the patio looking out onto Lake Huron, with Mackinac Island in the distance.

The Huron Boardwalk is right outside the restaurant, so we decided to take a walk out to see the small lighthouse at the end of it.




We stayed a few minutes watching the ferries go to Mackinac Island, then headed back home.  We decided not to take the trip over to the island. We've heard a lot about it from friends who visited it, and it doesn't seem to have anything that would appeal to us, at least not enough to justify the cost of the ferry tickets. Before we left St. Ignace we stopped at a store called Indian Village, where I bought some moccasins that I've been wanting for a long time.

On the way home we stopped at the Sault Ste. Marie Walmart to stock up on groceries. It’s good to be able to get anything we want (ahem... alcohol) and not worry about the border crossing.  It looks like rain for tomorrow, so we're thinking we'll spend the day here in the park. Then it's back on the road on Monday!