The weather has not been kind again. Monday morning at 4:45 I awoke to winds trying to lift my tent off the ground and impending rain. I quickly gathered my stuff out of my tent and shoved it in the car. I have a leak in the roof somewhere and I was not going to get wet again. I slept in the car with Buddha, who will not sleep in the tent.
Around 7:30, it began to clear and I went to work making my coffee and hot cereal. It was not to be by a fire as I had planned because now my wood was wet. :(. I then spent some time wiping up the water so the tent could dry out. I proceeded with my plan to go to Sault Ste Marie, MI to check out the Soo locks. By now the sun was shining and it would be 80 before day was done.
I was fortunate to arrive at the locks to see a fishing boat go through. An amazingly simple concept, some claim the design for canal locks as an invention of Leonardo Di Vinci in his sketch books. Besides an artist, he was an inventor. Even the angle of the lock doors--not a straight closure--was in his drawing. Whoever actually can take the credit, it is a technology that has not changes much in the last 200 years. In fact, they are violins a third lock there now.
To illustrate how just how long the thousand footers are, they have an exhibit made up of photos of some of the thousand footers. Several of them I have seen go under the lift bridge while living in Duluth. Which reminds me, I have a post to make about a trip to Duluth I made in June.
While in the visitor center I snapped a few photos of grim Great Lakes statistics drownings. Lake Michigan claims the most which does not surprise me because I have heard of it's wicker undertow due to being long and narrow. Lake Superior had the least. Maybe because it's sooo large people take her more seriously. The guide in the visitor center said she's a trooper. People from the UP call themselves Yoopers and those under the Mackinaw bridge are trolls. Since she was born under the bridge but now lives in the UP she made up her own moniker.
Watching all of the water displacement made me hungry so I had to check out the crêperie and had a savory avocado bacon crepe. Then it was off to do some shopping. I found a wonderful bookstore where I got a used book ont Mackinaw Island so I could plan my itinerary for tomorrow. I could have bought so much more there but I saved my children from having to sort through more stuff when I die. I did get my usual post cards and magnets from the trinket shit store.
I also found a store with all Michigan made and vintage items. I got a pair of vintage earrings that will look great on Zoom calls and a turtle card which is original art. When I told the owners that I collect turtles and the I'm reading Of Time and Turtles about a couple that runs a turtle rescue , she rummaged around to find a "not right" turtle A local artist made. And she gave it to me. She said he used to make a lot of not right animals
Later on the afternoon I saw a big tanker pull in, but I was eager to get back to camp for that fire and to see if my tent had dried out. It had and I squeezed in a sunset paddle.
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