Museum Ship Valley Camp - Thurs., Oct. 9, 2014

Location: Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Weather: High 45, low 38; rain and wind.

First, I'd like to welcome a few new followers:

1. Sherry at MTWaggin Photos & Blog. Her home is Great Falls, Montana, where they've had their first snowfall of the season. She loves photography, her dogs, kayaking, and flowing water. Thanks for stopping by, Sherry.
2. Leslie Alpen. I did not see a blog listed. If you'd like recognition for your blog, please let me know what it is and I'll be glad to add it. 
3. Cheeseheads4theroad: Donna who has no blog listed as I don't think she's writing one yet. Her interests include travel, camping, reading, quilting, crocheting, scrap-booking and spending time with her grandkids.
4. Marie and Ivan of ExtendingOurHappilyEverAfter. Full-time RVing intrigues them and they have looked at 5th wheels. They consider themselves science nerds, love music, theater, lecture series and photography. 

Bob did some research on what attractions we might want to see today. He read reviews on the Tower of History, Museum Ship Valley Camp, and River of History Museum. The one that we both decided warranted further investigation is the Museum Ship Valley Camp. A walk brochure of Historic Water Street also tempted us. [Note: It ended up being too cold, windy and rainy for the walk. Instead we drove along historic Water Street and read any historic markers that could be seen from the truck.]

Tower of History Museum

At the Museum Ship Valley Camp, the museum is IN a ship. Very unique as far as museums go. 

Museum Ship Valley Camp

Did someone say something about camp?

Taconite = iron ore pellets (makes it easy to ship)

Below is part of the hold on the inside of the ship. You'll notice the floor on the lower level is very wavy. That's from years of carrying heavy cargo. It caused the floor to warp. You have to watch your step!

Inside the ship

Emergency safety block

Ladder on a chain

Dials and gauges

Huge steel door to outside

Where we've been hanging out.

I.D. of different types of ships on the Great Lakes

If you look closely at the following display, you can see how much the elevation changes from the St. Lawrence Seaway to Lake Superior.

Elevation changes

250 HP Kahlenberg engine out of the tug Owen Frederick

Hydraulic cylinder used to open and close
St. Marys Falls Canal (Soo Locks)

Below is a 1937, 36', single screw, ice-sheathed motor lifeboat used by the Coast Guard until 1966. The lifeboat had excellent sea-keeping qualities and maintained the capability of self-righting. This type of lifeboat was difficult to capsize. Copper riveting, brass, white oak, white pine, cypress and ash were used in the construction of this unique vessel. The 36' lifeboats proudly served for 90 years. I'm thinking my great-grandpa captained some of these vessels!

36' motor lifeboat

There is a big display about the Edmund Fitzgerald at this museum, including a one-hour-long documentary with many professors and historians giving their opinions on how she went down. Below you can see the battered remains of one of the lifeboats. There is half of another Edmund Fitzgerald lifeboat on display as well. They never found the other half.

Edmund Fitzgerald lifeboat No. 2

The following photo is a sea buoy, badly damaged. Here's the story direct from the museum...These buoys were positioned directly over the wreckage of the Edmund Fitzgerald in order to keep the USCG cutter Woodrush on station over the wreck while the CURV III submersible explored the site. Winds in the area were strong enough to blow the Woodrush off its station, submerging the buoys to a depth of approximately 250'. At this depth, the pressure is nearly ten times greater than surface pressure causing the severe damage shown to these buoys. [They imploded.]

Severely damaged heavy-duty sea buoy

History of the Edmund Fitzgerald

A portion of the shipwrecks on Lake Superior before 1975

Fog horns

The upper deck, looking at cargo holds for taconite or grain

Bob on the deck to the left.

Pilothouse

Looking over the deck from the pilothouse

The Valley Camp superstructure.

Dining hall for officers and guests

Mess hall for crew is small so they had to eat in shifts

The St. Lawrence River from the Atlantic to Lake Ontario

Lots more to see and read about on the ship. We spent three hours. Highly recommend going to this museum!

Colorful poster of lighthouses

As we were exploring around Sault Ste. Marie after the Museum Ship Valley Camp, we saw a huge ship that had just cleared the locks. We followed it and found a great viewpoint at some apartments right next to the lock exit. This is one long ship!

Below are gates that can be lowered into the Power Canal to stop the flow of water to the  canal in case they need to work on the power plant.

When we finished our explorations we ate at Taco Bell for a late lunch, filled up one tank of propane, and put diesel in the Ford. All tanks were full.

Bob dropped me off at the 5th wheel, then he went to the Soo Locks again to watch three more ships go through. At the locks, Bob talked (or should I say listened) to a man who goes out to the locks all the time. The guy was a wealth of information about the locks.

Bob snapped a photo of one of the ships coming through the locks with a rainbow behind it. [Looks like a window reflection caused part of the ship to be a different color.]

Gina, Bob was very grateful for the scarf you made for him. It was frickin' cold out there in the exposed wind watching the ships!

When Bob returned from the locks, we had a date to eat dinner at the Casino's deli, then see the free comedians they have on Thursday nights. Dinner was good. The two comedians sucked big time.

We each had $10 of casino credits to play because we joined their rewards program. I didn't win anything. Bob won about $50. Almost every machine he touched gave him money. LOL. It was his lucky night.

The RV sites at the Sault Ste. Marie Kewadin Casino are $10 per night for an electric-only hookup. We made out pretty well.

All for tonight.

Travel Bug out.

 

Tahquamenon and Soo - Wed., Oct.8, 2014

This morning we head northwest from Germfask to Upper and Lower Tahquamenon Falls. Our thought was to spend the night in one of the campgrounds at Tahquamenon State Park. However, the drive was so short, RV parking was abundant this time of year, and the waterfall hikes were so short, we decided to have lunch at the brew pub at Upper Tahquamenon Falls, hike both falls, then continue on to Sault Ste. Marie. We're just filled with great ideas.

Weather forecast was 40% chance of rain. The rain found us for sure. We had rain showers off and on from Germfask all the way to Tahquamenon State Park. Because it was cold and windy, I wanted to eat lunch before we walked to the falls so there would be warmth and energy in my body. We had a very good lunch at the pub. I had their burger with fries and Bob had a whitefish fish and chips. Both of us had their home-brewed root beer. It was excellent and came with free refills!

Tahquamenon Falls Brew Pub moose

After lunch we hiked to the Upper Falls and went down all the stairs to beautiful views of Upper Falls. Then we hiked back up to go to the brink of the falls. The rain and hail found us on the trail. Brr!

Upper Tahquamenon Falls with a very high flow

The color of the water is brought about by tannins from decomposing vegetation from hemlock, and some of the other trees in the area.

Stippled leaf colors

Massive staircase to lower views and boardwalk

Upper Tahquamenon Falls from lower viewing area.

Easy parking at Upper Tahquamenon Falls

After Upper Falls, we drove to the Lower Falls parking lot (again lots of RV parking in October!). Then we walked to Lower Falls in the bright sunshine. Still cold, though. Lower Tahquamenon Falls is made up of five waterfalls. In summer, you can rents boats to go to an island and hike around it.

Luscious colors

Peak of fall color season.

Left side of Lower Tahquamenon Falls

Right side of Lower Tahquamenon Falls

Falls on both sides of the island

Rapids and falls.

All about "rippling"

Rippled rocks

Downstream from Lower Falls

Don't forget to look up.

Lower Falls RV parking - we were the only RV.

See how beautiful the weather is right now. Don't worry it changed again. We had a very active sky all the way to Sault Ste. Marie with rain and wind. It was good to get set up in our campsite at Kewadin Casino RV Park (for two nights). The sites are very muddy and unlevel. We did the best we could and parked behind a windbreak, put two boards under our tires on one side of the fiver to try to get it level, but it's still listing to one side. The only hookup here is 30 amp electric. The shower/bath house is directly across the park road from us. But for $10/night we'll suffer.

Bundled up tight, we walked across the parking lot to the casino registration desk to check in. On the way to registration, we stopped at a desk to get the casino rewards card. That gave each of us $10 Kewadin cash to spend in the casino and a coupon for free hotdogs at the deli. Plus every Thursday night they have a comedian in their theater, so we will go to that show tomorrow night. Once registered, we walked around and checked out the casino. It's beautiful. I'll take some pics of it tomorrow.

The time was 6:45 p.m. We drove into Sault Ste. Marie, found out the Visitor Center at the Soo Locks is open until 9 p.m., parked the truck, and wandered in. Our timing was spot on. Two big ships were just coming into the locks.

Braving the cold once again, we climbed up to the second level of the viewing platform to watch the ships go through the locks. The elevation change at the locks is 21'. Over 22 million gallons of water move through the Poe Lock every time a ship is raised or lowered!

The distance a ship travels from Duluth, Minnesota to the Atlantic Ocean is 2,342 miles. Duluth, Minnesota is the western most Atlantic seaport. The ships travel through four of the five Great Lakes and a series of rivers and locks on their journey. Just to go from Lake Huron to Lake Superior takes nine hours on the St. Marys River where they must navigate a series of tight turns. Can you believe it is still much, much cheaper to ship by boat than it is to use railroads or semi trucks? 

You can see the ship to the left of the building - low in the lock.

Superstructure of the ship in the second lock over.

Here is the ship in the lock closest to us

Army Corps of Engineers workers on the ground.

The ship entering the lock - about 432' long

The ship in the farthest lock rising rapidly

The ship next to us just about up

Up through the lock and on its way

So much information and such a thrill to watch these large ships go through the locks. The ship that came through the lock closest to us had a crew from China. One of the sailors spoke English and yelled "Hello, how are you?" to all of us watching. They were very friendly.

Iron ore is the main product shipped through the Great Lakes with a value of $500.4 billion per year. The second biggest product is coal. Other items shipped through the Great Lakes are salt, wheat, oats, etc.

When we finished at the Soo Locks Visitor Center it was pouring rain so we ran to the truck. We then drove up and down the street to find a place for dinner and decided on Moloney's Alley Irish Pub. Very nice place with good food.

Now we are back at the 5er warming up. Time for some sleep. Tomorrow we plan to visit a maritime museum that is inside an old freighter.

'Til then, nighty night.

Travel Bug out. (Can you believe it? I'm all caught up!)