ALL DONE!!

FINIS!
Arrived safe and sound back home about 3:30 yesterday afternoon.
SUPER GREAT TRIP!
Our 6,000 mile estimate came in at an actual of just shy of 9,000.
Home movies and a few hundred digital photos are available for sale or rent- just send your requests to dennis7366@aol.com for a quote....(never did get can any requests for the Alaskan stuff but figure New England is probably much more in demand :).....And thank you all for following along. Dennis and Irene

Michigan to Indiana

We have left the Upper Peninsula and crossed the Mackinaw Bridge into “the other” Michigan. Stopped in Traverse City to begin our immersion back into citification. This area claims to be the Cherry capital of the world and based on the number of trees we see just from the roadside they have a lock on the title. Up until this point the number 1 roadside stand staple had been campfire wood but here everyone is selling cherries. Washed cherries, unwashed cherries, u pickem, we pickem, cherry pie, cherry jam, cherry jelly, cherry wine, even cherry BBQ ribs and on and on the topper was a matched set of cherry luggage. After two days there we continued south and stopped at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Visited the museum and took a bus tour of the track…really neat that Irene and I were the only passengers on a bus built for forty and the driver/guide really gave us a nice spiel on the track’s history.

Strange Boats-Ministique

At the pier in the town of Ministique we came across these three steel hauled boats. They are completely enclosed like a submarine but don't look to be able to submerge- at least on purpose. No one around to ask what their purpose was/is so the mystery remains...maybe something to do with logging??

Lake Manganese

Copper Harbor, MI

Arrive at the tip of the Kaweenaw Peninsula-Copper Harbor- and set up at the Fanny Hooe campground on Lake Fanny Hooe, of course. This is the northern terminus for route 41. The other end is 1990 miles south in Miami. It was later in the day so we drove around and took some pictures. Will be here at least two days.

Marquette, MI

We are heading west along the Michigan shore of Lake Superior. It's hard to think of this as a lake...it just looks exactly like an ocean shore line, but the water is fresh and crystal clear. Oh yeah it's about 45 degees too so as inviting as it looks I don't think we'll be doing any swimming. Dropped into a campground in Ishpeming and checked out this old mining town from the 1800's and the lake port of Marquette from about the same time frame. They have a thing here called “ore docks”. The lake freighters, 1000 feet in length, pull in with a load of coal for the electric power plant. The freighters self unload the coal with conveyors and then reload with iron ore pellets brought in by train. The trains back in on these high rise docks and chutes located under the train cars lower down into the ship hold and the iron falls with a roar. We were fortunate that a ship was at the dock. It's quite the thing to witness and we must have been there for over an hour. One of those things you have to witness in person to get the full effect.

Sault St Marie - Day 2

Saw the sights, did the shops, watched the locks.