Our Day in Sault Ste Marie
It was a lot warmer here today. The low last night was 57 and the high today was 86. It is only supposed to cool down to 65 tonight. There is a 40% chance of rain, and it just started misting.
Kathy hung around the RV most of the day. She did some reorganizing and also sat out front and watched the activity on the river. LOTS of boats, several planes landed and took off across the river from us and a helicopter flew around a lot (probably some tourist things.)
I went out and had a late, good breakfast at Frank's Restaurant downtown. After breakfast I found a hardware store that had the kind of bulbs we needed to replace in the RV. I then went to the Soo Locks and watched some vessels lock through and watched about 40 minutes of movies about the Locks. It was interesting. I didn't realize how many times the locks have been rebuilt. The first locks were built by a private company in exchange for several hundred thousand acres of land. The company turned the locks over to the State in 1855. The State charged each vessel for using the lock. In 1881 the State turned the Locks over to the Feds and from that time on we taxpayers have footed the bill for the operation and renovations of the lock system. (Once again, get the Feds involved in anything and they will find a way to make others pay for it.) There are currently 3 active and 1 inactive lock. Each active lock drops or raises a vessel the 21' height difference between the inlet and outlet pools. Two of the locks can handle vessels 1,000' long and the other one is limited to 800' vessels.
I toured the Valley Camp, on old freighter next. The 550' long vessel was built in 1917 and remained in service until 1966. One of the things that stuck in my mind was that she burned 50 tons of coal a day. 2 man crews worked in 125 degree temperatures feeding the boilers. They worked in 4 hour shifts but 2 men had to shovel nearly 10 tons of coal into the boilers every shift. I don't remember the date when they installed an automatic stoker.
When I returned to the RV park we lounged around awhile, visiting with the new neighbors on the east of us. They spend the winter at their home near Ft Meyer, FL and tour the country in their RV the remainder of the year. Nice folks.
We went back downtown, maybe a mile away, and a 7 PM went on a hour and a half "Walking History Tour". It was led by a local couple who do them in Sault Ste Marie on Thursday and Saturday nights and in St Ignace on Friday nights. It was both interesting and entertaining. They also do a "Ghost Walking Tour" at 9 PM but we didn't stay for it.
On the way back we stopped for a salad and a pizza at a Greek restaurant. Both were excellent.
Tomorrow we need to pack up first thing and head back to Evart so that Kathy can be there to start helping check people in at 2:30.
This is a beautiful place....this time of year.
Good night to all and may God bless you.
Kathy hung around the RV most of the day. She did some reorganizing and also sat out front and watched the activity on the river. LOTS of boats, several planes landed and took off across the river from us and a helicopter flew around a lot (probably some tourist things.)
I went out and had a late, good breakfast at Frank's Restaurant downtown. After breakfast I found a hardware store that had the kind of bulbs we needed to replace in the RV. I then went to the Soo Locks and watched some vessels lock through and watched about 40 minutes of movies about the Locks. It was interesting. I didn't realize how many times the locks have been rebuilt. The first locks were built by a private company in exchange for several hundred thousand acres of land. The company turned the locks over to the State in 1855. The State charged each vessel for using the lock. In 1881 the State turned the Locks over to the Feds and from that time on we taxpayers have footed the bill for the operation and renovations of the lock system. (Once again, get the Feds involved in anything and they will find a way to make others pay for it.) There are currently 3 active and 1 inactive lock. Each active lock drops or raises a vessel the 21' height difference between the inlet and outlet pools. Two of the locks can handle vessels 1,000' long and the other one is limited to 800' vessels.
I toured the Valley Camp, on old freighter next. The 550' long vessel was built in 1917 and remained in service until 1966. One of the things that stuck in my mind was that she burned 50 tons of coal a day. 2 man crews worked in 125 degree temperatures feeding the boilers. They worked in 4 hour shifts but 2 men had to shovel nearly 10 tons of coal into the boilers every shift. I don't remember the date when they installed an automatic stoker.
When I returned to the RV park we lounged around awhile, visiting with the new neighbors on the east of us. They spend the winter at their home near Ft Meyer, FL and tour the country in their RV the remainder of the year. Nice folks.
We went back downtown, maybe a mile away, and a 7 PM went on a hour and a half "Walking History Tour". It was led by a local couple who do them in Sault Ste Marie on Thursday and Saturday nights and in St Ignace on Friday nights. It was both interesting and entertaining. They also do a "Ghost Walking Tour" at 9 PM but we didn't stay for it.
On the way back we stopped for a salad and a pizza at a Greek restaurant. Both were excellent.
Tomorrow we need to pack up first thing and head back to Evart so that Kathy can be there to start helping check people in at 2:30.
This is a beautiful place....this time of year.
Good night to all and may God bless you.
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