Riverbend Journal

  I grew up in farmhouses with septic tanks but upon leaving the farm, I thought I had left them behind as well. But when we moved to our current house, in city limits, just barely, it had a septic tank instead of being attached to city sewer. As I would come to find out over the years, many areas on the edge of town are like ours with septic tanks. Also, unlike any septic tanks I was familiar with, it had an additional stage where it pumps air into the "liquids" to help promote bacteria growth and digestions of solids to supposedly make the sand filter last much much longer than normal systems. Part of the transaction of buying the house required an inspection of the septic system because it was more than ten years old as required by state law. It passed inspection and so we moved into a house with a septic system more than ten years old (exactly how old I have since forgotten) in good shape but of which I had no knowledge of how it worked or its function.  Shortly after mov...

Due to the heat and an unconditioned garage, progress has been slow on the porch swing. But gradually in the early mornings before it gets too hot, I have been making progress getting the seat part of the swing put together. I did find a set of plans and have been loosely following them but am also making changes as I see fit. One of the biggest changes is that the design called for exposed fasteners. I don't mind a few of them but in the swing seat alone, there are a ton of them and so I decided to go another route. I drilled and counterbored all the holes before fastening them. I've always wanted a plug cutter but never have bought one. I guess the main reason is because I either do joinery that required no fasteners other than glue or I am okay with exposed fasteners. They are pretty cheap in price so cost wasn't really a factor. So I bought one and drilled about a bajillion plugs in a scrap piece of board. They can then be broken out with a screwdriver or run through th...

  Finally on the last day in Sault Ste. Marie, we drove back around the point away to Whitefish Point, closest point in the Upper Peninsula to the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Above is the actual bell from the wreck which now sports a replica with the names of the 29 victims etched into it and lowered down to the lake floor. The actual EF bell is located at the highly advertised Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. The museum was actually a cluster of buildings on the point, half of which belong to the Coast Guard and aren't available to the general public. There is a tiny building that lists a dozen or so shipwrecks along with brief descriptions of how they occurred, some of the items retrieved from the wrecks and some with pictures of the wrecks. It was definitely neat but a really small exhibit especially with dozens of tourists crowding in around you from all sides to fit in such a small place. Besides the actual diminutive museum, there is a gift shop, a movie theater showing a 15...

Traveling with five people, is hard when it comes to motel rooms. We are forced to fib about our numbers when booking at most computer systems won't recognize rooms for five or more. So we book rooms for four (two queen beds) and bring our own inflatable mattress for one of the kids as the fifth person. Occasionally, as it so happened at Sault Ste. Marie (locals pronounce it Soo Marie, sounds like Sue Marie), we search and find alternative lodging. In this case, we found a place right by the canal and lock system that rented cottages. Literally a stone's throw from our cottage was the lock system that allows boats to go from Lake Huron and Lake Michigan up the 21 feet to Lake Superior. So most nights found us over in the neighboring park watching boats work their way through the locks. Above was a bulk carrier that perhaps was carrying iron ore. As we walked up to a viewing area overlooking the locks to follow the bulk carrier, we saw this boat was already in the locks heading ...

Around the middle of our trip, we were transitioning from western to eastern upper peninsula of Michigan and I saw on many maps and websites about boat tours offered to see the famed "Pictured Rocks" which were a protected area along the coast of Lake Superior. Not wanting to taint myself ahead of time, I avoided googling any pictures and just jotted down the location of the boat terminal in case we decided to purchase tickets. As it turned out, we did decide to do so and I am enthralled at what we were able to witness as a result. Above is another old lighthouse spotted along the shore line of an island as we made our way out to the Pictured Rocks area. As we approached the shoreline rose from the water in an impressive band of cliffs and started showing signs of water staining which is the process that created the Pictured Rocks. The water in the high water tables leech minerals out of the rocks and deposits them on the cliff faces as it runs down to Lake Superior. The colo...

Our latest vacation began at all places, a company campus called Epic which makes and distributes software for the medical community to manage patient records. It was not something that ever crossed my radar but my wife, plugged into the medical community, was well aware of it and that we would be near it on our way north. So we stopped and went on a self guided tour along with hundreds of other people that were evidently more in tune than I was. The Epic campus covered hundreds of acres with dozens of large buildings containing meeting rooms and offices. Each building had a theme of some sort and the common spaces of the building were decorated according to the theme. The general public was allowed to walk through these common spaces through a series of elevated walkways and tunnels. Above, we had just exited the Andromeda tunnel, passed by the gate of hell and were headed for heaven. You could ring the various doorbells of hell and get greeted by spooking messages but fortunately for...

Before we left on our vacation, we headed down to the cabin for a quick extended weekend. Due to other obligations, it was shorter than we would have liked but was still relaxing and enjoyed. Above is the Buffalo River at a point we crossed it for a short hike on the evening of our arrival. Because it was so hot and humid, all hiking was done in early morning or late evening. The following day it was lightly raining all morning and so we took a chance to go on a hike to the well known hunk of rock jutting out of the bluff wall overlooking a valley. In recent years, it has become quite popular to the point it isn't enjoyable with all the crowds of people around. We were counting on the rain and it being a weekday still, that the crowds would be thin and were rewarded by having the place all to ourselves all morning long. The last time I had been here was on my honeymoon nearly two decades ago. I had never been to this place when the clouds were low like they were on that day. I was ...