Sault Ste. Marie (Sooo Marie)

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 the other way.

I'm sure the crews get tired of the people up in the viewing area watching their every move all the time so these two improvised a little dance when all was done and their boat started heading east towards the lake proper. By coincidence, most of the crew were Filipino along with a couple that happened to be standing next to us from the same town as my wife and MIL are from.

Above is the original bulk carrier that we saw now 21 feet higher and ready to head off towards Lake Superior.

On the following day, we drove south to the port town of St. Ignace and caught one of the jet ferry boats like the one above. I was all for the comfort of sitting inside but my oldest daughter really wanted to sit up on the top deck which we did. I made the mistake of sitting in the last row next to the railing and paid the price of getting soaked through as the boat made its way to our destination for the day, Mackinac Island.

I was pretty leery about going to the island as it just seemed like a huge tourist trap but it was by request of my wife and so I went. When I stepped off the ferry, the first sense was that the entire island smelled like horse shit. That turned out to be the highlight of my day spent on Mackinac Island. Off the ferry, we immediately walked over to the horse carriage rental place and bought tickets for a horse drawn tour of the island. As you can see, I was up close and personal to the business end of the carriage but fortunately my horse didn't fart the entire time unlike blogger Steve Reed's horse carriage tour. The first half of the tour was just around various parts of town followed by being dumped off at a building where you can buy food or souvenirs. There we had to switch over to larger carriages for the ride through the national forest and almost back into town. We were given a couple ending options and chose the short and very steep downhill walk from the Governor's house back down to the central park. Once there, everything was just swamped with tens of thousands of people. We fought our way through the crowds a couple times and finally just gave up and hopped on the next ferry back to the mainland. If you are ever in the area, save your money and just go to a local mall.

I suppose one might be tempted to call this stop on Mackinac Island a highlight until you learn of the back story. On the way back into town on the larger carriage, it will stop in a parking lot and we were given eight minutes to fight our way through the crowds, try to find a somewhat clear shot of the natural arch and rush back to the carriage  before it takes off. We were told that at the present rate of erosion, this will no longer be a problem in 50 years as it will cease to exist by them. 

On another day, we drove to Tahquamenon Falls State Park to see the falls that it was named after. By dumb luck, we drove to the upper falls first (above) and were able to drive right in. The trails weren't very crowded and we had periods of time to enjoy the beauty of the falls by ourselves.  However by the time we drove out of the parking lot, it was mostly full and there was a long line of traffic waiting to get their state park pass to get in.

We drove back the way we had came to the lower falls and had much the same result. We drove right in to a nearly empty parking lot and on the way out, it was much fuller and there was another long line of traffic waiting to get in. The lower falls were split into several waterfalls on each side of an island with a trail and a bridge on one side to get to the island.

The trail was greatly improved to the point that I actually saw someone using a walker attempting it. But with such trails leading to such beauty, I find that it really detracts my enjoyment of such things and the surroundings suffer as well. Despite there being signs every so often along all the trails asking people to stay on the trails, there were beaten down paths going every which way. And if that weren't enough, I couldn't get the entire lower falls seen above in the frame of view because not 10 feet from a sign asking people to leave the trail were these people seen below. If I knew their names, I would tag this photo with them for all eternity.