Out of Our Rut: Next Stop Brimley State Park

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Our next planned stop is just over an hour's drive from Newberry. Brimley State Park is on the shore of Lake Superior - correction, at this point it is considered the St Mary's River which connects Lakes Superior and Huron. The check out and check in times are 3 hours apart, so we came up with the plan to drive to the parking lot of a grocery store in Newberry. Chris will go shopping and I will head to the library to get some things done using the great wi-fi they have.

We get to the park mid afternoon on a Saturday, so the place is already nearly full and lots of obstacles to avoid as we get settled in our site. The beach access turns out to be a popular spot for either swimming, building sandcastles or sitting in your chair in the water with your glass of wine - which activity is done appears to be age dependent. We got some decent sunset pictures from the beach one night.

Brimley is just a short drive from Sault Saint Marie Michigan - apparently Michigan's oldest city. There's lots to see and do here so we end up spending a few of the nine days we are in the area checking things out. Our first trip being on Sunday meant the place was pretty much deserted. We stopped and did a geocache near the county court house. It was one of the prettiest court buildings I can remember.

County Court House

As we head towards the river front, we discover the Cloverland Hydro Plant building. Okay, "discover" might be the wrong word since the building is 1/2 mile long, it's hard to miss. It definitely does not look like your typical power plant with all its stone work and arched top doors and windows. A section of the river is diverted thru a channel and directed underneath the building to something like 80 turbines.

Hydro Plant Built 1902

Closeup from Boat

Power Plant Outlet Side

Power Plant Inlet Side

As we continue down the river front, we see the freighter "Valley Camp" sitting in the dock. We realize it is retired now and has been converted into a museum. We decide it looks interesting and spend the $27 to get us both in. At 550 feet in length, it is small compared to ships travelling the Great Lakes today, but it still feels huge to us.

There are several floors created in the main holding areas inside the ship with all sorts of interesting exhibits. Neither of us are into ships but we did find many of the displays compelling enough to check out and read over the descriptions. One of the more moving areas took up nearly the full rear of the inside of the ship - a tribute to the Edmund Fitzgerald. The whole time I found myself singing Gordon Lightfoot's lyrics. They even had the one and a half life boats that were discovered after the wreck.

Valley Camp Sitting in Dock

Valley Camp from River

Viewed from Nearby Dock

One of the Life Boats from Edmund Fitzgerald

Looking Out Port Hole

Looks Just Like the one Mom Had!

There were more things to see down below, but we hadn't planned on staying here as long as we did, so up to the deck we went. This is a big ship but it's made more apparent when you're outside on the deck. Although the living quarters for the crew weren't bad, I think I'll stick with our motor home. The captain on the other hand had some pretty nice quarters.

Crew's Quarters

Mess Hall - Love No Drinking Sign!

The Helm

Looking to the Stern

Anchors Away - One Link = 25 Pounds!

We come back a day later to actually stop at the visitor's center at the Soo Locks. We have seen locks up in the Thousand Islands and near Niagara Falls, but we still find them fascinating to watch.

Edwin H Gott Heading Upstream

Hon James L Oberstar Heading Downstream

Baie St Paul Heading Downstream

The main plan for this day was to take the tour boat trip through the locks. The tour was pretty well done and it was a gorgeous day, so it was well worth the money. Some of the tour boats actually will go up or down in the lock with one of the many freighters passing through, but we were not that lucky. I still find it fascinating, maybe even baffling, that the Army Corps of Engineers run the locks for free. Not sure if I were to show up in a kayak, what they would do, and in all the times we watched the locks in operation, the smallest boat was one from Border Patrol, but it was not exactly small, given it had it's own dinghy.

Our Boat in the Lock Being Viewed

Gull Perched On Pier

Looking Downstream on Way Down

Bedsides going thru the lock up to Lake Superior level and back down to Lake Huron level, they tour you past many sights on both the American and Canadian sides. There is a huge iron smelting plant on the Canadian side and it was fun to see the scope and operation we could from the boat. Usually they would bring us back down to the lower level on the one Canadian lock, but the railroad turnstile bridge was stuck in the wrong position so no boats could use the lock.

John B Aird at Factory Dock

Raw Materials for Iron Plant

Big Material Handling Equipment

Finished Product Waiting to be Loaded on Barge

Two other interesting sights along the way: 1) the international bridge that takes car and truck traffic and the rail road bridge with its couple of lift bridges. 2) there was some tall ships event taking place soon, so we saw a couple of them while they were on route to the event.