Day 7- St Ignace To Appleton, WI

The rain and high wind continued all through the night and we woke to the continued drumming of the raindrops on the camper roof. Normally, I would be lulled to sleep by this sound but I’d had enough. After breakfast, there was a bit of a lull so Carl and I tried to hurry through tucking everything into it’s proper place and then dashed about with some haste to get hooked on before the rains began once more in earnest. The drive to Appleton, WI, some 277 miles promised to be a long one, fighting wind and rain. Little did we know we would also fight fog and horrible road conditions a good part of the way. Our route today took us south along Lake Michigan and on most days you could tell what a scenic drive it would be. Along the road we spotted lupines growing and several smokehouse sending wonderful aromas into the air. Somewhere near the Hiawatha Golf course, we began to see signs warning of blowing sand and around the very next bend, there they were, not the massive shifting dunes of the Sahara but dunes, none the less, mile after mile of them. Just beyond was the Lake, acting like a proper ocean with white caps and wind driven waves that some people would enjoy boogie boarding on. I did manage a few photos today although I suspect they will be as grey and mean looking as I felt while taking them. Eventually, we came upon a sign that informed us we had crossed into the central time zone and just like that it was an hour earlier. Don’t know what I would have done without that sign. And even though it was that hour earlier, we were still hungry. Lunch found us at a county operated camp ground/ picnic area right on the shore. Imagine our surprise when we spotted a dump station and fresh water to refill our tank on our way out. The sky became quite ugly looking and please don’t take this wrong but I was actually looking for tornadoes. There was a very long line of thunderheads and smack in the middle, I saw what could only be described as a wall cloud, the kind that are know to rotate and produce twisters. I kept watching for miles but didn’t see anything except some teasers protruding from the bottom. Carl clarified my position on photographing tornadoes during this trip which is a definite yes, as long as we are not in imminent danger. By 4:00 PM, we were both beat so pulled into, yes, you guessed it, the Super Wal-mart in Appleton. After parking the camper, we grabbed the grocery list and our environmentally sound reusable bags to get groceries for the next week. The weather isn’t looking very good for our visit to the Wisconsin Dells tomorrow with more severe storms predicted in the area for another 36 hours. We’ll just have to play it by ear. I can’t believe it’s been a week already. We've traveled 1364 miles to date.

A Little Piece Of The Upper Penisular

Top to Bottom and Left to Right:

A beautiful example of wild yellow lady slipper, White Paper Birch, St Ignace Light, Boats in Lake Huron protected harbor, A different sort of deer at Indian Village, Patriotic moose, Mackinac Bridge cable Towers and Mackinac Bridge dividing Lake Huron and Lake Michigan.

The Next Part Of The Journey To Wisconsin Dells

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Day 5 and 6 - In The Park

We knew it could happen. We knew, at some point, it would happen. It clouded up and rained most of the night. Monday has lousy weather and Tuesday isn‘t looking good either. So, I got caught up on editing photos and posting blog entries while I had an internet signal. Then I did some laundry and tried to think how better to arrange some of the stuff I can’t find a place for in the camper. Right now, the shower has three plastic totes full of stuff in it because I have run out of closets and drawers. Carl, meanwhile, fixed a leak in our city water supply, worked on leveling the camper a bit better, put out the awning for the very first time ever, installed the gas grill on the side of the camper for our supper meal and took the gas stove apart inside because we had a tiny “fire issue” with one of the three burners. We’ll have to find an RV place for parts on that one. It’s Tuesday now and the weather looks even more unsettled than Monday. I’ve made the decision to not go out to Mackinac Island. I’ll put this back on my bucket list. I can’t see enduring a rough crossing for a cold and windy day on an island with the prospect of gray pictures or getting drenched. This also kills plan B of driving up to Tahquamenom Falls, the second largest falls east of the Mississippi. So, we’ll have another down day, filling our propane and gas tanks and shopping for moccasins for Carl. While we were out getting the various fills, we also stopped to get a few provisions and a couple of post cards at the local tourist trap. It’s called The Indian Village. They boast a wide range of Minnetonka moccasins and a heritage museum. The very first thing I picked up was made in China. In fact, just about everything, including the moccasins, were made in China. I am so bummed that an “authentic Native American heritage site” should be filled with stuff like that. We just had a whopper of a thunder storm, enough so Carl shut off the television while it flashed and rumbled nearly at the same time. Tomorrow we’ll be off to Wisconsin.

Day 4- Travel to St Ignace, MI

We were on the road early today headed to what I hoped would be a marvelous photo excursion to Mackinac Island. We travel all day instead of stopping half way which put us a day ahead of schedule. The trip, for the most part, was uneventful. We stopped a couple of times, to stretch our legs, have lunch and fill the tank but otherwise kept moving until Carl realized he could drive the entire leg. I was skeptical. We called the Tiki RV Park and they said come on up. UP being the Upper Peninsular of Michigan. I took a few shots as we traveled but I can tell you there were times when I thought we were back in NY because the view out the window was mile after mile of farm lands and growing crops. Other times we could have imagined we were still in NH on Rte 93, a mixture of conifers and evergreens hugging the two lane highway with little or no travel accompanying us. One note of interest, we passed a sign that stated “ You have just crossed the 45th parallel, half way between the equator and the North Pole”. Now I’ve been to the Equator when we went to Belize but I doubt I will ever get to the North Pole. The wind was really strong and we both had some concern when the signs warned of severe cross winds on the Mackinac Bridge but our concerns were unfounded. The view from the bridge was of water as far as the eye could see, Lake Michigan to our left and Lake Huron to our right. It’s cool and quite breezy at our campsite but the park is quiet and our home away from home is cozy. Both Carl and I were pronouncing the name of St Ignace differently so I asked our campground host which was correct. Turns out neither of us was. It’s pronounced as if it were spelled St Ignis.

Other Images From Nighttime Niagara

Day 3- The “More On This Later”

While we were at the Three Sisters, a Park Ranger asked us not to go beyond a certain point. We wondered about this although the rocks were quite slippery even dry. Carl found a path in the other direction so I could take some photos of the rapids and little waterfalls up river and that’s when we saw the boat sunk in the river up to the gunwales. One of the guys on our tour asked a news reporter on scene and the following is part of the article she wrote for the evening news:

NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. - YNN News Report - An early morning rescue on the Niagara River took a complicated turn Saturday. It started with a 911 call at around 2:15 am, about a disabled boat stuck near the power intakes with four teenagers on board. "Niagara Fire Department and New York State Park Police responded to that and quickly removed the people in that situation. In an attempt to recover the boat that was involved in that, the Park Police launched a jet boat into the river and in the process of that, actually grounded in the river," said Sergeant Mark Van Wie of the New York State Park Police.

Sergeant Van Wie says the police boat got hung up on rocks about 300 yards south of Horseshoe Falls.

"It's a very dangerous area as you can tell, with varying depths of the water, the rocks and what have you, and obviously the falls," said Van Wie. That meant some complications in the rescue of the officers, which included help from both sides of the falls. "That boat was in heavy water, only hanging on an anchor, and the water was high. We didn't want to put any extra stress on it. There was no way you could have just landed beside the boat so they could have jumped on to the helicopter," said Ruedi Hafen, the helicopter pilot involved in the officers' rescue. With a joint effort between the U.S. and Canadian responders, both officers were safely rescued around 8 am.