Great weather, nice two lane backroads through Ohio and Indiana farm country, a little town square heritage festival, some murals in Richmond, Indiana, and two (or three, if you count my first ever covered viaduct) covered bridges, made for a very nice last full day on the road.
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| Brookville Lake in Indiana |
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| New Madison Indiana town square |
Then I rolled into Richmond, Indiana.
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| This mural covers the whole side of an old firehouse which is now home to the Firehouse BBQ & Blues restaurant - pretty clever |
At the Whitewater Canal Historic Site in Indiana I saw my first covered wooden aqueduct, and it turns out, the only one still operating in the United States.
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| The Duck Creek Aqueduct carries the Whitewater Barge Canal over Duck Creek |
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| Of course, a barge canal needs a barge |
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| and the barge needs something to make it go - so we have Joey & Jordon |
Just two covered bridges.
I'm heading south in Ohio on US127 and keep seeing signs suggesting an alternate route because of delays due to race day traffic. I not seeing any traffic, so I just keep on truckin' - then, I come upon several thousand RVs parked in farm fields on each side of the road. So, I pull into Speedy Parking & Camping - ask the guy what's happening - it's the 46th World 100 at Eldora Speedway. So tonight I'm camped in a farmer's field and just got back from watching some very exciting late model dirt track racing on a 1/2 mile clay oval - lots of action, noise and dust!
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| Middle of nowhere on US127 in Ohio |
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| That's dust (not haze) and it got thicker as the night went on |
Trying to stay cool has been my focus this last week - so I don't have a lot of exciting news to report. It's been in the high 80s here in Micigan so I've been hanging out at my sisters air conditioned home (with pool) in the hopes that it would cool done a bit for the last few days of this trip. Usually I'd be heading north toward cooler climes (that's what the four wheels on the van are for) but I need to be back in Bardstown early next week so it looks like, hot or not, I'll be hitting the road tomorrow.
Here in Brighton it's been nice visiting with my sisters and just taking it easy, even had a nice BBQ & Blues Festival in town.
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| Veterans Memorial on the small lake in downtown Brighton |
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| These ducks are probably descendants of those I feed in this same pond 60 years ago |
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| Lots of good BBQ, but I still prefer the fixings from Eastern Carolina |
I'm now in Brighton Michigan (just down the road from my childhood home in Howell) visiting with my sisters - Anne lives in Brighton and Chris is visiting from Vermont. Nothing really exciting to report as this will be a little break from the almost everyday travel of the last three months.
Getting here from Canada entailed crossing two toll bridges. First, the Sault Ste. Marie International Bridge, which crosses the Saint Marys River and the Soo Locks (which enable ships to travel between Lake Superior and the lower Great Lakes). This is a border crossing and my entry to the USA was uneventful, but did entail about a 30 minute wait because of the volume of traffic.
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| Line for U.S. Customs - we're waiting on the bridge |
Once in the UP (that's short for Upper Penninsula for those of you who are not Michiganders or Yoopers) I headed toward Mackinaw City 60 miles away - 167 miles later I got my first glimpse of Big Mac, the Mackinac Bridge (the longest suspension bridge with two towers between anchorages in the Western Hemisphere or more simply - the third-longest suspension span in the United States). The center span is 200 feet above Lake Michigan - a height that causes problems for some drivers, so the bridge authority will provide a driver if you are among the faint of heart.
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| Prior to Big Mac opening in 1957 we traveled between the upper and lower peninsulas by ferry. Back then you could spend hours waiting in line. |
I had planned to stay a couple of nights at a Canadian National Park at the northern end of the Bruce Peninsula to avoid the Labor Day crowds - unfortunately, the crowd beat me there and the campground was full. What to do - turn around and head back south, or maybe I should take the ferry to Manitoulin Island. Care to guess what I did? So at a little before 8:00pm last night I boarded the MV Chi-Cheemaun for the two hour sunset voyage to South Baymouth on Manitoulin. The little campground I found a couple of years ago (this was my 3 or 4 trip to the island) was still operating and my site (with a nice hot shower this morning) cost a whopping $10.
In Tobermory before the ferry arrived I had a few hours to kill, so I had a late lunch and just walked around the harbor.
Late this morning I hit the road heading for Sault Ste. Marie (the Soo, pronounced Sue) for my border crossing back into the U.S. after 71 days in Canada. Had a great time visiting our northern neighbors.
Another walk around a small Ontario town with a nice collection of murals.
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| One of the largest murals I've seen, this one on the harbour grain elevators |
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| Trains are always good! |
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| You even had to look UP to make sure you weren't missing something |
