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Page 3
Carone
(our daughter) received a music scholarship to the University of
Michigan
at Ann Arbor. As she had her own car, we decided to accompany her
on the long drive from the West Coast. We left California on a
Saturday,
and needed to have her there by Monday afternoon for check-in.
Needless
to say, we covered a lot of miles each day. Afterwards, Dave and
took some vacation time and decided to travel back to California via a
northern route, stopping as we saw fit. We drove over 6500 miles
in just under two weeks. Presented here are photos from the
trip--any
image can be seen in more detail simply by clicking on it. |
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power plant is housed in a stone building made of red rock. The
edifice
is quite imposing. |
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Near
the
power plant is a Great Lakes freighter, the SS Valley Camp,
that
is now a museum. We decided to tour the ship. This photo is
from the pilot house and is looking across the locks to Canada. |
The pilot house has been kept in great condition, with lots
of polished brass and teak woodwork.
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Here's a shot of Dave in the engine
room. The engine room was surprisingly small given the size of
the ship.
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The
ship's hold contains a mini-museum of artifacts and stories about the
Edmund Fitzgerald, a
freighter lost suddenly on the lakes in the 1970s
and made famous by Gordon Lightfoot in song. Surprisingly, no
mention of the song is made anywhere. The two lifeboats on
display were all that were left of the ship, which went down with all
hands aboard.
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There
are two buoys on display which were used to mark the location of the
wreck. The damage they suffered is evidence of the power of Great
Lakes storms.
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After the museum, we started driving west across the thinly
populated Upper Peninsula. The weather was quite gloomy.
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An
indication of how far these bands have fallen....
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There were vividly-named restaurants such as this one.
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We
stopped for a short break on the northern shore of Lake Michigan.
It was windy and cold, but it was nice to be able to stretch.
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Right
near the shore were quite a few beautiful flowers, like this one...
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This
one....
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And
this one. I suspect the UP is covered with flowers in late spring.
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We
stopped in Escanaba for the night and had dinner at a restaurant called
"The Swedish Pantry", which served authentic Swedish dishes. It
was quite good. The next morning, we headed into Wisconsin, going
through Peshtigo, site of a horrible fire the same day as the Chicago
fire in 1871. The town was destroyed, and half the people lost
their lives.
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Across
Wisconsin, and then Minnesota, we traveled through the miles of farm
land.
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We
finally hooked up with I-90 shortly before the South Dakota
border. One part of it was down to two lanes, and a passing truck
blew Dave's magnetic antenna off the roof. It was so loud that we
though we had hit something!
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Once
into South Dakota, the land began to get very flat. You could see
for miles.
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We
drove all the way to Chamberlain before stopping for the night.
Our hotel was right next to the old bridge across Lake Francis Case.
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Before
the freeway existed, you drove straight through Chamberlain, where
there are
still plenty of hotels and neon from that time.
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The
next morning we got up early and continued our trip west. We
encountered areas where it appeared that sunflower was a major
crop. Quite pretty, too, in bloom.
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