Heading Home Thru The Soo

This post is about Thursday, August 24th.

Well... this day looks like we're going to make our push out of Canada and back into the United States. 

We are waking up in our pretty little campsite in the Driftwood Provincial Park. Now we're not really looking forward to going back over that patchwork blacktop road all the way back out to the main Trans Canada highway route 17. Batten down the hatches and drive slow. 

We were keeping our eye out for a moose, but we really didn't see any. It was a little later in the morning, if we had gotten up a little earlier I guess we could have made more of an effort?

Now the terrain is beginning to look more familiar to us. These type of forests are more common across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Northern Wisconsin where we live. We are seeing a lot of the same terrain and trees, and it feels like "home". 

As we get closer to Sault Ste Marie of Ontario, there are a lot of rock formations left by the glaciers or cut away by the road crews. Lol!

They are really pretty as we fly by. I can't imagine the work it took to chisel away at all of these just to get a road through. And these go on for miles and miles... 

I'm not sure what kind of stone this is, I think it's limestone. 

As we travel along, we are reflecting back on this vacation trip. It's not so much all of the destinations that we reached, it's more about the traveling, the terrain, the journey, and having all of our comforts with us as we go.

We spent much of our time talking, and observing things as we drove by, and never turned on the radio. There's so much to see and so much to enjoy that we don't want to waste it lost in the reverie of music and advertising.

We remarked on the changes as well as the similarities. We remarked on previous trips where we have seen this terrain in other years as we get closer and closer to Sault Ste Marie. We have been in this area, so we really didn't need to stop anywhere or see anything. 

Since this is all familiar country now, I have time to catch up on the blogs. 

We kind of prepped ourselves to get ready to go over the bridge into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  We have used up the last of our fresh vegetables and any raw meat. And we did not have any produce or citrus on board. We had our passports ready along with our doggie's vaccination papers.

Up up up over the tall bridge that is spanning over the Soo Locks. All of the huge ships that maneuver the Great Lakes go through these channels. The water raises or lowers them to the right level in the lock so they can continue their journey. We imagine some of the large ships that we saw pass through the lock at the Robert Moses State Park also have passed through here and may be on their way all the way up to Duluth Minnesota at the far western end of Lake Superior? 

As we crossed the bridge, I could see the rushing water down below around the piers of the train trestle next to the main bridge. 

It clouded up again and they forecast some more rain. By looking at the map, it seems like we are going to scoop right around underneath it. 

As we got closer to the highest part of the bridge I got out some money for the toll. We are never quite sure of the charge, being an RV. Sometimes they have an RV rate, sometimes they just charge us as a truck. I think sometimes they make it up as they go. I try to keep in array of bills and coins so I have the proper amount when we are at the booth. 

It looks like they are erecting a whole other island for a new slip or another lock channel. 

Some areas appear to be harbors or loading docks or even spots for ships to be repaired?

Now we are on the tallest part of the bridge. Soon we will be coming up to the US customs area. I learned long ago down in Mexico to never take a photo of a customs area! You would have to look back in my blog in 2012 to find out what happened there!!!

The only 2 questions we were asked were where we were going, and what did we purchase that we had to declare? We remarked one t-shirt. She smiled and handed us back our passports. 

Now up to the toll booth. Our toll was only $6.50. We handed over the cash, the worker said I was a "Keeper" to Steve because I had the toll money ready!!! LOL!   Then we were told to have a good day. 

We were done and heading on out into Sault Ste Marie Michigan. 

BACK IN THE USA! 

Now we are in very familiar territory. Actually we were just up this way last month when we were camping near Lake Superior.

There's a nice little National Forest Campground on Soldier Lake that we wanted to go to. It is part of the Hiawatha National Forest. We were surprised to see the entrance gated off! We looked up on the website and it seems that about five or six of the campgrounds and hiking areas in this part of the state are closed until further notice. There had been some damage with downed trees during some recent storms and they have work crews in the area busy making it safe again.

On to plan B. 

About another 55 mi or so on the same road, we know of a small crossroads town called Seney. There's a little Township Park there that we stayed at last month. 

Here is my blog post from that visit:

https://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/2023/06/campground-review-seney-township.html?m=0

We pulled into one of the best sites in the campground. If you pull in nose first, your door faces out over the river. 

We took a little walk along the river. Binney needed to get out stretch and sniff things. So did Steve. I got started right away working on supper.  

I had some frozen chili in the freezer, so I boiled up some extra pasta noodles and dug out some crackers. It felt damp and cool as the humidity is creeping up but the temperatures are dropping. Chili was the perfect thing and it just hit the spot. 

We were surprised to see about five or six other campers in there on a Thursday night. 

It is such a nice little Campground located about a half a mile just north of the little town of Seney. It's on a quiet back road and you don't hear any highway noise either. There is a convenience store down on the corner where you turn if you need anything before you get to the park.

Not a bad spot to park for the night, it's $20 with electric. Then there's a senior discount which lets you get it for $18 if you read the fine print on their sign. LOL

This was the day with the most driving ever so far of our entire trip. We put on 276 miles in one day! That is 76 miles over our limit. Usually try to keep it underneath 200. 

276 miles traveled today

2,608 miles so far