Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Bay Mills Casino RV Campground, Brimley, MI: June 15-20
We mentioned earlier how some casinos provide space for RVs (& 18-wheelers) to park, allowing them to stay as long as they like for free since no hookups are provided. Bay Mills has an actual RV campground across the street from the casino. The sites are pretty basic, but each has water, electric, & a picnic table. There is also a section with full hookups, which of course cost more. The casino sits right on Lake Superior, so we had a great view from our front yard and WiFi that actually worked.
Naturally, the first thing we did was go to the casino & see if they had any deals. We each got $15 in "free" gambling bucks each, which we stretched out as long as possible at the penny slots, and both did quite well. Since we were staying for so long, we found occasion to visit the casino over the rest of our stay, but still turned a tidy profit (by our very small stakes standards!). Our first evening we drove to the Point Iroquois Lighthouse, a lovely lighthouse only 5 miles from the casino, made even more dramatic by the light of the setting sun.
The next day we visited the Soo Locks. The only water passage out of Lake Superior is the Saint Mary's River, which drops 21 feet at the Rapids. At first, boats had to unload & haul their cargo through town, then reload alternate boats on the other side. A lock was built in 1853, putting an end to this expensive & time-consuming task. There are now four locks, and two of those are currently being replaced with one larger, state-of-the-art lock to handle the largest of the Great Lakes fleet. We were fortunate enough to see 3 large freighters pass through, two of them just over 1000 feet long, almost completely filling the lock. These are the largest freighters that can pass through the locks, and they have to remain in the Great Lakes, since they are too large to pass through the Welland Canal and out into the Atlantic Ocean. In between ships, we walked around Sault Ste Marie (MI not Ontario), shopping & visiting historical sites.
The next day we went on a scenic drive all the way up to Whitefish Point, where there is a beautiful lighthouse of the same name, as well as a Coast Guard Station and a Bird Observatory. Whitefish Point is known as the ship graveyard of Lake Superior -- more vessels have been lost here than in any other part of the lake, including, most recently, the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Many migrating birds, especially raptors, gather at Whitefish Point before heading out on the dangerous flight across Superior. We were too late in the season for any migratory birds, but we did walk all the way out to the very tip of the point. In a nearby enclosure, well protected from tourists, was an endangered Piping plover's nesting area. We could just glimpse the birds from our distant vantage point. Superior's shore is noted for its agates, and we enjoyed rock-hunting along the way. After doing some research, Willie has determined that none of our rocks are actual agates, but they are pretty varieties of quartz. You have to be really lucky to find the distinctively striped agates.
On the drive back we visited Tahquamenon Falls State Park. There are two "Tahq" Falls -- Upper & Lower. The Lower is actually more like a pair of lengthy cascades, divided by a large island in the river. The Upper is a true falls & is the 2nd largest falls in the US east of the Mississippi River -- only Niagara is larger. The falls have a distinct brown tint to them, a result of large concentrations of tannin in the water from all the rotting plant material in the swamps & bogs that the river drains from. Upper Falls was our first real encounter with Michigan's infamous swarms of mosquitos, and it was not pleasant. No sooner had we entered the woods on the trail to the falls than we were besieged by hundreds of the blood-thirsty little buggers. Not fun.
Naturally, the first thing we did was go to the casino & see if they had any deals. We each got $15 in "free" gambling bucks each, which we stretched out as long as possible at the penny slots, and both did quite well. Since we were staying for so long, we found occasion to visit the casino over the rest of our stay, but still turned a tidy profit (by our very small stakes standards!). Our first evening we drove to the Point Iroquois Lighthouse, a lovely lighthouse only 5 miles from the casino, made even more dramatic by the light of the setting sun.
The next day we visited the Soo Locks. The only water passage out of Lake Superior is the Saint Mary's River, which drops 21 feet at the Rapids. At first, boats had to unload & haul their cargo through town, then reload alternate boats on the other side. A lock was built in 1853, putting an end to this expensive & time-consuming task. There are now four locks, and two of those are currently being replaced with one larger, state-of-the-art lock to handle the largest of the Great Lakes fleet. We were fortunate enough to see 3 large freighters pass through, two of them just over 1000 feet long, almost completely filling the lock. These are the largest freighters that can pass through the locks, and they have to remain in the Great Lakes, since they are too large to pass through the Welland Canal and out into the Atlantic Ocean. In between ships, we walked around Sault Ste Marie (MI not Ontario), shopping & visiting historical sites.
The next day we went on a scenic drive all the way up to Whitefish Point, where there is a beautiful lighthouse of the same name, as well as a Coast Guard Station and a Bird Observatory. Whitefish Point is known as the ship graveyard of Lake Superior -- more vessels have been lost here than in any other part of the lake, including, most recently, the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975. Many migrating birds, especially raptors, gather at Whitefish Point before heading out on the dangerous flight across Superior. We were too late in the season for any migratory birds, but we did walk all the way out to the very tip of the point. In a nearby enclosure, well protected from tourists, was an endangered Piping plover's nesting area. We could just glimpse the birds from our distant vantage point. Superior's shore is noted for its agates, and we enjoyed rock-hunting along the way. After doing some research, Willie has determined that none of our rocks are actual agates, but they are pretty varieties of quartz. You have to be really lucky to find the distinctively striped agates.
On the drive back we visited Tahquamenon Falls State Park. There are two "Tahq" Falls -- Upper & Lower. The Lower is actually more like a pair of lengthy cascades, divided by a large island in the river. The Upper is a true falls & is the 2nd largest falls in the US east of the Mississippi River -- only Niagara is larger. The falls have a distinct brown tint to them, a result of large concentrations of tannin in the water from all the rotting plant material in the swamps & bogs that the river drains from. Upper Falls was our first real encounter with Michigan's infamous swarms of mosquitos, and it was not pleasant. No sooner had we entered the woods on the trail to the falls than we were besieged by hundreds of the blood-thirsty little buggers. Not fun.
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:17 PM 
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