Sault Ste Marie, Michigan

We had a wonderful day today in Sault Ste Marie

It was nice weatherwise in the morning but started to rain around 4pm today.

After getting a few housekeeping chores done in the morning we headed off into downtown, Sault Ste Marie, now I was expecting a much larger city but it was very quaint with lots of very old homes and shops.

First on our adjenda was to see the Soo Locks, they have done it up very well, there is a big platform up high where you can view the ships going through the locks and then a nice visitors building where they have historical pictures and discriptions of how the locks were made.

We were lucky as when we got there two big Great Lake freighters came in one entering the Poe Lock from the west and another entering the McArthur Lock from the east.

From here we took a drive west and then back into downtown to have lunch at an Irish Pub, I tried a raspberry ale and it was very tasty. Having to wear off some lunch we walked down to the Tower of History which was started as a religious monument but when got out of hand was given over the the Historical Society. From the top we could see across to Canada.

Walked over to the courthouse and then to the Ship Museum which is in the Great Lake Ore Freighter the Valley Camp. It was very interesting and now I now all there is to know about the shipping and ship wrecks on the Great Lakes, including the sinking of the Edmun Fitzgerald.

We took a little drive along the St. Mary's River toward Lake Huron and found three lovely campgrounds right on the water, I would like to try them another time.

Did a little gambling tonight at the casino so am late getting things done and am certainly not ready for travel tomorrow but it is only 10 hours to Ottawa and we have two days to do it in.