A few pictures

The following photographs were taken by
Sue Berkenbush. I have not down-loaded
mine yet. More to come, maybe.
Betsie Light House at
Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes
Michigan












l

Picture Rock National
Seashore, MI

• 
  

• 

Cornish Steam Pump
Iron Mountain, MI

The Rest of the Story

The rest of the story:

We drove like crazy most of the rest of the way
home. The first night we stopped in Valentine,
Nebraska at the Trade Winds Motel. A very nice
and modestly priced motel. The served a substantial
breakfast including ham and omelets, juice, toast,
bagels, and fruit.

The next day we drove home, arriving here about
3 in the afternoon. It is good to be home. I
had assumed Sue would be here a while, but she
is anxious to get home and has another stop, in
Portland, before she heads back home. She
leaves here Saturday (the 4th) morning.

Another note about our trip

On the 25th we visited Picture Rock National Park. The rocks are
best seen from the water, but we got a pretty good view from the
land and the overlooks. At this point we are in Manestique on Lake
Superior. The rocks are of varying colors and the "castle" is a pillar
sticking up from the water. It has been formed from the wind and
water wearing the stone into a castle-like formation. We walked
around there for a while, enjoying the lack of rain.

We had also visited an Iron Museum while we were in the area.

On Friday we drove to Iron Mountain and visited the Industrial
Museum there which featured a Cornish Pump. This is the largest
water-pump in the US and was used to pump water from the iron
mine. It is huge; the fly-wheel is something like 40 feet in diameter
and it could pump thousands of gallons of water in minutes, if I
remember correctly. It seems impossible that anything could
pump so much so quickly, but it did. The irony is that when they
moved the pump into its currently location they had a flood
and it was in 20 feet of water!

Our next stop, also in the Iron Mountain area, was the Cathedral
of the Pines. The wife of the president of a logging company
prevailed upon her husband to protect an area of the virgin
white pines. He set aside 22 acres of trees to be protected.
The trees are spectacular. They rise 100 feet or more up into
the sky and are huge! The surrounding area has all been
logged so the contrast in significant.

In Rhinelander, Wisconson we visited Pioneer Park. The parks
contains a conclave of museums all started by a charity that
was hoping to preserve the history of the area. Now the city
has taken it over, but they still depend heavily on donations
from the tourists. All the museums are free, but each has its
donation box prominently displayed.

The first one was the logging museum which included a replica
of a logging camp; the dining room and bunk house. The most
interesting aspect of this museum, to me, were the huge
logging sleighs they used to haul the lumber out in the winter.
Also, the "icing" wagon. This consisted of wooden boxes the
size of a railroad car. These were filled with water and driven
over the path the log-sleigh would use. The boxes leaked so
that the path could be iced making it easier for the sleighs
to run through the snow. What the horses did on the ice
was not explained!

Another museum was the CCC museum. I told the docent
we were old enough to know what the CCC stood for and
what they were about, so he didn't give us the usual spiel.
It turned out that he didn't know much more about the
displays than his spiel designed to explain why the CCC
existed to the younger generations. When asked questions
about various pieces of equipment he was at a loss.

They also had a restored schoolhouse. It made me wish
we had the resources in Salina to re-furnish ours as it
must have looked when it was used as a school.

We spent the night in Ladysmith, Wisconsin and came on
to Minneapolis in the morning. On our way, between
rain showers, we stopped at the Inter-state Park to see
the Potholes. These are formed by large stones being
caught in the flowing water of the St. Croix River and
then spun around and around, with more stones, such
that eventually the potholes were formed. That is
at sometime in the past this happened. The river used
to be much higher than it is now. One of the potholes
has been excavated down 60 feet and still the bottom
rock layer was not found. An interesting place to
walk through the rocky landscape to find potholes.

We arrived at Jeanne's about 2 PM. We are enjoying
a day of not driving! We'll head home tomorrow
morning. We expect to get home on Wednesday.

One thing I must note, we have paid as much as
2.98 for gas, but here it is 2.69. The motel prices
have amazed me. They are low. The highest we
have paid is $70.00. Most of them have been
almost empty. We have never had to worry about
showing up after 8 PM and not getting a room. The
proprietors have always been very happy to see us.