A Day in the Life...

I was going to call this post "a detour on the road to De Tour" but I changed my mind. I don't know why. I've had a tough day, electronic hardware-wise, and I'm reeling from all that... so who knows what goes on in a preoccupied mind?

So what's the problem with the hardware? First, Dar's computer has presented us with the "blue screen of death". It's not good. It may be terminal. I've got a few leads on some solutions but any attempt at revival will have to wait until Wednesday when we plan to take a break from exploring.

Oh, and just wait... there's more. Today, during our little jaunt to Sault Ste. Marie my trusty GPS decided that life wasn't worth living anymore. Completely out of character, the dang thing didn't say a word... didn't say "That's it, You've taken the wrong turn one too many times... I can't take this anymore... I'm ending it here and now... bang!"... no, it didn't say a word. I just heard the click of the hammer as it was pulled back and the self-inflicted shot that ended its more than 5 year life with me. It's over. She wasn't high maintenance, didn't cost me a bundle over the years, normally led me in the right direction... I just don't know what to say. You'd think she'd say something before taking a final step like this. I may need counseling.

This morning Dar and I trekked northward about 50 miles to the town of Sault Ste. Marie and the famous "Soo" Locks. I've been there twice before... once as a kid while vacationing with my family and the other when Dar and I, before children, made a week long circumnavigation of Lake Superior. The first was probably in the early 60's and the second in the mid 70's, so it's been a while.

But very little has changed. We enjoyed watching the 720 foot Joseph L. Block lock through into Lake Superior and a few smaller tour boats full of tourists going up or down. The museum at the Locks is small but interesting, with history and information about the operation and why the locks are so important to commerce on the Great Lakes.

After a quick lunch at the Lockview Restaurant across the street, Dar wanted to explore a curious little village out on the extreme eastern edge of the UP called De Tour. From the "Soo", it's over an hour away, and off we go. But the route we chose was interrupted by a road construction detour... so we had a detour on the road to De Tour... get it? (I'm tellin' ya'... you just don't get writin' like this at most websites!)

At De Tour there's a ferry over to Drummond Island, an island that, when you look at the map, looks like it should belong to Canada. Islands on both side of it are Canadian, but Drummond belongs to the good old USA. Why?

Part of the answer may lie in the rich deposits of Dolomite that make up the island. A rocky mineral, Dolomite is used extensively in the manufacture of steel and is of strategic importance for that reason. I honestly don't know if this is a reason the place became part of the USA, but it sounds plausible.

We observed a ferry boarding and explored De Tour a bit before heading back to camp, more than an hour away. The road between De Tour and I-75 runs right along Lake Huron and there were a lot of public access beaches along the way. We stopped at one and dabbled our toes in the lake.