Saturday, & Sunday, July 17&18 Taqhamanon

Saturday morning we had a pretty fair drive down along the Trans-Canada highway to Sault St. Marie and back to the US. Once in the US we had about 1 ½ hours to Taqahmanon Falls State Park, home of Michigan's highest falls. Our GPS said ~5 hrs, my mapping program, with stops and accommodations for pulling the trailer, said longer. We were out around 8:00 , and the road was beautiful, although just 2 lane the whole way. Both the condition, and once we left the Sudbury basin, the scenery. We made good time to the US border, and found the approach to be right thru downtown Sault St. Marie! Right turn, left turn, etc. Not what I was expecting. The line at the border was long, to the top of the bridge. I had to choose a lane – and picked the slower one. Then customs agent asked us about fruit and veggies, and we had everything he asked about in the fridge. In the end we only lost our peppers, because, while we bought them in Canada, they were imported from Holland. Go figure!

We got to Taqahmanon Falls about 5:00, and found there was a 7:30 wolf program. Beautiful pull thru site, electricity, and around $20. We quickly set up ate and went.

Wolves are a favorite of ours since our first trip to Algonquin. There they had a “Wolf Howl”, where a ranger imitates a wolf cry, and you can hear them answer. It wasn't the right time of year this year in Algonquin, and we knew this wouldn't be that program, but it was good. We had a nice walk in the woods along the Taqhamanon river channel, dug back in logging days to get the logs around the falls. We had a chance to feel their pelts, plus those of some of their cousins, coyote and fox. We herd about their habits and saw their favorite winter feeding grounds, a beaver habitat. Good interpretive program.

We discovered in their park newspaper, that Micigan state parks are not funded by state taxes! They are totally funded by user fees! This amazed us, because of the reasonable camping fees, and the superb features and condition of their parks, even up here in the sparsely populated UP. They do charge an annual park fee of ~$20 for residents which allows entry in all parks. You see it on almost every car. What a deal!

On Sunday we, or the park got our schedules wrong, because despite verifying the location of the guided tour of the falls twice, we showed up at the lower falls, when the program was at the upper falls. Oh Well. The lower falls is not as dramatic, but you can boat right up to it, and they rent rowboats reasonably to facilitate it. It began to rain lightly, so we left and went to the upper falls. We had already left our campsite, but they had plenty of space in the parking lots for us.

The upper falls is about 200' long, and about 50' high, at a glance it looked like a mini Niagara. Besides size, one difference, the water was brown. We thought iron at first, but it is actually tannin from the roots and decaying hemlock trees the entire area is forested with. We opted for the 110+ step down boardwalk along the river up to a nice viewing angle. No boats here, just a nice walk, in the light rain. We did find out from the signs that the area was heavily logged of white pine in the late 1800's. Seemed like the same conditions as Algonquin's later logging. There were many local sawmills. And Lake Superior for shipping to the Great Lakes region. We left for a relatively short 2 hour trip to Munising, home of the painted rocks.

A note about logistics. Generally we like to travel about2-4 hours on our moving days. Then we spend 2-3 nights in a location, depending on things to do in the area, and the distance to travel to them. Think of our trips as a string of weekends put back to back across an area, with a few of them holiday weekends. We don't fuss much about food, although those of you who know Liz well, know that I don't lack for new and interested things to eat. We like to try the local fare if it is different, especially for lunch. On this trip we have not eaten out, mostly for lack of opportunity. This area is known for Pasties (short a folks), kind of a folded pot pie, that the men building the Mackinac bridge ate for lunch. We'll eat out more often on the later part of the trip we suspect. No TV, no radio, XM and CD's mostly. We didn't know the “hole was plugged” in the Gulf, until a ranger mentioned it in a program. This year is different, because I'm actively seeking Internet access to post on this blog. Otherwise we probably wouldn't connect often, at least until my new students start emailing me, closer to the end. We're no on a mission to leave the world behind, we just loose interest in that presentation, I guess. We like to see what others think.