Is the sky falling

We heard of crop circles. Then in February we saw circles in the water in Florida. NOW, see this picture. That is the sun with a circle around it. It sure looked scary. Later that night on the local news the meteorologist explained it as ice crystals. Yeah right! I'm not a believer.

Country Village RV Park

Country Village RV Park, 1200 Country Lane, Ishpeming MI, 49849. We stayed here in June of 2013 for 10 days getting our Microwave/convection oven replaced. It had to be ordered, then shipped, then installed. The work took less then an hour. The RV Park was right behind the RV dealer doing the replacement. The staff went out of their way to be helpful. The manager Deborah was WONDERFUL. About the best helpful manager we ever dealt with. She even forwarded mail to us that arrived after we left. We paid $21 a night with our Passport America membership. We had a full hook up with 50 amp electric pull thru. The site was about 100 foot long. After July 1st PA is only good on water and electric sites. The site was gravel and grass. The roads are paved. It is big rig friendly.  There is a heated pool and hot tub. A very clean laundry with 2 w/d. There are 109 sites, mostly back ins. About 15 are 50 amp. There is Wi-Fi, and it worked well from our site. Open for satellite. Over the air TV good, all major networks.  Very dog friendly. Several shops and restaurants with in a 100 yards of the park. Low lighting at night and very quiet. There is a train, but very little noise from it, no whistles. This is a very very well kept, with a great staff. We are still in the off season. We would stay here again.

Presque Isle Park

About a 1/2 mile from the ship loading dock is Presque Isle park. There is a 7 mile drive along the lakeshore. We stopped several times to take in the views. This is just outside the city of Marquette. It was a very breezy cool day.

Linda doing her yoga excise.

Great Lakes shipping

We took a ride to Marquette, about 10 miles from our RV Park to view the loading and unloading of a Great Lakes freighter. There is a schedule listed in the newspaper of the ships arrival times. We just hit upon it as a ship was coming in. The ship was a 750 foot  freighter.  This was something we never saw and found it very interesting. Iron ore is the biggest cargo leaving this area.

The ship coming in

Almost in position, the white colored steel crane right behind the control bridge is used to lift the covers off the hatches. The ship wasn't even tied off and the crane was removing the hatch covers. Speed is important as it cost about a $1000. per hour for these large freighters to operate.

Moving the boom out of the way. The boom is used to off load coal. Note the rail cars along the top. The rail cars are loaded with iron ore pellets. I believe it takes 250 rail cars to fill this ship. Can't remember the exact number we were told, but it was around 250. Note the white crane is near the back of the ship.

The shoots are being lowered.  Note the pellets are starting to flow in the last shoot.

The pellets are flowing.

Note how close the ship is to land. It is a very deep port.

Moving the ship back to the rear shoots to finish loading.

 

Yooper Tourist Trap.

What is a Yooper? Well according to the people in the Upper Peninsula it is a person who lives in the UP. And they call the people that live below the bridge(Mackinac Bridge) Trolls.  About a mile from the RV park we stayed at in Ishpeming.  It is just a corky place.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

    WOW, double WOW, you took over 500 pictures on a 2 and 3/4 hour boat cruise. That's a lot of pictures, like 3 per minute.  Glad we are in the digital age and not using film. But I can see why, wait till you see the pictures. It is very hard to choose a few for our blog. So here goes all 500, just kidding. We tried to pick a few that hopefully will show the beauty of this magnificent national treasure.  Munising MI is in the Upper Peninsular. It is located along the blue green crystal clear waters of Lake Superior. We have now seen all five great lakes. It was a picture perfect day. The multicolored sandstone cliffs run along the lake for about 15 miles. Wind and water shaped the cliffs. The colors are the result of minerals in the rock mixed with water. The park runs for about 40 miles along Lake Superior. There are also several long beaches. In very few spots can you view the cliff from land and only small sections. The best way to view the cliffs is from the water. You can rent sea kayaks, but its a long paddle. It took us about 15 minutes running at 13 mph to start to see the cliffs. There may be some way to get closer to launch a kayak. We saw several small waterfalls and one large falls, called Spray Falls. See www.nps.gov/piro for more info, and  http://www.picturedrocks.com  for info on the boat tour. Sit back and enjoy.

Our ride

See the different color of the water.

You can park near this spot and walk to a platform to view this area.

The Indian Head

Tropic looking but a cool 48 degrees

We are getting in close

 Check out this tree, on the left are its roots. They were once supported by a arch that collapse 10 years ago.

The Spray  Falls

Light house from the 1800's, one of the lighthouse keeper had 12 children in this little house