I left my cousins place today headed north through Detroit, mackinaw City and back into Canada at Sault St Marie. Although it took a few rounds to explain, the US border agent in Detroit wished me well on my new life… Michigan is still a little ways from Alaska…
Michigan is, of course shapes like a mitten. Makes it easy to talk about where you are, just hold up your left hand. The cool thing is, we all have a map of Michigan at the end of our wrist!
Perfect day for a picnic just north of Saginaw! that is, near the base of my thumb. I’m headed for my middle finger and beyond this evening.
This is why Michigan is the Great Lakes state:
Here we are at the Mackinac’s Bridge… Lake Michigan is behind the bridge and Lake Huron is in front. There is water all around in this special little spot. The Great Lakes are HUGE… but so many settlements (and bridges of course) are at straits in between the lakes: the Mackinac Bridge, Detroit, Niagara Falls…
After that we drove across the upper peninsula (UP) the short way; and in no time at all found ourselves at Saylt St Marie on the border. I gassed up in the USA and crossed over, where I could FINALLY stock up on groceries. The border agent thought 2-3 weeks was a long time to spend in Canada… but I explained it is 7000 km at 500 km/ day he seemed to accept that and let me through. He DID notice correctly that I had been in Canada just 9 hours earlier.
Sault St Marie had big piles of iron ore by the locks. We are heading onto the Canadian Shield with its banded iron formations from when someone invented photosynthesis and all the iron on earth subsequently rusted with this new oxygen. Hopefully I can see some banded iron in the wild.
I caught sunset along Lake Superior. But more interesting, the hills are all notched it is quite noticeable. This is in fact one of the planets oldest cratons. I believe it’s some sort of glacial effect as the ice sheets dragged over this region. Huge striations are visible in the satellite photos and I believe this is what they look like more close up. To be continued…
Finally we made it to our campground, ate some dinner and went to bed. A long day driving the mitten! I have many memories of Michigan since my family is from that state. Maybe next time I will stay longer.