(2024 Heartland Ep 9)

As our travels across the north shore of Lake Superior came to a close, we made a brief overnight trip across the US-Canada border to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.   There, we purchased gas and groceries because they were much less expensive than in Canada.

We returned to Canada and continued across the top of Lake Huron, the second largest of the great lakes. 

Some Great Lakes geography (see map): 

Lake Superior, at 21 feet higher elevation, flows into Lake Huron via the St Mary’s River at Sault Ste. Marie.   Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are the same level connected by the five-mile-wide Straits of Mackinac.  Some consider the two lakes to be a single lake. 

Lake Huron flows south into Lake Erie via the St. Clair River near Detroit.  Lake Erie empties into Lake Ontario via the Niagara River, and Lake Ontario continues on to the Atlantic Ocean via the St Lawrence River.

Back to the USA!

We cut our Lake Huron tour in half by taking a ferry across Lake Huron to Tobermory, Ontario.  At nearby Wiarton, we hiked to Bruce’s Cave burrowed underneath the Niagara Escarpment. The escarpment runs from Wisconsin to New York and is the same formation associated with Niagara Falls.

Our escarpment hike included hiking through narrow passages and rock scrambling amidst interesting rock layers

We drove south to Port Huron, Michigan and Ohio. It was about a week before our second planned week on staff at Cedarbrook Camp of Ohio, so we decided to visit the Air Force Museum near Dayton, Ohio. 

Our Ada, Ohio chicken ambassadors laid multicolored eggs

Eggs and Footballs in Ada

Halfway to Dayton, we spent the night at a Harvest Host location in Ada, Ohio.  Our host’s home was located a mile out of town, surrounded by soybean and corn fields.   The owner had several laying hens, and we purchased a dozen multicolored farm fresh eggs that we enjoyed for breakfast over the next several mornings. 

The colorful eggs tasted the same to us.

Eggs aside, Ada has the interesting distinction of having a Wilson Sporting Goods factory where every leather official-size NFL football has been handcrafted since 1955.

Super Bowl footballs on display, including one from Super Bowl XXXIX

We toured the busy football manufacturing plant, watching large pieces of leather being cut into four-piece football-shaped stacks.  The stacks are sewn together with a special liner. An inflatable bladder is then inserted into each ball before it is stitched, and various lettering and logos are applied.  Each football includes an RFID chip used to track the ball’s location during NFL games.   

National Museum of the US Air Force

From Ada, we traveled to Dayton, Ohio where we spent two days touring the amazing National Museum of the US Air Force.

Two days are hardly enough to walk through the museum that is housed in four large hangars on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.  Hundreds of planes, helicopters, drones, missiles, a space shuttle mockup and more are displayed.

One hangar is dedicated to the history of air flight from the Wright Brothers to WWII

The museum is divided into four main sections – history of flight from the Wright Brothers to WWII, Korea and Vietnam, the Cold War era and the modern Air Force. 

WWII bombers including the B-17 Memphis Belle and a B-25 Mitchell

For more than 60 years, the B-52 Stratofortress has been the backbone of the US strategic bomber force; a B-52 cockpit is filled with levers and instruments

Several airplanes used by US presidents were on display, including the customized Boeing 707 that was in service when Lyndon Johnson was sworn into office following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

Next Week

We spend our second week on staff at Cedarbrook Camp of Ohio, about an hour east of Cleveland.

(2024 Heartland Ep 6)

We left Duluth on a crisp Sunday morning bound for Canada and the north shore of Lake Superior.  Our route was Minnesota Highway 61 and the North Shore Scenic Drive with its 154 miles of lake views, waterfalls, historic sites, a donut shop that makes lofty claims and much more.

We stood on the rocky shore a few miles from Duluth and were awed by the size of Lake Superior.  As Floridians, a body of water that large should be salty, with seashells, sharks, jellyfish and other such things. 

Lake Superior IS Superior

Consider these amazing stats:

Lake Superior is 350 miles long and 160 miles wide and borders two countries and three states. It covers 31,700 square miles, about the size of South Carolina.

The lake contains 10% of the world’s fresh water – 440 trillion cubic feet. That’s enough to fill more than one BILLION Olympic swimming pools.  Superior has enough water to fill the other four Great Lakes combined!

The average depth is 439 feet (deepest is 1333 feet) with an average temperature of 40F.  The lake rarely freezes over completely – only twice in the last 100 years, 1973 and 1996 did this occur.

The lake has seen waves over 40 feet and through the years about 550 shipwrecks have occurred with over 1000 lives lost.

The Ojibwe name for the lake is gichi-gami meaning ‘great sea.’  Longfellow used this name as ‘gitche gumee’ in the poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha,’ as did Gordon Lightfoot in his ballad ‘The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.’

Falling Waters

The rivers that flow into Lake Superior have beautiful waterfalls.  There are at least ten spectacular falls worth seeing on the drive.          

^{Two of the five waterfalls at Gooseberry Falls State Park}

We stopped at Gooseberry Falls State Park about an hour from Duluth and hiked to four of the five falls in the park.  The water, muddy from recent rains, cascaded over several large drops and down steep inclines.  We moved quickly, trying to avoid being breakfast for hungry mosquitoes and blackflies.  This was a hint of what was to come in Canada.

That afternoon, we hiked to magnificent High Falls in Grand Portage State Park.  At 120 feet, they are Minnesota’s tallest waterfall.  Located on the Pigeon River on the US-Canada Border, they can be seen from several great viewpoints along the trail.

The Great Carrying Place – Grand Portage

A few miles from the US-Canada border, we stopped to learn about the fascinating history of Grand Portage at the Grand Portage National Monument.

In the closing years of the 18^th century, fur-trading companies labored to meet European demand for beaver skins. Fur covered hats were all the rage.

Late each spring French-Canadian Voyageurs traded for furs from native peoples living west of the Great Lakes. Using large birchbark canoes, they paddled eastward to the North West Company headquarters on Lake Superior.  Trade goods and supplies were paddled westward across the Great Lakes by men from Montreal. 

At an annual mid-summer Rendezvous in Grand Portage, furs and goods were exchanged, with the furs bound for Montreal and the goods and supplies for the native peoples. 

The routes of the Voyageurs totaled nearly 3000 miles and included around 100 portages.  None were more than 13 miles in length.  The final or ‘Grand Portage’ to the Rendezvous was 8.5 miles, requiring the Voyageurs to make several trips carrying 90-pound packs. The portage was necessary due to waterfalls like High Falls and other rapids on the Pigeon River.

With the depletion of beavers and introduction of silk covered hats in Europe, the North West Company ceased operations in 1803.

^{What could be better than a maple bacon long john?}

World’s Best Donuts?

At Grand Marais, midway along scenic drive, we waited in line to see if this was true.

The verdict? The donuts are good but not the world’s best. 

You must admit, however, they have a great marketing scheme!

Name a place ‘Joe’s Donuts’ and you’ll get the usual traffic of people seeking something sweet to have with coffee.  But name it ‘World’s Best Donuts’ and people (like us and dozens of others) will come from afar and wait in line to see if the claim is true.  

Next Week

Lake Superior’s north shore – black flies, sore feet and the world’s richest silver mine.

(2024 Heartland Ep 5)

Our route took us across the American heartland from south to north, through Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota.  The rolling landscape was covered with corn, beans and hay fields.  There weren’t many farmers and mechanical implements to be seen, however, as it was between planting and harvest.

Des Moines

We came to Des Moines, Iowa, a small (population 225,000) city somewhat in the center of the heartland and the capitol of Iowa.  Friends of ours, Steve and Audra, chronicled their visit to Des Moines in 2023 on their YouTube channel.  Based on their positive review, we decided to spend a couple days looking around.

The Des Moines River bisects the city and was near flood stage during our visit due to heavy rains to the north.  We saw numerous signs about road closures due to flooding in low areas.

Gold in the Sky

The Iowa capitol building has a magnificent gold covered dome.  Inside, the view upward into the dome is equally as impressive.

We joined a group touring the building and learned essential facts about Iowa state government and the building itself.  Completed in 1886, the capitol has two ornate main chambers – one for Iowa’s 50 senators and the other for their 100 representatives.  Another chamber for the state supreme court is no longer in use with completion of a nearby judicial branch building in 2003.

Our tour took us to various other parts of the building, including the Iowa state law library with its intricate ‘Victorian’-style architecture and spiral staircases at each end of the library. 

We also ascended a steep circular staircase to the whisper chamber high up in the dome. There, we could clearly hear our guide’s whispered comments all the way across the dome.

Botanical Gardens

From the capitol building we drove several minutes to the Des Moines Botanical Garden.  Inside a large dome structure was an assortment of tropical plants that included various types of palms, orchids, ferns and many other tropical plants.  We have some of the same plants in our yard at home!

There are various nicely landscaped garden areas and water features outside as well, with plenty of shaded benches to enjoy the setting.  The Des Moines River is adjacent to the gardens.

Better Sculptures, Better Art…Pappajohn!

Our Des Moines visit ended with a walk through the Pappajohn Sculpture Park.  Opened in 2009, the 4.4-acre park has more than 30 sculptures by world-celebrated artists and was made possible by the generosity of John and Mary Pappajohn and other donors. 

Some of the sculptures were inspiring.  Others were difficult to understand and appreciate!

Riding the Trestle Bridge

We left Des Moines the next morning and detoured a few miles to ride a portion of the High Trestle Rail Trail. 

The highlight of the trail is a nearly half-mile long converted trestle railroad bridge 13 stories above the Des Moines River.  The bridge, originally built in the 1970s and retired in the early 2000s, has a series of decorative rotating rectangle structures.

Trouble on the Horizon

During our drive north toward Minneapolis, the sky darkened. We drove through heavy rain showers and Pat spotted a small funnel cloud. We were thankful the funnel quickly disappeared.

Duluth

Before continuing north to Canada and the north side of Lake Superior, we stopped at Duluth, Minnesota for a couple nights.  Percy was due for an oil change and tire rotation – road trips are not always sunshine and rainbows!

From downtown Duluth, we rode several miles along the shore of Lake Superior and returned to Canal Park, home of the Aerial Lift Bridge, which raises for ships entering the harbor area from Lake Superior.  A schedule with information about daily arrivals and departures of the nearly 1000 vessels that use the canal each year is posted at the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center.

We didn’t see any large ships during our visit but were told a 1000-ft ship passing through the canal is quite a spectacle.                        

Next Week

The world’s best donuts and spectacular waterfalls along the Lake Superior North Shore Highway.  Is Lake Superior really all that superior?

(2024 Heartland Ep 3)

Our 2024 Heartland Journey Begins

Our travels got underway the second Sunday in June.  We visited Liz and Josh and our two grands, Henry and Emilia, near Warner Robins, GA, where we moochdocked in their driveway.  Like most grandparents, we marveled at how quickly they are growing up.  

We left Georgia and continued to the western part of the Florida panhandle, where we spent the night at Blackwater River SP.   A thundershower grumbled in the distance, so we quickly set up camp.   

Once we were confident the storm was not getting closer, we followed a path to view the tea-colored river.  It twisted and turned with numerous sandbars on both sides of the flow.  The water in one backflow area was mirror-smooth, reflecting the sun and clouds.

We continued across Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, where we camped two nights in the bayou state.   We drove Louisiana Route 8 westward and neared the Sabine River, the border between Louisiana and Texas.  Ahead, a yellow sign warned the clearance of the bridge was 12 foot 3 inches.  Images of the tops of campers and trucks smashing into low bridges came to mind, so we quickly flipped down our passenger side windshield visor. 

When riding on Percy, Pap is 12 foot 0 inches high.  To be safe, we slowed considerably as we crossed the bridge and passed into Texas with three inches to spare! Whew!

_{Views from our campsite on Steinhagen Reservoir in eastern Texas – a sunset and passing gator}

Our two final nights before camp were spent at a Corps of Engineers campground on Steinhagen Reservoir near Jasper, TX.  Our campsite was right on the lake, and we enjoyed two beautiful sunsets.

Anchored in Truth

For the next week Pat and I were on staff with Camp Cedarbrook Texas, a Christ-centered, Bible-based camp near Huntsville, TX.   More than 100 campers arrived on Sunday, and for the next six days and nights we modeled and taught about God’s truths of grace, forgiveness and new life for those who believe in Jesus. 

CCT offers campers a broad outdoor program that includes horsemanship and riding, archery, riflery, canoeing and kayaking, swimming, survival skills and lots more.  Pat and I led ‘Fire and Food’ activity, where we taught campers how to build and cook over a fire.  Pat worked with younger girls, and I taught younger boys.

^{We joined our cabin groups at a cookout one evening}

We enjoyed dining hall meals, evening worship times and nightly outdoor programs. 

50 and 1 Stars

Following devotions and breakfast each morning, all campers and staff attended a flag raising ceremony.  When presenting the colors, it was interesting that the Texas state flag, with its single white star, was proudly displayed.  

These were Texans after all!

Next Week

We say goodbye to CCT campers and staff friends, and continue west toward San Antonio for a visit with my brother and his family.