Journal Entries for Michigan

Playing tourists. Today we took a boat cruise to the Apostle Islands. These are situated in Lake Superior just off the village of Bayfield in Wisconsin. The captain of our boat explained that no one knows where the name came from and pointed out that even the number is wrong. There where (apparently, Phil can correct me on this) 12 apostles but 21 islands. Today those islands are all part of a national park; though they show the effect of the past in which many were clear cut for timber quarried for sandstone, or used as fishing bases.

For those somewhat un-schooled in the geography of Michigan (like me) I need to point out that the state of Michigan is made up of two disconnected regions. One of these regions is a peninsula that pokes out into lake Michigan and is called by the locals the upper peninsula, or UP for short. Predictably the people that live in the UP have been given a nick name by their non-UP brethren, they are called Yoopers (UP-ers get it?) - very creative. As an ineffective attempt at revenge the non Yoopers are called Trolls but probably only by yoopers.

We are in the Soo - as the locals call the town of Sault Ste Marie - famous for the shipping locks between Lakes Superior and Huron. It seems to be our turn for electrical problems. We arrived here yesterday (25 July) because the batteries in the camper have low voltage and we thought a good 12 hour charge at a commercial camp ground would do the trick. Before settling in for the night we drove into the town center of Sault Set Marie to look at the locks and find The River of History Museum. Suddenly all the shops are dark, the traffic signals are blank and within minutes police and fire officers are out directing traffic through intersections - the power is out. We learned later that the town had a power outage a few days ago also.