Naniboujou

Don't ask me to pronounce it. I would come up with something that sounds like a child's taunt and offend people. We had dinner at this "lodge" after crossing into the U.S. on our way back to the lake. Naniboujou reminds me of the elegance of another time for those who traveled in style or perhaps to some of the lodges in U.S. National Parks. This lodge goes back to the 1920 and the guests we shared the dining room with were a mix of scruffy travelers and wealthy looking guests spending a few days. I always enjoy being a part of the former group in this type of mix.

Walleye sandwich - my favorite

Hard to know if this will be our last outing of the year. It is time to winterize the rPod and enjoy the colors around our lake place. I don't post leaf pictures to our travel blog, but I have yet to find another location that matches the fall colors of northern Wisconsin. 

Thanks for reading

Sleeping Giant Provincial Park

If you are a fan of the "far North look", Canada has some exceptionally beautiful scenery. It turned out we were about a week early for leaf peeping and most of the trip was very wet and foggy, but the dense greens with a variety of water and rocks was spectacular. Wifi and cell service were often lacking making daily updates impractical. Here are a coupe of photos from our trip to and stay in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.

We did make heavy use of the rPod on this trip even exhausting our propane keeping warm at night. We did have one great evening at this park allowing for the only camp fire of the trip.

Canada, eh

It rained very hard all day so we mostly drove without any exploring. We did see a moose walking on the side of the road, but the Cindy to Mark iPhone handoff was too slow and no pictures are available.

We started the day by driving from Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan, to Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario, by way of the International Bridge. This is a very high bridge and when ever why drive over a bridge like this I always ask Cindy if she thinks a strong gust of wind would cause us to flip over the edge, She never thinks this is funny. I suppose from the passenger side looking over the edge you get a different perspective.

I spent a little time walking about our campground and I did find this tree gnome. I found another of this species in Hawaii. Fun to photograph. 

The campground has wifi. This is great because our cell plan is not useful in Canada. Not fast, but at least the signal does not drop. I am playing Canadian music. k.d. Lang is great. 

Scenery is great. The sun may come out tomorrow. Tomorrow. 

Sault Sainte Marie

We are at the border between the U.S. and Canada.

I knew the name of our present location, but I had no idea how it was spelled. I tried Sioux Saint Marie. The search engines figured out what I mean, but I was surprised to learn it was Sault Sainte Marie. I guess the translation is basically "the rapids of the Saint Mary's River". The important word for present day use of the Great Lakes is rapids. The giant ships that move from one lake to another could not do this if there was not a way around the rapids. The engineering answer to allow transport was a canal with locks. Today we watched a large ship carrying iron ore pass through the locks.

The ship we watched move through the lock was 1000 feet long. The locks lowered this ship 21 feet before it would be at the level necessary to enter the water outside the locks.

Double click on this panoramic photo get a feel for the length.

My pasty post

I am not a foodie, but I have noticed that I post food and drink photos when I travel. We do try different things when we are on the road. In Hawaii it was poke and shave ice. I thought these were really unique, but we did see a new poke eatery in Minneapolis and I saw a sign for shave ice today (upper peninsula).

Today I did run across an old friend - the pasty. I have also seen it spelled pastie, but I was careful to identify what we ate today as a pasty. The pronunciation is past ee and not paste ee. To me, it seems like a chicken pot pie (if you get the chicken pasty) with a little different shape. These must be shaped and then baked without a pie tin. When you drive down the road here it is not difficult to find a little shop that serves these goodies. The density of restaurants with this offering within this narrow band of the country is interesting. This is not a fine dining item. We noticed workers stopping by for several that they took away in a bag and headed off in their pickups.

This would definitely be described as a comfort food. The gravy and cole slaw complete the meal. 

A little Internet revealed a Pasty trail in case you need an interesting travel guide.