The View From My Front Door

Energy Revisited
In the 1960’s and the 70’s nuclear power plants were being proposed and built throughout the state of Washington. Puget Power was planning on building a twin power plant twenty minutes from my home in Skagit County. I contracted an incurable case of NIMBY. For six years of my life the fight was present in my daily routine.
Many questions about the fuel source were being discussed; meltdown due to malfunction or earthquake; terrorist attacks on the plants; where to store the spent fuel rods; how and where to store the radioactive material after it was used; how to mothball the contaminated plants after they were pulled off line.
During that time we heard numerous horror stories. Faulty welding jobs on the containment buildings that were covered up; spent fuel rods being storied in “swimming pools” next to the plants because there had not yet been an approved way of permanently disposing them underground in salt domes. Swimming pools being loaded beyond their designed capacity so that the water boiled from the hot fuel rods. The power plants were said to be constipated because there were no places to ship the spent rods. Massive storage areas in eastern Washington at the Hanford complex were leaking into the groundwater and into the Columbia River.
For twenty years I worked in the field dealing with the production of energy by reducing a home’s needs through energy conservation. During that time I worked on over three thousand homes in Skagit County to conserve energy through the federal low income weatherization program. The state program was called Energy Northwest: the Holistic Approach. I proudly wore the logo T- shirt for over a decade as I worked - house by house.
While conserving energy on the grassroots level, the state of Washington was pushing ahead to produce power on a regional level by building five massive nuclear power plants under the program called Washington Public Power Supply System or “Whoops” for short. Only one of the power plants was ever completed before the house of cards collapsed causing the largest municipal bond default in the history of the United States at 2.25 billion dollars. To pull Whoops out from the shadow of a bad track record they went on a search in 1998 to change their name in hopes of changing public opinion. And what did they decide on? “Energy Northwest” The state department that handles the weatherization program told WPPSS (Whoops) that the name was already taken and the name had a high quality standard in the field of energy conservation. But Big Government trumps small government and the agency was given $10,000 and told to cease and desist using the title. I was outraged. [Hanford News, November 20, 1998]

So in this year of 2008 the concept of powering up more nuclear power plants in a nation with an insatiable need for energy has brought the same old issues out on the table again. Has anything changed to the point that it is now a viable source? To me the crucial questions of thirty years ago were never asked and until they are brought out in the full light of day, discussed and correctly resolved, this source of power is not the legacy that I want to pass on to the generations following me.

August 29, Friday – Marquette, Michigan

Leaving Snee-Oosh anchored I took the Jetta west to the city of Marquette which is the largest concentration of people in the Upper Michigan. Iron and copper ore were the driving force. The once throbbing industrial waterfront now is made up of open spaces, marinas and condos. A token to the past is the massive ore loading dock. 1000 foot bulk ore freighters were tied up to the loading dock then loaded through 150 ore chutes. The whole structure looks like a monster centipede on its back. The ore came from the long lines of ore trains bringing product from the mining region. On the very top of the loading dock were four train track spurs. Long ore trains would directly dump their loads into the ore chutes and into the freighter. It took close to 500 railroad cars to fill one ore boat.
For lunch I ate a pastie (‘a’ as in “cat” and not like ‘a’ as in “day”. Had to explain that I wasn’t eating nipple covers). Pasties is a north country delight brought over from Cornish, England. The wives would create this small crust eatery stuffed with meat, potatoes and vegetables for their mining husbands. They are a treat.
While in Marquette they were setting up for the annual Labor Day Blues Festival on the waterfront. I stopped by to help a guy zip tying an orange plastic security fence around the event grounds. Three hours later I headed back east, sunburned and tired. No Blues for me that day.
As I drove to campground the image of the massive iron loading dock came back. Here was a vestige of a time gone past. A monument to a time of mining and moving ore. And then the resources were gone; removed from the earth and the people left for another place on the surface of the earth to do the same thing just as they came here to remove the gifts.
Next to my campground is the relic of a blast furnace on the water thus the name; it was called the Bay Furnace. A plaque spoke of the seven years the town stood and harvested the surrounding woods for building materials and for making coke to stoke the blast furnace to make pig iron. Just as in Marquette they listed the ethnic background of the people that worked the industry: in 1870 there were Canadian, Irish, Swedish, Prussian, Scottish. 60 % of the locals working the furnace were foreign born. This was repeated up and down the region in the twenty-nine furnaces from 1858 to 1940. When you look at the history of this great country of ours, it was built on the backs of the immigrants looking for a better life and the owners wanted that cheap labor.
What was established at the birth of this nation carries through to today. I live in a rural agricultural county that is 20% Hispanic due to the necessary farm labor. It is cheap labor used to harvest our food. And still today as in the past we look upon those with suspicion that are “different then us.” After 200 years, the same feeling prevails. Why, I ask?

And just at the iron hulk of an iron ore loading dock in Marquette and the three story stone blast furnace at the campground reminds us of a past life of use and discard, I wonder what monuments to the past are we creating today for our grandchildren to look at. As energy becomes more of an issue rather than durable goods I can’t help but think of the mentality of renewable versus non-renewable sources debate. Already we have exhausted mines and oil wells. Will someday people look at a mothballed nuclear power plant with the same curiosity that I looked upon the dominating feature of the loading dock in Marquette? When I drove by Maple Ridge Wind Farm in upstate New York, I know as long as the wind blows there will be energy produced. While nuclear, gas, oil and coal fired power plants have that feeling of uncertain futures.

August 28, Thursday – Migratory Mind

It first started in the state of New York, a maple here, a maple there. In Michigan the colors came more frequently. Then I saw it “Welcome Back, Students” and it seemed that the maples had begun to turn yellow and red over night. Next week marks six months on the road circumnavigating the nation with 11,500 new miles on the odometer. My journal has reached 95 pages. Suddenly the end of October doesn’t seem that far away. And like a large heavy bird there is a seasonal pull welling up inside of me; not to go south but to go west. Visions of long hours of driving on the plains and snow on the mountains now seem more real with the arrival of the new school year and fall colors. The uneasiness is compounded by the feeling of being stuck in Bay Furnace Campground on Lake Superior near the Indian Casino. It was on Tuesday that I realized with a flash that this coming weekend was Labor Day Weekend – the mark of the end of the tourist season. And with that all the families would be out for one last fling before settling in for the winter. To try to move and look for a place to drop anchor on this busy weekend would be crazy, so I opted to stay put through the long weekend even though the urge to migrate west was tugging strongly on the bumper of Snee-Oosh. I have to confront this restlessness and breathe. Tuesday morning the sun will again be shining on the backside of the westward moving big rig.

August 27, Wednesday – Paint Me A Picture

My new place of residence was in another campground located in Hiawatha National Forest. My view was of Grand Island on Lake Superior. I was here because the Painted Rocks National Lakeshore was just up the coast. After spending time in visitor centers and scenic overlooks the reality of the Rangers words prompted me to deal with the fact that “to see the painted rocks you really have to see them from the water. There is a Painted Rocks Cruise company that takes folks eleven miles up the shoreline. It’s well worth it.”
So with a great mind shift, at 3 o’clock I found myself with fifty other travelers on the top deck of a boat heading down coast for the main show. I was a taken back at the beauty that I saw. The walls of the slot canyons and sandstone patina of the canyon lands flooded into to my need to compare. I found myself overwhelmed to photography almost to the stage of being obsessed. I could not sit down. Hundreds of photos poured into the memory card. It was an enchanting and a bitter mix of an experience. While being piloted along this beholding palette of colors and light, the boat’s captain hidden below kept up a constant chatter that flowed from the speaker mounted on the forward rail. The man felt compelled to tell stupid corny jokes in a hangdog voice. His attempt at sophomoric humor was sickening and embarrassing to those on board. My follow passengers looked at each other and just shook their heads. It was a major distraction from the techincolor walls before us. He should have been keel hauled.
See Link For More Photos

August 28, Thursday – Of Sunsets and Spars

Throughout my journey along the Great Lakes I’ve been fascinated by the history and the boat traffic. As a bulk freighter at Sault Ste Marie entered the Soo Locks I noticed a crew member swing out from the area aft the pilot house and rappel down to the lock apron. He then caught a line from the ship and proceeded to walk along side the ship as she nudged forward toward the open lock gate. When I was on board the Valley Camp, I noticed a set of port and starboard spars folded back onto the deck. I realized that these were the poles that were extended out from the hull and were used to lower crewmembers to wharfs or lock aprons. However there was one spar on the ships that I could not figure out. It was attached directly on the ship’s bow but instead of being vertical like a ship’s flag staff, it jutted out at almost a 45 degree angle. Why was this??
While in one of the visitor centers in Painted Rocks National Lakeshore, I was browsing through a book on Great Lake boats and found a photo of the bow of a ship with that forward pointing spar. I took the book up to the counter and asked the woman why was the spar pointing out instead of up.
[Rant: Many years back uniformed park service personnel were everywhere. They manned the information booths, the visitor centers, the campgrounds, the backcountry patrols, the trail crews, the search and rescue teams. The concessions were the only thing run by companies – their college-aged employees were fondly called “savages.” Then the US Park Service started dabbling in volunteerism beginning with the SCA (Student Conservation Association). It has now become the backbone of the service. The majority of the personnel that a visitor now comes in contact with are volunteers. We now have USPS Volunteers in the Visitor Centers, Campground Hosts; private contractors doing the trails; local law enforcement agencies provide search and rescue. The National Park Service has been neutered. I realize that the lack of funding from the Federal government shoulders most of the blame for this. It was the only way left for the Park Service to continue – ask for help from the people they serve. Having paid uniform personnel to me it was one of the best ways of spending my tax dollars. End of rant]
I was delighted to see a USPS uniform sitting behind the counter. She didn’t know the answer but without hesitation said her father-in-law would know. Again the wealth of “local knowledge” came into play. Patti said that she would talk to her father-in-law and email me the answer. Late last night I got the answer. The forward pointing spar is a navigational aid used by the helmsman on rivers and narrow bodies of water to give him a sense of direction of the vessel. It is called a “steering staff.” Take that GPS!!!! Love it! And thank you, Ms. USPS Ranger for your service.

To soften my rant I have included some of the photos of the best sunset that I’ve enjoyed on my Circle Tour; taken as the sun slid down behind the largest lake in the world.

August 25, Monday – Westerly

I love the early morning travel. The rural road was deserted and the eastern rising sun created a long shadow of the RV, which I was being chased down the pavement. The northern maples and pine pushed to the shoulder of the road. When I reached the small settlement of Paradise, I had to make a decision as to continue twelve miles up a dead-end road to Whitefish Point or turn and continue down the main road. I pulled up in front of a burned out store and unhitched the land dinghy. I wanted to see the point and the heavily advertised Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum. As I drove the Jetta on the empty road my mind was wondering. Suddenly a slim red fox jumped out of the sparsely wooded area and bounded across the road followed by a second one. I quickly shut the car down and coasted to the shoulder of the road. What a treat! I was savoring the experience and looked to see if any others were still in the woods to my left and there lying on a bed of moss in a patch of sunlight was a third fox. It looked at me as if asking, “What’s up?” I quickly checked my rearview mirror to see if any cars were coming that might scare it away then fumbled for my camera. When I looked up, it was gone. Again I had been confronted with the age-old dilemma of whether to enjoy the moment or to catch it on film. This time I sadly lost.
The end of the road parking lot was almost empty when I arrived at Whitefish Point. The point used to be a coast guard station plus the lighthouse. The lighthouse was now automated and was control from Sault Ste Marie.
I walked out to the beach in front of the lighthouse and looked southeast. I could see the wind farm on the Canadian side seventeen miles away. To my left looking northeast was just water; two hundred miles of open water to the other shoreline. Lake Superior is 350 miles long and 160 miles wide at its widest point making it the largest lake in the world. And here in front of me was the largest ship graveyard in all of the Great Lakes. All the ships converged off this point to slip into Whitefish Bay on their way “down bound” to the locks at Sault Ste Marie. Here they confront congested waters. Here they collided and sunk or were pushed by storms onto the low point.
The houses, which use to make up the Coast Guard station are now part of the Shipwreck Museum. I was impressed. The main building of the museum began with early history starting with Native Americans and worked its way up through time. Many of the displays were full-scale presentations with waxwork bodies depicting the event. In the corner suspended from the ceiling were three fully outfitted scuba divers descending to the wood ribs of a ship. The ceiling was painted blue giving the museum visitors a sense of being underwater. It was well done. There were many famous ship models and paintings of the same ship resting on the lake bottom of vessels. As in the museum in Sault Ste Maria the disaster of the Edmund Fitzgerald held the centerpiece. One wall was devoted to the names of the 29 crewmembers that went down with her. But the most powerful of them all was the huge brass bell taken from the deck of the sunken ship. It hung on its original triangular mount for people to touch and remember.
In another building was a small theater that showed an impressive video of ships in extreme storm conditions with waves covering the entire mid-ship. But the major part of the presentation was the detailed process of recovering of the Fitzgerald bell from 530 feet down in 1995. The recovery crew and divers wearing rigid Newtsuits were interviewed but the most moving were the people who were relatives of the ship’s crew who spoke. There was closure in bringing the bell home.
A third building that was attached to the lighthouse was the residence of the three light keepers and their families. The rooms were setup to represent the 1950’s. The thing that made me cock my head and look sideways was that I knew a lot of the commercial items in the period displays……………
The last small building showed the beginnings of the coast guard. Inside was a rescue beach cart setup with a cannon that fired a massager whip line to a beached ship in preparation for a heavier line to be hauled from the beach to the ship. This operation was for a breeches buoy for removing personnel from the stricken vessel. Next to the cart was an excellent seven-crew surfboat for rowing out. But the main feature was the man talking about what these men did. The speaker was an ex 30 year commercial fisherman. He came very personally involved with the small group in the building. Not only did he describe the pieces of equipment and how they were used but also spoke of his years on the water. He addressed the importance of the Whitefish Light; it was the light that all mariners looked for because they knew that soon afterwards they were safe from the furious forces of the lake. He remembered the night that the Fitzgerald went down. He related how I knew that the captain knew his ship was doomed because during the night of this horrendous storm the power was off and the light was dark. This giving light; this light of comfort and security was gone. I felt greatly moved by his passion.

August 24, Sunday – Locking Through

Saturday was spent inside of Snee-Oosh listening to the rainfall and relaxing but by Sunday I was ready to get out so I headed east to Sault Ste Marie. I drove to the end of Interstate 75 and noted that I had done both ends of this number; where it began in southern Florida – a long time ago (May 6th) and ended at the Canadian border at the St. Marys River. I-75 somewhat joined an elite group of interstates: Interstate 5 from the northwest to the southwest in San Diego; Interstate 10 coast to coast along the bottom and Interstate 95 up the east coast.
Downtown Sault Ste Marie was depressing. There were many empty buildings and the streets were dirty. Once upon a time it had an interesting historic district but due to the lack of leadership it was a mesh mash of architectural styles with no direction. Of course the main draw are the Corps of Engineers Soo Locks. Just as the Niagara Falls was a bottleneck at the eastern end of the Great Lakes, the rapids on the St. Marys River was a barrier at the western end of the freighting route. It was strange to have the 21 foot drop between Lake Superior and Lake Huron represented by the river rapids and right next to the river the paralleling locks to eliminate that drop in one giant step. Here lake freighters (lakers) moved up and down (up bound/ down bound) carrying iron and copper ore, coal, grain. One 1000-foot laker could haul as much as six 100 car trains or 2,308 semis. But the day of hustling commerce had past; the steel mills and gone elsewhere.
I did get to witness an up bound laker going through the locks along with a multitude of other folks as we stood in the raised, enclosed viewing platform. Someone in the crowd mentioned that once you were able to stand on the sides of the locks and almost touch the ships as they went through. In fact you could see the paint striping on the concrete outlining where people could walk. Now you had to be back on the platforms. This went along with the airport security type of entrance that you had to go through to reach the action area. 9-11? I was wondering if the Ballard Locks in Seattle had undergone a similar change. It would create a crisis because people walked across the lock gates to get from one community to the other community on the southern bank of the cut.
Further down the canal was a retired laker called the Valley Camp that had been converted into a museum and it was here that I spent two hours. I learned about life on board one of these workboats and what they carried. Equipment that was used in the trade was displayed and explained. One section was devoted to the sinking of the Edmunds Fitzgerald. They had a large layout of the history of the huge freighter which was followed by the radio log of that night in November 1975 when she disappeared off of Whitefish Point. It was intense reading the communications between two freighters fighting their way through this horrific storm. There was information on the two theories as to which way one of the largest ships on the Great Lakes persisted. Both were convincing. One was her cargo panels let go; the other she hit a shoal and ruptured. On a wall the names were listed on the wall. Also on display were two aluminum lifeboats from the stricken vessel. The hulls were twisted and holed revealing the force that had impacted them. The laker went down in 30 foot waves with winds gusting to 90 mph. It must have been filled with panic.

Memories

What’s in a Name?

After being my road companion for two weeks on my Circle Tour, Melanie disappeared returning to her life back in Bellingham and once again I was a solo traveler circumnavigating the perimeter of the U.S. Time was no longer an issue so I slept and read.
The campground at Four Mile Creek State Park near Niagara Falls was a perfect sanctuary for me. The campground was spacious enough so that you didn’t feel crowded. It was a good resting place so instead of staying a couple days and then heading out on my journey, I stayed for a week. It was on the shores of Lake Ontario and in the mornings and the late afternoons you could make out the saw tooth silhouette of tiny skyscrapers constituting the skyline of the city of Toronto twenty seven miles across the open water.
The second day at land anchor I went exploring down along the lake shore and on my way back stopped to read a plaque that the park had put up. It described the birds that one might see in the area and it offered up a couple of photos of a loon and a gull. My breath caught when I read the photo credit under each: Photo by O.S. Pettingill. “Well, I’ll be damned” I heard myself whisper.

Long ago as a farm boy living on Eagle Creek near Traders Point, Indiana I attended a school that had corn and soybean fields bordering the playground. As a lad in junior high I took classes in agriculture. In one of those classes we formed up teams for a Pest Contest. The team that brought in the most feet from a list of varmints, won. The list went on and on: two pigeon feet – one point; two English Sparrow feet – one point; four rat feet – one point. My youth burned at being a hunter so after clearing the contest on the home front I armed myself with the family 410 shot gun, a paper bag for bringing in the “game” and headed out for the lower barn. As I crossed the pasture to the barn I spied my first pest and with a boom brought the bird down. When I reached it, it didn’t quite look like an English Sparrow so I bagged in and went back to the house. I was proud of my first catch even though I was uncertain of its species. When I pulled it out of the bag, my mother’s face fell, “Oh, Ron! That’s a bluebird. I think the gun should be put away until thee learns what the birds are.” My proudness quickly flashed into shock and sadness. This was the beginning of my birding life.

From a rural school I transferred to Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis where my school bus was the Chicago to Indianapolis Greyhound Bus. My horizons expanded far beyond being a boy growing up on a sheep farm. After I graduated, my world again took a quantum leap. I took my first plane ride to Traverse City, Michigan and then by car to my summer job as a dishwasher at the University of Michigan Biological Station on Douglas Lake just south of the Mackinac Bridge.
It was my coming out party: from a small town farm boy to a high school graduating class of 400 students and then into the world of higher education. I quickly adjusted to my work place and my fellow kitchen crew members one of which was Miki Pettingill. We bonded and the summer soared. There was no threat of anything complicated other than a fine relationship because Miki was two years older than me and was engaged. We would laugh and talk on the beach at night and watch Sputnik traverse the sky. It was 1960.
Along with Miki came her family. Her dad was on the teaching staff at the station. Because I was interested in birding, I was looking for a class to take on my one day off. It so happened that Ornithology was being taught that day so I tried to see if the station would let me audit the class. It helped to know the instructor, Dr. Pettingill. I instantly knew I was in privileged company; our textbook and lab book were written by the instructor. So I spent a summer of bliss being in an environment that made me bloom. On my days off I would get up before dawn and join the other twenty students in the birding class for the full day. I was pulling down a “B” in the course and loving it. Too bad it was an audit. I was just a shadow in the class but when Dr. Olin Sewall Pettingill would acknowledge me, my body glow would radiate out a mile.
My constant companion was my Field Guide to the Birds by Roger Tory Peterson. One day Miki said that her family and she were going home for the weekend and they were going to see Roger. Did I want her to take my book and have him sign it? I fell to my knees and clasped my hands in prayer. “Yes.”

Years later when I was a student at Purdue University I noticed that Dr. Pettingill was giving a speech so again sneaked into the situation and stood in the back of the crowded lecture hall to hear him speak. My summer at Douglas Lake filled my mind. When he was done with his delivery, he walked through the lecture hall to exist. Around him hovered a group of starring eyed students for this man was an internationally recognized authority on birds. As chance would have it he walked right by me. Our eyes met. He smiled. “Hi Ron. Nice seeing you.” And kept walking. I felt myself vanish with amazement.

Again a very deep feeling welled up inside of me as I looked down at the bird photos at Four Mile Creek. An image of a man sweep into my mind then melted away. A summer on a lake, a class, a girl.

All of this moved off into the distance as I hitched up the Jetta to the RV and headed out onto the highway again moving westerly toward the northwest corner of the US. I drove across southern Ontario and reconnected with the states at Port Huron in Michigan. I joined my old Florida friend, Interstate 75, and turned north for the Upper Peninsula. But my memories were still not finished with me. They wafted back in like the smell of distant campfire smoke as I drove past the exit to Pellston/Cheboygan. Douglas Lake and the Biological Station were just a couple of miles from there. Would I turn off the freeway and go looking? No, the memories of that summer long ago were still strong enough that the boy from the sheep farm didn’t need to refresh them. But a warm smile spread across my face as I drove by. My remembering the 48 years that lay in between brought about the smile and it carried me down the road. I have had a blessed life.


[written at 5 o’clock in the morning of August 24, 2008 while listening to the waves on the shores of Lake Superior]

August 22, Friday – Waterworld

It was one of the few times during the Circle Tour that I wanted out of a place so at first light I was hitched up and gone before the people stirred. I plowed northward for the Upper Peninsula and reached it after paying $10 to cross the Straits of Mackinac on the mile and a half bridge. The last time I was on that bridge was in 1960 when I took a break from being a dishwasher at the nearby University of Michigan Biological Station and went to Mackinac Island. 48 years is a long time between trips.
It was my first time in the Upper Peninsula and it wasn’t what I expected. A body of land between to bodies of water usually has a ridge or a mountain range that divides them. This land was flat. The land was farmland. No ridge, no mountain range. Disappointment. About twelve miles from where Interstate 75 ends its north/south run across the United States at Sault Ste Marie, I turned off on Michigan Road #28. After 45 minutes running due west, I turned north on Ranger Road. I had to hit a lake soon. Bayview Campground in the Hiawatha National Forest was my goal and there it was. It was primitive, isolated and had only 24 sites on the shores of the mighty Lake Superior. Here I stopped for four days. Here was my source of relaxation.

August 21, Thursday- Canada Revisited

It was GO time. After seven days in Niagara Falls with the departure of Melanie and the exploration of the area, it was time to move west as a solo person. Up at dawn, hauled in the anchor, set sails and move on out across the big river into Ontario and straight across – forget rush hour traffic in the shoreline cities – to Port Huron of the state of Michigan. Re-entry into the US of A at the Michigan side of the Great Lakes took 45 minutes. Heading for Flint I was hesitant at Interstate 75; an hour and a half to the south was Joan’s family in Ann Arbor. What to do? I looked south then turned north at Flint. I wanted to move after being solid for a week. Up the state instead of down the state into big cities. Into rural Michigan. Oh, my god!! Are those fall colors on those maples??? Night time temperatures are now dipping into the lower 40’s with the highs in the mid 70’s..

Finally I got off the interstate to pursue the South Higgins Lake State Park campground. It was a shock all the way around. First it was $14 to get the RV and the Jetta into the park then another $27 to spend the night among a line of wall-to-wall campers. I was setting up camp among the masses when a set of dogs across the lane set up a chorus. Whoa, is this going to be the setting of the stage? After a few bark set, I had to deal with this so I walked across the lane to a man sitting in his canvas lounge chair just finishing up a cell phone call. “Hi. I wanted to check in with you about your dogs. Is this just an unusual barking or is the way they are going to be?” “They are just pups and they do yap.” “Well, I think both you and I would be better off if I moved.” So I did; to another quieter part of the full campground.
After setting up camp, I walked down to the lake. Anchored out were speedboats of every description plus beat up boats with outboards. I wondered how they got to them from the beach. The answer soon came as a boat came in among the anchored boats. The boat slowed then a young girl slid over the side and to my amazement stood in water waist deep two hundred feet from shore. She set the anchor and the rest of the folks in the boat loaded up their gear and also plunged into the water and waded the long distance to the shore. Taking heart I waded out for several hundred feet in the shallow water out past the anchored boats. I wondered if the entire lake was this shallow

August 20, Wednesday – Tooth Crisis

Wednesday was to be a laid back day with prepping the RV for traveling west however my right back gold crown decided to let go. Oh, shit. Hassle time. It’s always interesting when an everyday trauma interferes with a “vacation.” Gotta find a dentist that can take me … now. Enter Dr. Vullo; twenty minutes down the highway. He could be my family dentist. Good man; took me in at five o’clock. And for $60 cemented my tooth crown back in and I was on my way west………… Thank you, sir.

August 19, Tuesday – The Other Side

I was told not to miss the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls so I headed across the border an act that I thoroughly hate due to the long lines and the feeling of being interrogated. But I wanted to shop at Costco and see the falls from a different prospective. Wow! I got there before the suffocating crowds and the view were amazing. While on the US side you are on top of the action, on the Canadian side you can see the action. It was a much more appreciated impact.
The commercial impact was there, too: Ride into the mist of the falls on one of the four boats going in and out of the fall’s crashing waters; the walks into caves behind the falls; The cave of the winds in front of the falls base. And farther down river: jet boats into whirlpools; tramways over the waters; helicopters over the water and the falls. On and on. But I was there with few other people enjoying the noise, up rising mists and the power of water pouring over a lip of high rock. A person must see Niagara Falls from the Canadian side in spite of the one hour border lines.

August 18, Monday - 15 Miles on the…

I wanted to see the Eric Canal so I set out for Lockport which was the location of the greatest elevation gain on the whole system. To connect the interior of the new nation to the shipping routes to the rest of the world, a waterway had to be built. Using the Mohawk River valley as the means for getting through the Appalachian Mountains, the new canal was plan to run parallel to it. The Mohawk River divides the Catskill Mountains from the Adirondack Mountain ranges of the Appalachian Mountains and the only route choice there was. However as shown at Niagara Falls, there was a big height difference from the Hudson River and Lake Erie where the canal was to end. Getting up the long reaching Niagara Escarpment was to be done at Lockport.
The 360 mile long canal had to rise over 600 feet over its distance to connect the lakes with the river. To get up and over the Niagara Escarpment, which at 80 feet high at this point, a series of five parallel locks were built and the town of Lockport was formed around the lift. The canal opened in 1825 as the new way to ship goods.
It was here that I headed for. Lockport was a nice historic town with many of its buildings in tack. The Eric Canal ran through the heart of it. The canal itself no longer handles commercial traffic but still lives through the recreational and tourist usages. While I explored the lock system two tourist ships went through the system of locks. One set of the original Erie Canal locks were still present but the second paralleling locks had been removed and replaced be a modern set that took the same elevation gain in just two locks rather than the older five locks.
Here the history of New York City was built. If it were not for the Erie Canal, New York City would just be another coastal town. The freight hauled over the waterway system to terminate at New York provided the city with the worldwide reputation that it enjoys today.
Some people are fascinated with the era of steam locomotives; with me it’s canals. From the Huddersfield Narrow Canal in Saddleworth England to the Ballard Locks in Seattle. So I was very happy sending the day prowling the lock systems of Lockport.

August 17, Sunday – Downtown

The day was spent at the huge 4 mile Creek Campground with over 300 sites spread over a couple hundred acres of mowed lawn and trees. It was the most spacious and extensive campground that I had stayed in. And the prices were spot on: no hookups = $17. Hookups = $21. However near dark I got restless and went into downtown Niagara Falls for supper at the Seneca Casino and to check out the falls for the first time. In the dark; with lights.
The supper was pretty pedestrian. I’m so thankful that the casino scene means absolutely nothing to me. The people who sit and pull levers look so lost, so lonely. I had to break out of there and find out what made the waterfall. I parked on the island that separated the American side from the Canadian side and wandered down to the roar and lights. I was impressed. The light shone on the rapids above the falls so the wave crests danced like a regiment from shore to shore. I just followed the crowd down to the viewing locations. I was surprised how close you are to the lip of the falls and the mist. From across the gorge on the Canadian side were banks of powerful flood lights shining on the upper portions of the falls because the lower sections were enveloped in mist. To make the nocturnal enjoyment better the colors on the falls changed.
I walked off Goat Island and over to the long suspended walkway out over the gorge. The cement elevator shaft down to the base of the falls supported the aerial walkway. The area was packed with sightseers of which most were either Indian or Japanese. As I walked by the hundreds of individuals packed onto the walkway I wondered what the carrying capacity of the thing was. When I walked inside the elevator lobby, I heard an explosion and the crowd yelled. Before I could react, another explosion as people rushed to the outside and to the already packed railings. Then I got it. All these people were waiting for the Sunday night fireworks. The noise was reverberated against the gorge walls. Those of us on the walkway were eyeball to eyeball with the starbursts and atom salutes. Party on…

August 16, Saturday – Fort Time

Can you believe it? I cursed the clock for the past two weeks and here I was hustling to get to Old Fort Niagara by ten o’clock so I could see the folks dressed up like revolutionaries and English raising the flags over the fort. It was the start of a full day of demonstrations and battle reenactments. Ronny wanted to be there. What a guy………
In the fort parking lot was a small group of amateur radio operators rigging an antenna from the top of the old abandon stone lighthouse. I took interest in what they were doing-a network of ham radio operators from around the world were setting up similar lighthouse operations to see how many contacts they could make in a day. They took interest in what I was doing – driving around the perimeter of the US. One man said while in Niagara Falls I should check out the Love Canal. I didn’t realize this tragic event happened there. He pulled down his T-shirt collar revealing a long horizontal scar. He confessed that the operation wasn’t related to the Love Canal where he had lived with his family but his sister was a victim of the horrendous industrial pollution that made international news in the late 70’s.
At that time I heard the fife and drum corps inside the fort so as I dashed off I told them that I would check back in with them. The rest of the morning was spent on the historic significant of the important fort and why this region of the US speaks English and not French. Four major forces muscled for this strategic location that was the gateway to the Great Lakes region and the development of the interior of the continent. First came the French and then the English with their Native America allies followed by the American revolutionaries. This weekend was devoted to the era of conflict between the English and the new revolutionaries. The French were not included in the flag raising ceremony, but several groups of different uniforms were present. In the afternoon they had a program showing and explaining the six or so groups.
They also did a presentation on the merits of the musket versus the rifled gun. I was thoroughly impressed with the explanations for both weapons. The rifled gun was by far the most accurate over a longer range however the musket was more popular because the government could purchase 40 of them to the one rifled for the same price. After the explanation of the construction and operation of each fire arm, three men with muskets and one man with a rifled gun had a shooting contest as to how many shots they could get off in three minutes time. With young children standing behind each shooter keeping track of the shots fired they commenced firing. The rifle got off three shots while the musket men got off 10 to twenty. Interesting.
At lunch I went back to the car and got my sandwich and talked to the ham radio operators. At noon they had talked to 60 stations and were gearing up to talking to the west coast because they were just coming on line. My hat is off to these guys because in emergency events, they are the communication makers.
My day ended at the fort with watching a short reenactment of a battle. Fifty military personnel and a half dozen Seneca Indians moved in lines and fired. It was interesting to see the battle tactics.
Enough warring for the Quaker boy for the day.

August 15, Friday – Now What?

I slept in until 9. Our whole two weeks were driven by a “vacation schedule” to see the maritime provinces. We had very little down time to just hang out. Now without the clock as a dictator I felt the pressure slipping away. Back in the states I could now use my cell phone and could check my email. There was a two week old message from my medical clinic asking where was the information from the blood draw that I was supposed have gotten in July. Totally spaced that one out so in the afternoon I headed back out onto the messed up highway system to a med lab 30 minutes away. Fifteen minutes out I realized that I had left my physician’s standing order for my monthly protime check back in the RV. The past two weeks of pressure came crashing in and I exploded. I thought I was going to twist the steering wheel off. Too late to turn around. I would have to wing it. After several calls to La Conner and messed up faxes, the deed was done for another month. While all this was transpiring, I talked to Debi, the tech, about living in the area. She related with much feeling about how housing in the region was cheap; $300,000 homes going for $150,00. And she spoke with bitterness about the heavy taxes and the constant bickering and turmoil among the different local governments that the area was stagnated. Buffalo was one of the most depressed large cities in the nation. After hearing her, I crawled back home and took a much needed nap.

August 14, Thursday – End Shifting

At six a.m. the first pickup arrived soon followed by a second. I quickly got dressed and went outside to talk to the work crew. It was fine for us to be there. I explained that we were beat after fourteen hours and this was the best place we could find. No problem. I wondered as I climbed back into the RV how this whole scene would have played out if it were done in French on the other side of the river.
We were headed for a state park called Darien Lakes and got there at 4 p.m. after passing a Disneyland in the ag fields called Six Flags Amusement Park. Oh, my god. The ranger assured me that I didn’t want to stay at the park because the Jonas Brothers were playing at Six Flags the next night and that tonight and through the weekend the state park was going to be a screaming hell filled with teeny-boppers. He showed us how to get to 4 Mile Creek State Park on Lake Ontario. We went.
Melanie had asked to spend the night at an airport motel so she could soak in a tub and not have to worry about catching her Friday morning flight back home. So after parking the big rig, we were off to the airport region. She was tired of navigating and I was tired of driving and the roads around Niagara Falls/Buffalo area drained us. The plan was to get Melanie into a motel and for us to go out for a nice supper before I headed north back to 4 Mile. Melanie emerged from the motel bathroom with fresh makeup on and a tired face. We both agreed that total exhaustion from three days of hard driving was just around the corner. After a brief exchange, we both reached the same conclusion. She would relax in her new room and I would drive the 45 minutes back to Lake Ontario. It was such an abrupt end to our two weeks that it seemed surreal as I headed out of the parking lot. The goodbyes were over with before either of us knew the end had happened. I drove back in a state of nothingness. The highway just unfolded in front of me and when I arrived back at the empty RV, I called her room to make a more fulfilling separation but again the exhaustion was in both of our voices. I ate and collapsed into bed.

August 13, Wednesday – A Stranger in a Strange Land

The routine had now been established: move out at first light and drive for an hour then stop and have a cereal breakfast. The food time and the crossing into Quebec merged. After dinning on granola, we went into the border information station.
Now Canada has the tourist trade down pat. About every 10 or twenty miles there is a highway sign with a large question mark on it and an arrow. I lost count on how many of these information places that we used but everyone of them was staffed by extremely nice and well informed folks. Pulling into one of these services was never a debated point. To increase the travelers’ sense of comfort all the road signs and advertising was bilingual – French/English as is found throughout the nation. In Quebec it was different. They are French, period. The comfort level of the Snee Oosh crew plunged especially the captain's. The navigator had the experience of high school French so she was not as nervous as the helmsman.
The man at the border information was good but quick, dashing off notes on regional maps that we had to read later by turning the map north down making everything else upside down. Not much help during moments of navigational panic. Bilingual signs vanished at the crossing into the new province which really pissed me off. Portable highway signs flashed motorist messages about construction and lane closures. Left lane closed? Right lane closed? Detour? Exit shut down? Damned if I know and had to wait and see.
Lost in all of this was a major event happening: the last corner of the circle was turned as we swung from north to west when we hit the St. Lawrence River. La Conner was finally in a straight-line sight. The Ron’s Circle (actually a rectangle) was on its last leg.
Back to the stress level which peaked out at the gas station. The pump said “French or English” “Insert Cart” “Remove card quickly.” Everything went fine until the tank was full. The full tank prompted the pump to speak in French. I pushed the English button again but of no avail. It took my card. It gave me gas. I’m done so I pull out of island section and stopped. Absolutely frustrating. A woman came walking quickly out to see if I was going to come inside to pay the $120. So much for thinking I was done. Something was lost in the translation. Glad she caught me or otherwise I would have been pulled over by a French speaking policeman…..
Our original plan was to travel the north side of the St. Lawrence River until we were about equal to mid-state New York and then cross into the US, however in Montreal that plan was modified when the navigator proclaimed that we were in a free fall of uncertainty. “Where are we now?” “I don’t know but I think we are heading for New York.” “Good! Cause that’s where we’re going!!”
The US of A never looked so good. I could tell what the masses were trying to tell me. What did we see of two of the most important cities in all of Canada? Nothing because we were just focused on surviving which was sad for us and for the Canadians.
We had had it with traveling the four lanes and the navigator guided the tandem to upstate New York’s Highway #11. It was rural driving at its best (except for the woman bent on trying to kill us all by trying to pass us twice on blind hills. It gave me an opportunity to show Melanie my manly style of using descriptive language. I hung my head in shame in the aftermath.)
We were both surprised to see wind farms along the route. It was the closest I’ve ever been to a wind generator. And there they were plopped down in fields and pastures everywhere. Later I checked the internet to find that we were going by the Maple Ridge wind farm made up of 197 units and it was dividing this peaceful scene into a harsh conflict. Father against son; brother against brother. This was a depressed agricultural region with multigenerational family dairy farms when the corporations showed up waving money. The locals didn’t know what hit them. $5,000 to $10,000 per year per unit. Clean energy. Free source. Better than a nuclear power plant. Your neighbors just signed………….. It hurt. There was confusion. There were unanswered questions. But it was good energy, the kind everyone wanted.
We were hurting too. Fourteen hours on the road; last of the daylight and no where to stop. Then I saw it and for the second time in as many days it was off the highway into the local highway maintenance yard. We circled around and parked behind a line of trucks pumped up on steroids. Our line caravan was home for the night.

August 12, Tuesday – Hustle Time

We were sitting 1,200 miles from the place where Melanie was to fly out of in four days which means eight hours of driving for three days. At the break of dawn we were heading out to the freeway system leaving behind the beautiful Nova Scotia coastline. It’s a long drive from La Conner to this place but I want to return for a much longer stay. Melanie wanted to go a gathering where she could wear her clan’s colors and to attend a Ceilidh, but we just ran out of time. I wanted to enjoy the same and to see more of the people and their land. Another time.
Now it was to cross Nova Scotia and into New Brunswick by following up the St. Johns River heading north to Quebec. By early afternoon the fuel tank was calling out for its daily feeding. Canadian Highway 2 was running along side the forehead and rabbit ears of the state of Maine where the St. Johns forms the border between the two countries. There was the US just across the river. “Hell, why don’t we cross over and gas up?” being partly serious and partly joking. We saved $30 in fuel costs with a thirty minute detour.
The last light was disappearing and the navigator said that the next park was too far away so we bailed off the four lane at a sparse settlement and found a place to stop for the night. In 10,000 miles of traveling I’ve never “just pulled off the road and shut it down.” But here was the perfect place. Right next to a newly constructed but empty building was a large land fill that was getting ready for another new structure. The anchor dropped right in the middle of the compacted fill to end a full day of driving. One down; two to go to get to Buffalo, New York.

August 11, Monday – Boats and Book Stacks

Today Melanie and I divided our time: I wanted to go to Lunenburg and see the famous Canadian icon, the schooner Bluenose, that is found on their ten cent piece and on their stamps and Melanie wanted to go to the Public Archives of Nova Scotia to look for her ancestors that belonged to the Nugent branch. Me in the morning; she in the afternoon. As it turned out we both enjoyed each other’s quests. To get to Lunenburg one has to go through the coastal community of Mahone Bay with its line of church steeples on the waterfront. Nice settlement with believable historic building. Lunenburg itself was “quaint” and over run but I sucked it up long enough for Melanie to photography standing in front of the famous vessel.
The drive into Halifax was fun navigation and Melanie did herself grand with getting us within striking distance of the provincial archives. This was Melanie’s first time at doing genealogy research (my first time was at Swarthmore College) but this was different. We had to sign forms and got laminated cards with our names and a necklace card holder plus a locker for our gear because you could only bring pencil and paper into the research rooms. The staff was very helpful in getting Melanie started on her searching journey. I pitched in by going through all the names of the vessels that were listed in the 1730 to 1735 time period. After two hours, we were both ready to retreat with the information that we had gleaned.

August 10, Sunday – South Coast

It was so relaxing to be able to spend two night in the same place but now we were on the big move again with the caravan in tow heading down the freeway system through Halifax and to the South Coast – not to be confused with the “East Coast” or the “French Coast” or “Cape Breton Coast.” Derek, Melanie’s son, had said not to miss Peggy’s Cove so we headed for it. What he didn’t tell us was that he told a lot of other people the same thing because the area was knee deep in tour buses and motorcycle clubs. Where is the solitude? We dropped anchor for the night at Glen Margaret on huge Margarets Bay in a commercial RV park with electrical plug ins.
We saw what drew people to this part of Nova Scotia. When the continental glaciers receded, they dropped huge boulders that they were carrying leaving the landscape littered with them. Peggys Cove was a tiny working fishing settlement that happened to be in this very picturesque portion of the coast. It was a photographers’ paradise and I quickly fell under its charm prompting a round of dueling cameras between Melanie and myself.

August 9, Saturday – The Best in North America

We awoke to a drizzle that seemed to be following us since central Maine. Today we were going to drive the coastal route of The Cape. We got different opinions from the locals as to whether to drive it clockwise or counter clockwise. One local said that she had gone around the cape both directions and preferred to go clockwise so you can see the views coming up, plus you were driving on the side of the road opposite to the drop offs!?! Another stated that the route you take depended on the weather: overcast go clockwise; clear day go counterclockwise so the sun wouldn’t be in your eyes. Everyone agreed that taking an RV on the coast clinging, steep climbing roads was suicide. We went counter clockwise in the Jetta because that’s the way most tourists do it. Plus it was overcast and foggy.
On the eastern shore drive there could have been anything and we wouldn’t have seen it. The land was low with occasional hills then dive into a river valley with a tiny village, then work its way back up onto a ridge. At the settlement of North Cape the road made a major turn inland and did some serious switchback climbing up the spine of the North Mountain. It was here that we ran into our first and only tourist bus lumbering up the ascent. In fact there were virtually no cars on the roadway. We heard later that tourism was off 60% due to the high cost of fuel. I can relate.
Finally we worked our way around the northern tip of Cape Breton and into a different weather pattern. The cloud layer was now just above us rather than being in the clouds. When we reached the top of North Mountain, we were both totally surprised that it was flat. The continental glaciers had smoothed off the upper reaches forming a barren land with numerous bogs and shallow lakes. The vegetation was stunted and looked like northern Canada.
We were just getting use to the terrain when we entered a cleft in the plateau which the road took and all the work that we had just done to leave the shoreline was about to be negated. Down we went, twisting and turning and then boom there was the ocean as far as we could see, or technically the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It reflected the black and mincing skies overhead. From here the narrow road lived up to its reputation as the best scenic coastal highway on the North America continent bar none. Amazing vistas then sweeping down to the water’s edge then snake along above the surf from one rolling ridge to the next with remote villages thrown into the mix. Eye candy and a driving delight with pull outs screaming for your attention. It was definitely everything it was billed as – and no traffic!!