Locked Up

Today we hit the road north which means going over the bridge. That took us into Upper Peninsula Michigan. We headed up to Sault Ste Marie which is right across the river from Canada. The reason for going was...

 

So the top picture is a great picture I found online to show the locks layout. The bridge is the international bridge that connects Michigan to Canada. The lock systems get boats through the river to Lake Superior. The best way to learn about the lock system is to take a boat tour and get a first hand view. We had took this before when Jeremiah was very young and he couldn't remember the trip at all. He enjoyed it so much! We came through on the most right hand side of the photo. Then you return on the far left side in a Canadian lock system.

After our 2 hour tour was over we came back to the locks so we could have lunch and watch the locks from an observation deck. We sat down for a lovely lunch and out the window we could see the locks. To our surprise a HUGE freighter boat was coming into the locks. Come to find out it was 1,000 foot long and 1 of 5 scheduled to come through the locks today. We got to watch it come through and it was amazing. It just barely fits in the lock and we really were totally lucky to get to watch it go through. It was perfect timing. We did some shopping and then headed back down to Mackinac just in time for dinner. We ate at a nice pizza place that had a museum above it. We went up to the museum and got to watch an awesome video about the bridge being built. Jeremiah said we have the best luck in the world when it comes to finding these things.

After we got out we noticed the sky was pitch black. Hey at least it waited until we were done today haha. I did get some great pictures down by the bridge of the storm clouds. We got back to our hotel and I was waiting for the rain to pass to walk over and get us ice cream. It let up and I started the trip and of course it POURED on me. Oh well it actually felt pretty good. So I slowly waded my way over to the ice cream place and got us some DELICIOUS ice cream. Yum! Yet another fantastic day!