Day 22

Again, I got little sleep. I was up most of the night coughing. I’ve coughed so much that I pulled a muscle in my side. At some point though I must have gotten some sleep because I had a disturbing dream. I had a research paper due. It wasn’t long and it didn’t require many sources, but I had put it off because I was on vacation and didn’t want to be bothered working when I was having fun. The day before it was due, I started to panic, but then my coughing woke me up. Kati said it must be the cough medicine drugs that brought the dream on because I was never one to procrastinate an assignment.

It’s chilly this morning. It feels more like early fall than summer.And according to the car, it is forty-five degrees. I was warm and comfortable in my sleeping bag. Kati has the same sleeping bag, but she was cold. I woke G3 in his hammock and he looked like he was wrapped in a cocoon. He was really cute tucked into his sleeping bag. He said he was warm enough throughout the night.

Sault Ste. Marie was a disappointing detour. The Canadian side was far more interesting. They advertise themselves as a historic town, but aside of a ship museum and the locks there wasn’t much to see. The Tower of History was anticlimactic. With a name like that, I thought there would be some fascinating history to learn. There wasn’t. All we learned is that Sault Ste. Marie was founded in 1668, and that it was the first settlement in Michigan. Explorers came down from Montreal looking for the Northwest Passage and found Lake Superior instead. The observation tower, however, did have nice views of the St. Mary’s River, Superior, and Canada, but I’m not really sure the views were worth the price of admission.

We skipped the ship museum. We are aiming to get as far as Grand Rapids to meet a friend for dinner, and general museums usually don’t interest us all that much. But we did take a short walk around town. We saw the locks and wandered into a few gift shops, but they were all the same and so we got back in the car to head to Mackinaw.

Our stop in Mackinaw was extremely brief. Kati and G3 grabbed lunch at Weinerlicious, the fast food place with a giant hot dog on the roof. You can’t miss it. They’ve eaten there before and liked it. I wasn’t hungry. We also picked up some fudge, because Mackinaw fudge is delicious. Sadly, we can’t linger and walk around or swim because Kati would like to be back home on Thursday. She starts back at school on Monday and wants a few day to get ready, run some errands, and mentally prepare.

Dale and I have been Facebook friends for eight or nine years. We got our graduate degrees from the same university which is how we ended it meeting online. Four years ago—first summer of COVID—when we took our Great Lakes trip we planned to meet up, but COVID happened and we kept our distance from everyone. However, he was a fabulous tour guide, messaging me through FB frequently and recommending places for us to visit while we were in Michigan. It made our visit a little more personal and we walked away with some great memories due to his advice. He is also the person responsible for our Culver’s addiction. That same summer he told us we needed to go there and try their cheese curds and custard. Well, you all know how that turned out. Therefore, it only seems fitting that this summer, since we are camping not far from where he lives, we are meeting g for dinner at Culver’s.

We had a really pleasant and enjoyable time with Dale and his wife. His father recently died and the stories he told about his father, specifically his coin collecting and what it’s meant to handling his estate will have us laughing for a long time. He invited us to the pool where his family has a membership. Initially, G3 wanted to swim, but when we got there G3 decided it was too cold. That was fine, it was just an excuse to keep chatting.

We are camping at Wabasis Campground. The sites are all close together on a grassy field, but it’s only one night, tents and RVs are separated, and it’s relatively cheap. Also, it was our only option. All other campgrounds in the area are resort campgrounds which we loath. Driving back to the campground, the moon was gorgeous. It hung low and huge in the sky, but it was a vibrant bold orange.