Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan

August 19, 2024

We left Canada for good (at least for this year), and our border crossing back into the USA was the easiest yet. Perhaps there is an inverse correlation between the length of the line of vehicles and the number of questions asked. The most challenging piece of information we needed to provide was our truck license plate number.

Now, most people probably have their license plates memorized, and we sort of do, but our camper plate and our truck plate are only one digit different, and sometimes it's difficult to remember which is which. But, no worries, Julie has the number written on a card in the passenger visor for such occasions 😉. And an extra bonus--we didn't even need to have our trailer boarded this time. Yay!

Enjoying the last bit of Ontario scenery

Good thing we had our GPS--probably would have missed this little sign otherwise

We almost missed the road to the International Bridge. It looked like a parking lot entrance.

The International Bridge in Sault Ste. Marie

We had to wait in line quite a while, but it moved pretty quickly. No hard-core inspections here today.

Before moving on, we need to rewind a few hours to back when we were driving in Ontario. As we were heading out of a parking lot and onto a road, we heard a loud clunk. After verifying that the trailer was still attached to the truck, Rick drove a ways down the road to pull over and have a look.

Weight distribution bar and chain dragging on the ground--not good.

This is the other (non-broken) side. This is what it is supposed to look like.

Since the J-hook had sheared clean off, Rick opted for a fix of rope and tie-wraps.

Rick was pleased to be able to put to use the fine rope he found on a beach a while back, and we were back on the road in no time. Julie was a bit dubious of the janky rope/tie-wrap thing, but it held amazingly well. Not sure what it is with Canada and all our trailer parts breaking, though!

Okay now, resuming where we left off in Michigan...

Our stop for the night was a free camping area adjacent to an airfield not too far from Sault Ste. Marie. It was surprisingly nice, and had a large, level concrete pad to park on.

Nice boondocking spot

Our next destination was the Keweenaw Peninsula, the tip of which is the northernmost point in Michigan. Our campground was in the middle of the peninsula in the small town of Lake Linden.

Our drive through the UP was a lot greener than when we were here in the fall last year

Saying "hi" to Marquette where we stayed for a week last fall

Dodging some rain showers

L'Anse Bay and quite a bit of haze

Our campsite at Lake Linden Campground

We had a bit of a view of Torch Lake from our deck

The town of Lake Linden sits on the shores of Torch Lake. Copper mining and refining had been a major industry throughout the Keweenaw Peninsula from the 1800s through the 1960s, and it left quite a bit of pollution in its wake. Torch Lake was essentially a dumping ground for copper processing waste products for a considerable period of time. After the discovery of fish with tumors in the 1970s, the lake became a Superfund site, and cleanup began. It still has a long way to go until all the heavy metals are "safely" buried under layers of sediment, but it is said as long as you only swim in the "cleaned up beaches" or from a boat, it is "ok". We didn't have the urge to go swimming in the lake, so we just looked at it.

Torch Lake, right before a storm

On Wednesday, we did a driving tour of the northern half of Keweenaw Peninsula.

Great Sand Bay

We walked along the beach at Great Sand Bay for a ways

The sand beach eventually gave way to red pebbles

The lighthouse at Eagle Harbor

US Coast Guard Lifesaving Museum

It was quite a small museum

We drove the Brockway Mountain Drive, purportedly the highest above sea-level drive between the Rockies and Alleghenies

It was pretty hazy, so the views weren't amazing

Looking down at the town of Copper Harbor

Agate beach, made up entirely of pebbles

A very scenic and secluded beach on the eastern shore of the peninsula

The sand was mostly confined to the shoreline. When you got out into the water, the bottom was mostly rock.

Some of the rock was quite slippery!

The water was so clear!

The next day, Rick implemented a fix to the hitch weight distribution bar support that did not involve rope or tie wraps. We won't know how well it will hold until we drive with it, but it looks more "legit" than the previous solution.

Before: Janky rope and tie wraps

After: U-bolts from Tractor Supply (our new favorite store) --almost looks professional!

The next couple of days were pretty rainy, so we mostly stayed inside. One of our amusements during this time was watching the stockpiling of firewood by one of the tent-camping neighbors:

We were expecting a major conflagration, but hardly any of the wood was burned while we were here

Monday was finally sunny again, although quite cool (mid 60s). We decided to walk a nearby trail to Hungary Falls. It was a short but pleasant trail with several waterfalls.

And that's all for this week!

Rick's technical corner

The new solar panels we installed in Florida to try to alleviate our shady site electricity anxiety have been doing a great job. We have been getting to 100% almost every day with our "normal" electricity usage (water heater is on propane) and we have now been in several moderately shady sites. We have not yet stayed at any completely tree covered sites where there is zero open sky, but we are hopeful that those will be more workable than last year. The over-paneling (putting 1000 watts of solar panels on a 700 watt controller) has also been working well, as we have rarely been in a spot where the controller tops out at the 700 watts for very long (and when we are in one of those locations we typically have so much sun it doesn't matter that we are "wasting" some power).

The unbalanced 200Ah battery (on which I installed the active balance board in Florida) has been doing well, and the board has been active much more than I expected. So, taking the time to turn the battery case into Swiss cheese and wiring in the board seems to have been a worthwhile adventure. Amazingly, the wires for the balance board which are wrapped around and tie wrapped to the battery posts have not fallen off, even after all our bouncing down the road. When the battery is at float voltage all the cells now have almost identical voltages - that is quite the win!

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