Final Entry

We arrived home on August 1st just short of being gone for 7 weeks. 5,902 miles were traveled safely. Thank you God! Here are some parting thoughts.

10 Reflections on our Northeast Trip
1. After living in a travel trailer for weeks, our house is a mansion.

2. Maine has the best lobster.

3. Americans are getting more obese every year.

4. Best bumper sticker seen on the back of a trailer, "I do what I'm towed."

5. The great lakes are great and we were able to see all five.

6. The trailer tows better when the 700 pound motorcycle is absent.

7. Door County is truly "a-door-able".

8. Japanese tourists are not sightseers but are picture takers.

9. The least friendly people were New Yorkers.

10. It is true that people in the Northeast don't say their r sound. They always knew we were from Minnesota by our accent.

Marquette, Michigan

Our day started with taking a tour of the Empire open pit iron ore mine. We then went by bus to the Tilden processing plant tour. (We had to wear all the safety gear to be able to go. Al models it.) My first graders would have loved it-big trucks and huge machines. It was the blueberry festival in Marquette so we went there for dinner and also went to a play. The play was at the Lake Superior Theatre which is someones boathouse that is loaned to the theatre during the summer. The play was called The Last Five Years and was a musical with two characters. The singing was good but the story was sad. Tomorrow we head to Minnesota.

Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

After two days of driving, we are back again at the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We took our last boat trip (this was our 5th boat trip.) Our boat trip took us 13 miles up the rugged coast of Lake Superior. The colors and shapes of the rock outcroppings were beautiful. The best way to see the pictured rocks is to see it by boat. We enjoyed watching the waves roll in on Sand Point as we had little energy to hike!

Hills of New York State

This is the Finger Lakes area of New York. It is hilly, wooded with long thin glacial lakes. We visited Keuka (pronouced Cukeah) State Park. Golfing was also fun on a hilly course. (We tied at golf even with Al taking 2 mulligans!)

Corning Museum of Glass

It is Sunday and rainy. We went to the Bath, New York Presbyterian Church. It was designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1897. It is a beautiful sanctuary. We decided to go to Corning to the museum. This was a great idea! (You've heard of Corning Ware?) There were wonderful displays of antique glassware,modern art, history of glass and demonstrations. The Pyramid is by Marian Karel (1989). We watched the vase being made at the hot glass show.

Waterfalls

Wednesday night we had a downpour here. It rained hard all night. We were blessed the next day to go back to Acadia National Park to bike the carriage trails again and find out that there were hundreds of waterfalls as the rainwater worked its way out to the ocean. This is an unusual occurrence and we were so happy to see the waterfalls and the weeping rocks. Today we move on.

Bouldering

Today we climbed to the summit of Mt. Cadillac. (The automobile called the Cadillac was named after the discoverer of this mountain peak. ) It was a wonderful climb and we enjoyed ourselves so much. Today as I sat by the seashore looking for seals, a young boy about 11 years old came to the rock ledges and started throwing rocks at the gulls. I got really mad at him. How is it that some kids have no respect for nature? This is what Sheridan Steele, superintendent of Acadia National Park says, "If young people spend 6 hours a day on cell phones and computers, national parks and the outdoors seem to be increasingly irrelevant. You and your family have a wonderful opportunity to enjoy Acadia today-and to help us inspire the next generation of stewards." I hope you have been inspired by this blog.