BILL AND JEANNE'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE
 

JJ and I arrived in Chicago on 23 August  to begin our Great Lakes adventures with our cruising pals. Since we had not previously visited Chicago or the Great Lakes regions we had two full days for sightseeing before the embarkation on Friday, 25 August.​​​​

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24 AUGUST THURSDAY CHICAGO

After a very expensive breakfast at our hotel, the Sheraton Grand, we were off for a boat tour upon the Chicago River which flows past the hotel. Our tour guide was Dan who is a member of the Architecture Foundation and  was quite knowledgeable about the varied building designs for which Chicago is well known. However; I am not an architecture buff so I will summarize by saying the buildings are amazing and i will simply mention some of the historical stuff that I found interesting. ​

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This Chicago River area was, of course,, occupied by native Americans for millennia and the first white guys were French fur traders around 1600s-1770. Things changed and eventually the city was founded about 1837. At this time the city dumped all its raw sewage into the river and then into Lake Michigan. Soon the residents who drank the lake waters were getting sick so the authorities decided to build a canal to take the river water to the Mississippi River. Hence;, the folks downstream on the Mississippi River had the pleasure of drinking Chicago waste. Anyway, to this day that canal is the only outlet from the Great Lakes that does not flow into the Atlantic via the St Lawrence River.

The famous Chicago fire happened in 1871 leaving about 100,000 people homeless. The fire was not caused by Mrs O'Leary's cow kicking over a lantern despite popular stories to that effect,

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After the river cruise we went up to the 94th floor of the John Hancock building for viewing and then strolling along Michigan Avenue.  We stopped for a brief visit at a 5 story Starbucks store where people were waiting in lines to buy drinks. Not us!

Finally, we wrapped up our day with an early Chicago pizza dinner and then connected with our travel companions who had completed a National Park visit.

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25 AUGUST FRIDAY CHICAGO

Today was the beginning of our American Queen Voyages which included events that started with breakfast and then a hop on/hop off tour. We were delighted to see that the weather had changed since yesterday and we enjoyed cool weather unlike yesterday's hot and humid day.

We stopped for a brief visit to the Millenium Park and checked out the famous Bean sculpture and stood at the beginning of the old Route 66 highway. The end of 66 is at Santa Monica pier is in Los Angeles.

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By early evening we were all settled on our ship, Ocean Voyager, along with about 150 other passengers and our cruise commenced at 7PM.

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26 AUGUST SATURDAY UNDERWAY

We were underway all day heading north in Lake Michigan and generally about 20 miles from the Wisconsin shore line.

This was a good time to learn some Great Lakes stuff from our lecturer, Ian. The lakes are very recent, geologically speaking, having been formed only about10,000 years ago from the retreating glacier, part of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. Lake Superior is the largest and deepest (1300 feet deep) while Erie is the shallowest. Lakes Michigan and Huron are actually connected at their northern parts so they could be considered as only one lake. All the lakes eventually flow into the north Atlantic via the St Lawrence River which exits Lake Ontario.

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27 AUGUST SUNDAY ESCANABA

This morning we were ready for our first shore excursion. Escanaba is a small town with a convenient port for the ship and represents the rural life of Michigan's Upper Peninsula (UP). The locals are proud to call themselves Yoopers while folks in the lower peninsula are "trolls".

After lunch we did another included excursion for the Woodland Sky Dancers at Hannah's Reservation. The Native American performers were dressed in their traditional, colorful regalia and the leader made passionate pleas for love and equality for all races. He pointed out that these pleas were not fulfilled during the past history of genocide and ethnic cleansing as white folks of European ancestry conquered North America.

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28 AUGUST MONDAY MACKINAC ISLAND

After a typical overnight cruise we awoke to find 

ourselves at Mackinac Island for a shore excursion.

Today our transportation was via horse drawn carriage

as cars are not allowed.  Our driver, Nathan, is from 

Romania and is a real comedian! We visited Fort 

Mackinac and ended up at the Grand Hotel which

boasts of having the world's longest porch. Some of our 

group elected to enjoy a luxury luncheon at the hotel

while others saved our appetites for dinner on the ship.

I decided to walk from the Grand Hotel back to the ship. Along the way I decided to check out a secret garden in the  woods near the hotel. Suddenly I

heard some barbershop music and soon found 

a path to the  singers who were just finishing

their song. Sure enough, this was the secret 

garden with lovely flowers all around!

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29 AUGUST TUESDAY SAULT SAINT MARIE AND SOO LOCKS

The goal for this morning was for the ship to ascend the Soo Locks and gain entrance to Lake Superior. The real purpose was to claim that we visited all 5 lakes since we only cruised around Superior for a few hours then returning to Lakes Huron and Michigan via the locks. After lunch on board we were off for another hop on/hop off tour of Sault Ste Marie. There are two Sault Ste Maries; one on the Canadian side and one of the USA side of St Mary's River. We visited the USA  city with population of about 14,000 while the Canadian side is much larger with around 70,000. I hopped off at the Valley Camp Museum which is a unique maritime museum inside a huge dry docked cargo ship, The Valley Camp. Of particular interest to me was the display about the wreck of the ship Edmund Fitzgerald which  was immortalized in the late Gordon Lightfoot song.

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30 AUGUST WEDNESDAY UNDERWAY

Today was our second at sea day as we headed sourth in

Lake Huron towards Detroit with following seas, wind and

some choppiness.  Our lecture for the day discussed the

corruption in Detroit during prohibition days when booze was 

easily smuggled across the Detroit River from Canada and into

Detroit.  Also, the ship's company entertained us with a 

Viennese "high Tea" and our great dining waiter, Alejandro,

was decked out in an era appropriate wig!

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31 AUGUST THURSDAY DETROIT

This morning we were docked at the Detroit port having cruised down the St Clair River from Lake Huron into Lake St Clair and then the Detroit River which connects with Lake Erie.  In the morning I walked along the river front under pleasant clear skies. I did a photo of an interesting statue depicting Detroit's role in the underground railroad when escaped slaves could find freedom by crossing the river and into Canada.

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That afternoon we enjoyed the included "Legends of Motor City" tour. We stopped at the Fisher Building which was built in about 1920 and was funded by the wealthy Fisher brothers whose auto body designs dominated the early American auto industry. The building, mostly deserted during our visit, is noted for its art deco interior designs.

Our next stop was at the Piquette Plant which

was used by Henry Ford to produce his first

Model T autos and they were so successful

that he had to relocated to a larger facility. The

Model T dominated the market for about 19 years

until competition required change. I learned that Ford had only one child, Edsel, and a model named after him was not successful although I thought they looked pretty cool during my teenage years.

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1 SEPTEMBER FRIDAY CLEVELAND

Today most of our group did a National Park excursion.  JJ and I had signed up for the "Exploring Cleveland: from Horse and Buggy to Rock and Roll". Our guide, Sharon, offered a few tidbits about Cleveland but this trip was mostly about visiting the nearby Amish community. We made a short stop at the International Womens Air and Space Museum for a bathroom break and observed that the Cleveland air show was getting underway. We learned that there are some famous names from the area including: Jesse Owens, J. D. Rockefeller, namesake Moses  Cleavland and the home of original Superman comic strip.

The main purpose for this excursion was to visit the nearby Amish community and learn about the lifestyles.  Our guide, Sharon, is not Amish but she lives in the local area and knows her neighbors well. Some highlights of our visit included stopping at a schoolhouse (not in session yet) and then a "wedding feast" at the home of a local family. There were about 28 of us and we were well fed by our hostess, Mary! The feast included homemade bread, 7 layer salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, chicken and desserts! Mary served us by herself although she told me that her daughter had helped with food preparation.  Her husband, Jerry, does leather work and was keen on selling some of his belts, key chains and stuff to us. The Amish do not like to be photographed so I have no images of our hosts. 

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Upon our return to Cleveland we stopped by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and I did a very brief tour of some of the displays.

2 SEPTEMBER SATURDAY NIAGRA FALLS

During the evening we had completed our cruise across Lake Erie and arrived at Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada.  Here the Wellman Canal starts its 300 feet drop via locks to Lake Ontario. The canal roughly parallels the Niagara River and there was a short bus ride over to see the famed Niagara Water Falls. We had excellent weather for our tours and observed large crowds on both the Canadian and American sides of the river.

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3 SEPTEMBER SUNDAY TORONTO

Well, this is the last stop on our cruise. JJ and I had bought an optional post-cruise 2 night stay at the Mariott Hotel and we really appreciated the large room compared to those on the ship. The option included a city tour and good information from our guide. Here, as in all the ports, there was frequent mention of the War of 1812 which I rarely heard about growing up in Virginia. Along the Canadian border there were lots of conflicts between the new USA and British forces. 

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4 SEPTEMBER MONDAY TORONTO ISLANDS

This was the last full day for our excellent adventure! We took a short ferry ride over to the Islands and then a short walking tour of Ward Island. Two ladies who are local residents conducted the tour and provided good insights to the Island worlds.  There are no cars or conveniences on the islands and residents (few hundreds) have to take the ferry to the mainland for shopping. Many of the homes were quite modest and we saw no mansions.  The real estate market is highly regulated on this state park: there is a 15-20 year wait home purchases; homes can be inherited by only one child and prices are set to about one half of those typical for Toronto. Our guides were very annoyed by a recent event wherein a 65 year old man was adopted by a sickly 90 year old so he could inherit the home. It worked and the 65 year old got the home!

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5 SEPTEMBER TUESDAY SAN DIEGO

Our optional tour included transportation to the airport and then a safe trip back home. Unfortunately, by this time a had a bad virus, was sick and coughing which likely annoyed my seat mates on the plane. I hope they did not catch it!

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THE END

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