Day 17 -- Sault Ste. Marie to Mackinaw City, Michigan -- 65 Miles

Today we did something that I hope to never do again: cross the lofty Mackinac Straights Bridge in a high-profile vehicle in a ferociously high wind. The experience frightened me out of several years of life, I'm convinced. And I don't have that many left to spare.

I knew as we approached the bridge ramp that it was going to be hairy. All day the winds off Lake Huron had been buffeting us on Interstate 75. It wasn't pleasant, but the Interstate is so wide, and the traffic today was so light, I scarcely cared. But the Mackinac Bridge was a whole other matter. Fortunately, we at least had two lanes in either direction. Also fortunately, no one was riding our bumper in either lane behind us, which made it easy for me to hug the right lane's center line like a three-year-old hugs their Teddy Bear.

Now I've driven over countless tall bridges in the course of traveling 40,000 RV miles since 2013, and I don't remember any span in particular that caused me such alarm. But today the combination of high winds and white-capped lake, 200 feet below us, put me in mind of all those 18-wheelers in Washoe Valley, near our home, that unwisely venture across in high winds, and the driver ends up looking out his front window in a vertical format. The truck is on its side, the trailer is on its side, and the whole mess is in the center divider. Concetta told me later that she had the same mental image.

So there we were, both of us wondering just what it would be like to not only be blown over sideways against the fragile-looking railing on the bridge's outer edge, but perhaps not even being stopped by the railing as we headed for the icy depths below. Neither of us could be counted as a good swimmer, so unless we were really near shore, survival was out of the question.

So here I was, furiously white-knuckling it and praying that the bridge was actually shorter than the 26,371 feet advertised, and every few seconds a giant gust would hit us and propel us back toward the bridge's outer edge. My heart was in my mouth as I quickly steered us back to hugging the left side of our lane. The really scary part was when we came to bridge stanchions. Since I was employing quite a bit of pressure on the wheel to keep us hugging the white line, when we would come to a stanchion, the buffeting would suddenly cease and I would find myself barreling into the left lane. Fortunately, no one even approached us from behind in either lane, probably because they could see the trouble we were in, and didn't want to be sucked over with us.

For some reason, as we finally approached the final section of bridge, I found myself wondering if the "heart-in-mouth" feeling that I was experiencing as we crossed that 26,000 foot span was anything like what those twenty-something bomber pilots experienced as they attempted to land their craft for the first time. Maybe that's crazy, but that's how it felt to me.

So, having survived the bridge, here we are in Mackinaw City's Mill Creek Camp for the next three days in Mackinaw City. We decided we wanted to visit Mackinac Island a couple of days ago and Concetta set about trying to find a camp that would take us on short notice. The problem is that today is the beginning of the long Labor Day weekend. Ordinarily, we don't make reservations anywhere because we don't really know where we'll be at any give time. But this time we knew we wanted to visit the Island so we would almost certainly need reservations if any could be had.

Amazingly, when Concetta called Mill Creek Camp, they informed her that she was in luck since someone had just then canceled leaving a spot with full hookups unclaimed. She had chosen the River Mill camp because they advertised a shuttle that would take us to the ferry boat that would then transport us to the island. That's an unbeatable offer since we wouldn't have to break down our camp in order to drive to the ferry. So, our ferry tickets are purchased, we've walked the route we need to walk to find the shuttle in the morning, and I even had time to pop into the camp store to sample their coconut ice cream.

This morning, before we left Sault Ste. Marie, we took time to visit the Tower of History. I was a little skeptical as the tower resembled nothing so much as something a new architectural student might design on a lark. But we decided that since there was a chance we might learn a little about the history of local Indian tribes, we would go ahead and pay them a visit.

First of all, here's what I was able to find on the web about the history tower: "The Tower of History soars 210 feet above Sault Ste. Marie and the Soo Locks. The tower has 2 observation platforms for visitors to get spectacular 360 degree views and spectacular photos of the world’s busiest inland shipping channel, the Canadian wilderness, and the quaint city of Sault Ste. Marie."

"The Tower was built in 1968 by the Catholic Church as the Shrine of the Missionaries. The Shrine was meant to be part of a larger complex which would have featured exhibits about the early Missionaries such as Bishop Baraga. A community center and a new Church were also planned. The Church later cut the project in favor of other endeavors, and the Shrine of the Missionaries was donated to the Sault Historic Sites in 1980. It has been operated as the Tower of History ever since."

Because the Tower budget had been compromised from the beginning, the few historic displays therein are dated, faded, and difficult to appreciate. But skipping by the few displays, what really takes your breath away is standing on the top observation deck and watching the ships glide serenely by far down in the Saint Mary River channel. Concetta and I were excited to see that a large cargo vessel was just clearing the lock as we watched, and we stayed for many minutes in order to get photographs of the ship. Fortunately, though the sun had been playing tag with the persistent cloud cover, we did manage to grab a few photos of the Algoma Equinox.

After that, it was an easy hop to get out on the Interstate, and then we enjoyed a serene 65 miles to our afternoon objective. So the Happy Wanderers made out like bandits this time. We scored a three-day reservation at a great camp right on the shore of Lake Huron, which should have been impossible right before a three-day holiday. But RVing is like that sometimes. When you think you've got it made, fate throws you a curve ball. And when you think you couldn't possibly get lucky one more time, fate decides to fill your inside straight. That's life on the road.

In the last two days Concetta and I have been privileged to do something neither of us has done before -- visit both Lake Superior and Lake Huron. When we set out on this vacation, we had no idea we would be seeing those magnificent bodies of water. The point is, vacations should contain a certain amount of serendipity. Don't nail down your itinerary too tight. Stumbling over something you've heard about but thought you'd never see is hugely satisfying and sublime. And stumbling over something you NEVER heard about before is heaven.

As we walked through the camp this afternoon we came across a tiny travel trailer looking very much brand new. It was all done up in aquamarine and white and had the name, "Retro" on the side. I think it was called a Retro because it looked very much like the similarly-painted travel trailers from my childhood that everyone now calls "Canned Ham" trailers. My parents borrowed just such a canned ham trailer way back in 1962 or so Mom could fulfill her dream and travel around the western states visiting all the places that cropped up in her genealogical studies of the family history. We tended to concentrate on Utah and Colorado since the Jones and Curtis families spent quite a few years there.

The trailer was so small that there was no room for brother Cliff and me to sleep indoors. In fact, there was no room inside the cab of the Chevy pickup that Dad used to pull the tiny trailer. For both activities, riding and sleeping, Cliff and I would be set up in the pickup bed. Dad had erected an aluminum "shell" with open sides over the bed. For our riding comfort, Dad acquired an old Studebaker seat that he fastened down somehow. Here Cliff and I rode backwards through thousands of miles of desert and mountainous countryside with never a thought to seat belts or other restraints. So, naturally, the pickup bed also served as our sleeping quarters. I don't remember Dad enclosing the sides for privacy or warmth in the back of that pickup, and distinctly remember waking one morning with ice on our sleeping bags. There was ONE plus about riding in the back of the truck, we had the ice chest with all the soda pop back there.

It was from the back of that old white Chevy that I first discovered not only my extreme love of travel, but my love of history as well. It was at this point in my life, I was perhaps twelve, that I began buying from roadside stands a variety of western history magazines and reading them as we rolled through the very country about which I was reading. It was spectacularly intoxicating for a kid of twelve who had never been out of southern California before. My mother would have loved to do a whole lot more travel in pursuit of her thirst for historical background, but it was not to be. Dad just didn't quite understand or sympathize with the process. But I hope she's looking down now and can see that I'm trying to follow in her footsteps.

It's all too true, everyone needs to expose their children to the magnificence of America. It will instill in them a indelible memory of what makes this country great. And when you do go out there and hit the two-lanes to make your traveling dreams come true, we wish you happy traveling and exciting destinations.