June 4 Sault Ste Marie, Michigan

        It only took about an hour to drive here this morning and on an interstate, for a change.  OK for the short time.  We are staying at a city-owned RV park here.  This town is pronounced Soo Saint Marie.  Our camper backs up to within 25 yards of the St. Mary's River, which divides Michigan and Ontario.  We can look right across the water and see downtown Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.  We have seen several freighters in the few hours we've been here - cool.  Dave and John, we all enjoy watching the barges on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, but these are huge!  Some are 1000' long.
        We drove around town for awhile.  Pop. is 16,500.  Saw several neat mailboxes on one block.  One was a boat motor with the center cut out so the mailbox could sit inside.  One was a fish and one looked like a Michigan helmet, Terry.  How about a Dairy Queen with an apartment upstairs?  A Habitat Restore.  More pretty churches.  Tom is going to put a powerpoint of those pictures together and hopes to show it at church sometime.  One had a gorgeous flower garden and it had about 20 tall orange poppies.  Reminded me of the picture we have of Jacque holding the wild ones we picked in Alaska when she was 3.  It began to rain - the first of our trip.  We came back to the camper and  cleaned it up a little and then went for Chinese.  I finished my 10th book tonight and I very seldom read in the truck since it's all new territory.  I haven't been getting up at 5, but usually an hour or more ahead of Tom, so read then and in the evenings.
Minnesota and Michigan state parks:  you have to pay $8 to enter one in these states, and if you're camping, that vehicle pass is in addition to the campground fee.  Or you can purchase an annual vehicle pass for $30.  That's what we did in both states and we have used them both enough to pay for it already.  Sometimes we've camped in them and other times we've just driven through.  Washington and Oregon should probably have these fees to help their park budgets.