Robin & Karen Living the Dream: Homeward Bound!

After thoroughly enjoying our visit to Niagara Falls we headed back across the border into the US on July 29 headed for an RV park in New York state called Niagara Woodland - we needed power to defrost our fridge. We took the slow scenic route through small towns & around the lake edge of Buffalo, New York - full of huge factories that looked abandoned. huge vineyards, farms and close to Lake Erie. We stopped at Lake Erie Beach Park, and found some small pieces of beach glass. Next stop Pennsylvania - strange to see Tim Hortons in the US they call it Tim Hortons Cake, and Bake Shop. We were surprised that they were still using plastic grocery bags in Pennsylvania and the maximum alcohol per purchase in grocery stores was 12 beer or 3 L of wine.

I had called previously to book a tour to see Amish country in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania - Simple Life Amish Tour - $50 each with a woman named Susan. The first stop was the Byler‘s quilt shop - lots of handmade quilts, mats, placemats, dolls with no faces, wooden toys, wind chimes & more. We bought ourselves an Amish county fridge magnet to add to our collection (easy to find & don't take up much room). The tour took us past many Amish farms interspersed with English farms & our guide explained about the culture of this particular group of Amish. They are very strict in their beliefs. In this group there are 2300 Amish and 19 church groups each with a one room school house for age of 6 to 14. They learn English and then high German, as their Bible is written in high German. School is taught by an Amish girl age 16 to 20 before they marry, they marry after 21.The Amish pay taxes, use hospitals and doctors but not not health insurance - they pay cash. They don’t use the dentist, most have false teeth by adulthood. They make most of their clothes - women can’t use buttons or zippers only straight pins. Men can have buttons, but no zippers. They use no electricity, no bicycles, can’t ride horses and boys get their own horse and buggy at age 16. They can ride a bus or hire a vehicle for longer distances. From age 14 to 21 they apprentice in a trade and work - money stays with the parents - when they get married the parents give the money back to buy land and build a house and barn. They have no phones but each church district has a phone booth - it has to be 300 yards from their home - used for emergencies, business and to call family if they live far away They make their money with small businesses, they do woodworking, leather, different sorts of shops. We were able to go into several of their stores, one in the basement of a big house. We were not able to take photos of the Amish, but could take photos of buggies from behind, we found the tour fascinating and we’re happy to learn about another culture.

faceless dolls

horse drawn farm implements

a common sight

grain or hay stooks

a typical farmstead, white house

a school, white with blue doors

every shade of blue fabric for dresses

the phone hut

inside a woodwork shop

coal oil lanterns for sale

a pedal operated heavy sewing machine for leather

inside the "general store" in the lower floor of a farmhouse

the lighting for the store

the house with the store on the lower floor

We left Pennsylvania and headed towards Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio on Highway I 80 - cornfields everywhere and soybeans. We stopped for a walk in a town called Lorain seeing lots of closed factories, US Steel, Republic Steel, many historic buildings boarded up.

Several toll highways in Ohio - we left Ohio & headed into Indiana for only 10 miles and then north to Michigan. We decided to drive north through Michigan into the upper peninsula to avoid Detroit.

We spent a couple of nights at Van Buren State Park on Lake Michigan, enjoying the huge sand dunes and looking for beach glass and Petoskey stones (fossilized coral).

Van Buren park sand dunes

a walkway for wheelchairs & strollers to get close to the water

shell fossil rocks & a petoskey stone

We stopped in the town of Leland along the beach to look for Leland blues - slag from long ago iron smelting, but didn’t find much. Another place supposedly good for beach glass was Christmas Cove beach - found a few pieces and some fossils. We passed a sign pointing out the 45th parallel - halfway between the equator and the north pole. Continuing north towards Charlevois we stopped at Fishermans Island State Park looking for Charlevoix and Petoskey stones then onto Petoskey looking again - we found many but not sure what we will actually do with them!

looking for treasures!

beautiful turquoise blue water of Lake Michigan

Charlevois stones (fossil coral)

Petoskey stones

Continuing North, we crossed the Mackinaw Bridge which connects Lake Erie and Lake Michigan and continued through what they call the upper peninsula of Michigan.

We were seeing signs all over the UP of Michigan for pasties so we finally stopped to try one- pie pastry stuffed with beef and potato - not bad.

We travelled along Lake Superior through Duluth - we could see huge tankers on Lake Superior and stopped at a place called the Superior Entry the - only natural opening through the longest freshwater sandbar in the world. We could see across the water towards Duluth, which had huge grain terminals.

We spent the night at the Pokegama Recreation area right along the Mississippi River near its headwaters. We didn’t realize the Mississippi was here - only about 100 yards wide with a dam that we were able to go across - it goes from being 20 to 30 feet wide to 11 miles across and flows for 2340 miles to the Gulf of Mexico.

Mississippi River

the fanciest fish cleaning hut we've seen!

the fish cleaning hut

We popped in for a visit to friends we’ve met in Quartzsite , Dick & Kay, and spent a night at their house near Lengby. Michigan - had a wonderful visit and a great supper.

Dick & Kay's amazing view

Quick stop in Rugby at the geographical centre of North America.

soybean crop

sunflowers

Next stop Minot, North Dakota to the Scandinavian Heritage Park - including a replica of a 1250 a A.D. Gol stave church in Oslo, a 30 ft tall Dala horse and other historic buildings.

We crossed back into Canada August 11 at Portal, North Dakota into Saskatchewan - quick and easy crossing but after we crossed, we realized that we had a very old small cannister of pepper spray sitting on our dash that we had planned to throw out before we crossed the border.

crossing back into Canada

oil pumpers

Canadian prairie

Another soak at the Watrous Manitou resort mineral pool and home on August 12, 2023. Time to catch up with the family & do a bit of camping & kayaking in our new inflatable kayak at Black Nugget Lake.