Thunder Bay to Marathon ~ The Meeting & Lake Superior

Helen amongst the Eggs!

Nature at its best!

Two Keepers!

The Sunset before the Storm!

No early take off this morning… Had to wait for my Berlin Water Works Board Meeting at 12pm. It went off ok. I finished up around 12:45 and we left the campground a little after 1:15pm. Our target today was Marathon about 180 miles away. The sun was shining again and the road was heading North East with the sun to our backs by midday. We stopped along the road a few times to admire Lake Superior and its coast line. Here on the North Shore of Superior the water color turquoise and clear. It is a far cry from our encounter on the south side, when we found the water dark and cold. In Marathon, which I was assuming a bigger town, it didn’t take long to drive all the main streets and avenues. The cashier at the grocery store told us to check out Pebble Beach. There a big sign that explains the geology of the beach. There are thousands of round rocks of various colors that have been worn down by the lakes wave action. It made for interesting picture taking after supper. The locals, many of them, can down here after dinner to watch the sun set. The prediction for the weather later tonight and all day tomorrow was 80% rain with thunder showers tonight. We talked to several people here, one being a native of Newfoundland… He had an Irish or Scottish accent. He has been here in Marathon since 1978, working in the mines. He certainly gave me more information on Newfoundland and Labrador. We talked to a woman, who is a school teacher on vacation. She was from Winnipeg, Manitoba. The overlook was some 50 feet above the beach, a large parking lot with one picnic table and grass at one end. A trail led us down to the beach. The sign had warned us about having sneakers instead of flip flops. The rock beach, with several drift wood trees, made walking possible, but care was needed not to lose ones balance. I collected a couple of souvenir rocks, again against local policy, and slowly walked up the hill to the camper to stow the gems away. The evening went by before we knew it. This beach overlook area was beautiful and there were no signs that said no overnight parking! Another guy, in a van, had the same idea and parked at the opposite end of the parking lot. I decided to back into a dead end road… a little more discrete than the van guy. “Night, night I said to myself!” I fell asleep in no time. (Not the end of this story) Remember the forecast? (Thunder storms, lighting, heavy rains) About one AM the gentle surf that put me to sleep was now a continuous roar. The best way to describe this is to listen to the sound of a huge water fall, the sound doesn’t subside, it just continues to roar. Oh, yes, remember me backing into that abandoned road? I had not noticed a tree branch that was close to the camper. “Yup”, the wind kept pushing it against the camper creating a screeching sound. I got to a point, I put my pants on a moved the truck three feet away from the branch. Problem solved! (Not done yet) Remember our luck with trains? Yeah, that’s right the tracks just 300 hundred feet away. Need I say more?  (Not done yet) Remember the heavy rain? “Yup” it really poured down the hill, into the parking area and over to the grassy area where I was parked. I looked out a couple of times and when the lighting flash illuminated the road ahead, I could see it was filling up with water! Time to move up to the paved parking lot. I faced the truck towards Lake Superior hoping that she would forgive me for taking a couple of souvenir rocks from here beach.

All of this night time adventure is part of discovering this planets intricacies and I didn’t mind losing a good night’s sleep (at least once in a while)

That is what we did and saw