I think I was about nine when my family took a trip around Lake Superior. I got to miss a couple days of school to do it. I couldn’t have been 10 because, when I was 10, the International Bridge opened and we could go to Canada without taking a ferry. I remember when the International Bridge opened because we drove over it the first night it was open. We drove over the Mackinac Bridge the first night that was open too and I actually remember that. I was only three. Actually, I probably was 10 when we took that trip around the lake because the International Bridge opened on Halloween (I *think* I am not making this up) and we went around the lake earlier in October.

Anyway, I remember Grandroobly driving our vee-hickle (was it the Corvair?) onto the old ferry to Canada to start that trip. Early in the trip, we stopped at a rest area on Highway 17 North and my little bro’ made friends with a little French-speaking girl. “Well, how did you communicate with her,” the parents wanted to know? “Oh, all you do is just put your mouth a different way.” I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t meet a friend at that rest area too. Always self conscious, I wondered who would want to talk to an ugly, geeky kid with glasses. And I was probably more focused on “just go to the restroom, don’t talk to strangers,” knowing me. Miss you bro’. Anyway.

I get Rossport, Terrace Bay, and Marathon all mixed up in my mind these days. I remember that we stayed in a motel in a town that smelled to high heaven of sulfur. Certain people are at the Rossport Inn tonight and when they called, I asked them about the smell. No smell. Now that I think about it, it was Terrace Bay that we stayed at that smelled so awful. It was okay. You get used to stuff like that after a while and I still sort of remember that motel. And the *fancy* (in my eyes) motel we stayed at in Fort William/Port Arthur Thunder Bay the next night. I’ll never forget the fountain out in front even though it’s probably long dead by now.

Grandroobly didn’t like to stop a whole lot on trips and we made tracks the third day to stay in a motel room in Houghton, back in good old Michigan. He liked the scenery but he didn’t particularly like stopping for gift shops and mine tours, etc. (Uh, I can be a bit like that too.)

You guys, I want pictures of that amethyst mine!

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