Friday, July 16, 2011 - Headed to Sault Sainte Marie, MI

We got up early this morning to head towards Sault Sainte Marie, MI with a few stops along the way.  It was a much warmer and humid day with a high around 85 degrees.  Our first stop was the Seney National Wildlife Refuge.  If the flies hadn't been so horrible we might have enjoyed this place because it seemed like a really peaceful area with tons of ponds, lakes and wildlife.  We started with the Pine Ridge Nature Trail which is a 1.5 mile loop around one of the lakes and this is where the flies started.  They circled you constantly and bit you at every chance.  At any given moment there were more than a dozen flies on one of us.  So this was a very brisk walk with only one stop to photograph the swan couple and they young one.  After that we decided to forgo the auto tour we were going to take and just head out.  We will come back in the future at a time when the flies aren't so bad.  The locals said that they have never seen so many flies.

Seney National Wildlife Refuge

Next was a picnic lunch at a scenic overlook along Lake Superior.  Again the flies were a huge problem so we didn't stay long and walked around as we ate to try and keep the flies off our ankles.

We continued to Point Iroquois Light Station along Lake Superior.  The tower is currently under construction so we were not able to climb it but they did have a small museum.

Point Iroquois Light Station

We ended our day in downtown Sault Sainte Marie, MI with some shopping and watching ships go through the Soo Locks.  The locks have several really nice viewing platforms and a visitor's center with information on the estimated arrival of the next ships coming through the locks.  I don't know what it is about locks but I love watching the boats go through them.

We stayed at the Park Inn and enjoyed everything about the newly renovated hotel including the pool with the exception of the drunks that came back to their room about 2:30 a.m.