Aune-Osborn Campground, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
Church flew out the window today. Right into the arms of the United States Army. We were in good company though, as even the liberal Amish were sharing the shoreline with us. (I didn’t take their picture though. 😊)
This morning, similar to yesterday, the equipment arrived on the scene a little before 8:00am. We expected it to be just like yesterday, so we mostly ignored them.
Until the sound of choppers filled the air!
At first, we just took pictures and video from inside the coach, fully intending to tune in to Pastor Mike and another message on Revelation, but there was just too much commotion to concentrate on what he was trying to teach, plus it became obvious this wasn’t a repeat of yesterday.
We turned Pastor Mike off and raced outside. And that’s when we discovered this wasn’t the National Guard as we’d thought yesterday. It was the United States Army! And there was a good-sized platoon of them! And lots of excitement infiltrated the senses!
They were using chinook helicopters to drop empty boats and those half-round tube things into the water. There was a guy serving as a PR person, who was taking time to talk to people. We had some trouble hearing him since everything was so noisy, but we picked up that those half-round things were to build floating bridges; each piece weighing in at 4 tons! They were set down gently in the water, the chopper left, a boat raced up and pushed it out of the way before releasing it and opening it up.
This picture shows two chinooks – one on its way back to us, and the other returning to pick something else up.
It would have been fun to see them hook up to the choppers as well, but that staging area was down the road, as you can see.
This one is fully open.
They reminded me of water skiers. : )
The soldier is the PR guy.
They made their own rainbow!
Once they had several opened, they pushed them over and started hooking them together. The guy said they can make it as long as needed and the bridge could hold many fully-loaded semitrucks – or about 300,000#! Incredible!
And here comes a freighter!
Hopefully, the Locks notified them what’s going on. Can you imagine what they might think otherwise? Yikes!
He said this exercise was for several reasons, one – to allow some of the soldiers a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and two – to show off to Canada (or whomever may be watching) that we’re the best. There was a Canadian Coast Guard ship watching for a bit. Before we left, we noticed one of the choppers hovering in front of the Canadian coastline across from us. Presumably, there were spectators there as well. He also said they’d like to go do demonstrations like this in foreign countries like Germany and Poland. The choppers were excellent, the others? Some were very good (we assumed they have more experience), and some were struggling a bit. The same guy mentioned that these exercises are taking about 10-15 minutes, but with fully trained personnel, it only takes 5-6.
As a side note, when I was researching what to call these guys, I ran across the following explanation. But he doesn’t address the Coast Guard. Of course, I had to finish my quest. Coasties seems to be the winner.
Because Jarheads is too confusing. (I kid…I kid) Actually, you join the Army and are called a soldier. You join the Navy and are called a sailor. You join the Air Force and are called an airman. You don’t join the Marines, you BECOME a Marine.
It is really like that. The Air Force is a lot like a regular job while wearing a uniform. The Navy is like the Air Force, just on a ship/boat. The Army is what everyone thinks of when they think of a job in the military without specification. That is why civilians will call people from any of the armed forces soldiers (and all non-Army folks get upset) but never call a soldier an airman or sailor, or Marine. The Marines are a literal change in a person. I retired from the Army and it will always be a significant part of me. But it doesn’t define who I am. A retired Marine will generally always consider themselves a Marine first and whatever they are doing now as a subset of their existence. They BECAME a Marine and you can never take that from them; it will never be the second thing they are. I am a school teacher that retired from the Army. A Marine would be a Marine that happens to teach school now.
Besides the drama in the water, there were the trucks with cranes and wenches. Once the six pieces were connected together, it was time to dismantle them and take them out of the water. A truck with a wench waited with is back tires in the water, while a boat pushed the piece into position. They attached the wench to one side and pulled, and the thing folded up neatly! However, the first boat had a great deal of difficulty getting it into position so the truck could do it’s work. They pushed that thing all over the place and backed into the opposite shore. And eventually, a guy who was obviously in command came over and yelled at them – in a nice way, of course because we were all watching and taking pictures and filming. 😊
Pushing in the bridge piece to be closed up and loaded on the truck.
It seems it’s the boat’s job to get the thing straight.
If you look at the next couple of pictures, you can tell this one is not.
The other boats did it on the first try.
The next couple of boats made the task look easy.
Heading back out to do it all again.
We were able to watch until 10:15am, as they dropped, pushed, constructed, disassembled and removed about six pieces and a couple more boats were air dropped. The PR guy said they’d be doing all this four times today. I imagine the interest from the public will wane. Personally, we were a bit surprised there was no TV presence. Seemed like pretty exciting stuff to us!
God allows us to see the most fascinating things!
We had to be out of our site by noon today (which is why we didn’t leave for church), so we had to get moving! As we were packing up, Blaine began a two-hour generator run.
We knew people were watching the show, but had no idea there’d be cars parked all over our corner lot!
They weren’t in our way, though, but still . . .
Here’s what was parked right behind us.
This and a whole lot more. All in neat and precise rows. : )
Once we were ready to leave our site, we had to wait on a couple of them so we could get out to the street. : )
Time to head to our next stop, but first – lunch at Clyde’s. Couldn’t leave without trying it out! Besides, who doesn’t love a great burger and greasy sides? So we parked the unhooked Jeep and the coach and walked over to order our lunch. Blaine had to wait a while inside and when he came out, he said it was stifling hot in there! He felt sorry for the workers!
Welcome to Clyde’s!
If you look, you can see Blaine standing inside.
But the burgers, ‘shrooms and rings were delish!
Yummy . . . .
. . . . greasy, fatty, salty food!
My favorite!
This was our lunch view today.
This ferry goes back and forth across a short distance to Sugar Island. It seems like it must run all day long. The crossing only takes a couple of minutes.
Wonder what they charge?
Wouldn’t you know it . . . on our way back, here comes another freighter. It would have passed directly in front of where we were just sitting. Darn! ☹
Cederville RV Park and Resort, Cedarville, Michigan
We left relative peace and quiet for the city today, as we drove for about an hour on mostly flat roads.
The sites here are super close together! It’s like living in a high rise! We’re on a bay, but we can’t see it for all the campers in here. And there are a lot of larger ones. Some even larger than ours – and much more expensive. Hopefully, the people are quiet at a reasonable time at night.
Welcome to the city, folks!
It seems that many of the lots here are sold, so unless the owner plans on keeping some for travelers, it’s possible that we wouldn’t be able to stop here again if we wanted to.
They have a public dock area, but look at all those motorhomes lined up on the water! And that’s only part of them!
A swan family!
Dad, Mom and three little cignets!
It sure is a pretty place by the bay, so it’s understandable why people want to stay here.
Oh! And we left Lake Superior and are now on Lake Huron.