The day began at the cottage inauspiciously, in darkness and a steady cold rain. We loaded Rudy & Big Red with last minute items, settled Sadie in the back folded down seat and were about to start when probing headlights came down our forest driveway. The Lutomski's politely saying we need to be on our way to catch the Chicheemann for the crossing to Manitoulin Island. We couldn't afford to miss the morning boat as the day before's evening crossing was canceled due to gale force winds and 8 foot waves. 

We arrive in plenty of time, loading began at 8:30 AM and we set sail at 8:50. We left Big Red & Rudy, moving topsides to the lounge.

 Below, looked after by Sadie who rode the crossing on the car ferry deck. In the lee of the Big Tub, the chain of islands of Russell and eventually Cove Island, the winds from the West were mitigated and the seas were trace. Whatever spray from the bow was lost to the waterline. Not so as we rounded the Cove Island Lighthouse. We were greeted by a confused sea, going every which way as the day before the wind was from the South, then swung Southwest, then West and finally, we took the wind on the chin, Northwest. 

Flying scud lashed the upped decks as we plowed into the seas, smashing into waves with a thud, a hammering. Topsides we sat in the lounge drinking coffee and tea. I had a breakfast muffin. Some 2 1/4 hours later we sighted South Bay Mouth. Down into the bowels of the ship we scurried, awaiting instructions to start our engines, and low and behold, the bow peak opened, engines roared, and we off-loaded, headed to Little Current to cross the single lane swing bridge across the North Channel. 

Within a mile of Little Current we left the Niagra Escarpment limestone for the granites of the Canadian Shield mineral baring hard rock that was to characterize the geology through to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan as well. Fall colors, vivid, rich, and punctuated by intense greens of firs were right and left and every which way we looked. Up Highway 6 to Espanola we drove where we would stop, have lunch with the Lutomski's, part ways, we West on Route 17, the Trans Canadian Highway, and the Lutomski's East and then South on Route 11 to Parry Sound.

Gorgeous colors metamorphosed  with each tree species. Tamaracs were yellow. Stands upon stands of yellows mixed with greens then oranges, reds and a shimmering radiance in the sun light. We continued West, stopping along the way to take pictures, let Sadie out and run around. Towards Sault Ste. Marie Canada we encountered a four lane divided highway with no other cars than ourselves. It seems that the reigning Member Of Parliament found money for this roadway, starting 20 miles in the wilderness and emptying into the bustling megapolis of 75,000. At the end of the freeway, we turn right at the light on our way to Thunder Bay. Stopping at a KOA campground on their second to last night of the season, we set up Rudy and retire somewhat early although we did have time to use the Campground's internet. It was here we had 6 inchs of snow by late morning. Route 17 from Sault Ste. Marie to WaWa was closed due to snow.

 Our course now diverted from the lee shore of Lake Superior at our decision time in Sault Set. Marie Canada, we go South. Our alternative route was across the International Bridge onto I 75 for 8 miles then Westward M 28 and diverging alternative scenic routes. At Strongs we turn right, into Hiawatha National Forest , first to Echerman, then Paradise, West to Taquamenon Falls, first Lower, then Upper. Each spot we disembarked, hitched up Sadie's halter, and headed along foot warn pathways to view, and eventually descend to the brink of the swift waters. 

We have traveled far.

And yet, our day's journey had not ended, but continued further West along the South Shores of Lake Superior to a campground: Muskellunge Lake: 5 campers, 200 sites. Within the Cabin A: Rudy, we sit. Blustery winds fetch across Gitche Gumee miles of open water. Pelting popcorn snow sting our camper's roof top. Inside the sounds of dancing plastic balls upon an aluminum roof, for most of the night. We are toasty warm we are, propane heater works just fine. The morning brings some sunshine piercing rapid paced low dark clouds. There is snow on the ground. I let Sadie out and closely follow, she is off her leash and feeling her oats; dancing, prancing and charging with nose down scattering vividly colored fallen maple leaves. Alas, there is a dog walker with well-healed and leashed German Shepherds. Time to bound up this bundle of energy and attach yet again her halter and leash.

The road less traveled from Muskellunge Lake to Munising along the Southern Shores of Lake Superior, is less well traveled for a reason: a route plowed through sandy bluffs, rutted, potholes, ponds whose depths we plumbed. Big Red of course took matters in hand and jostled and jogged this "seasonal road, not maintained". Many Muddy Miles later, we made the outskirts of the port town of Munising, its National Falls an ink spot on the local map; we descended, hitched Sadie, walked and returned for more miles until: Munising Municipal Park and Campground where we camped for the night. Sunset is a blaze of rippled horizontal fire capped by foreboding clouds, stretching from shore to horizon. We are looking into the mouth of a blast furnace. At night we hear the winds slowly quiet and then cease.  At morning's light, Kathy had barely aroused and so the morning drifted to noon before we headed out; the weather fogy and intermittent rain; certainly a travel day, not one to get out on a walk about.

We open Foggy's Tavern in Christmas Michigan for lunch, the red OPEN sign not yet lit. Whitefish basket on special. Indeed, a scrumptious meal, plate loaded with lightly fried whitefish, coleslaw, nothing else but hot coffee. When we query where I can get my tires pumped up, our host, server, owner, bar tender wheels out a tank of compressed air and we fill Rudy's and Big Red's tires to their limits. We are good to go, and so we do.

Forty miles of State Forest, colorful trees with their reds and oranges highlighted by the deep greens of firs and bright yellows of fall Tamarac, provide the walls to our canyons as we now cruise to a city, Marquette, named for a deceased priest from the 17th century. Our remembrances, both Kathy and myself, is of a family with a child with Cystic Fibrosis, who drove 9 hours down to our CF Clinic in Lansing; four, and sometime more per year. We remember her, her mother and father: bittersweet memories.

Due West to  L'Anse at the bottom of Keweenaw Bay, into aboriginal lands, casinos, cheap cigarettes, less expensive gas, and Tribal Police prowling the roadways. North to Houghton, home of Michigan Technological University a scenic campus on a bluff overlooking a waterway. Across the drawbridge, we enter the town of Hancock, up the hill and a few more miles North, Calumet (copper country) and a stop at the visitor's center. Where to stay for the night? Copper Harbor at the very tip is now closed. We head Southwest to McLain State Park. From the roadway high reaches I can see an empty iron ore carrier heading to Duluth Minn. At the lakeshore, we head Big Red's nose to the winds and listen to the pounding waves upon the shores. We are on the windward shore of the Keweenaw Peninsula: wind and sleet and raw cold off the Lake are outside. Inside? we are snug as a bug in a rug.

Sadie is lying, feet out, and lightly snoring. Kathy is attaching games on her iPad. We are preparing to walk through the darkness to the distant washroom, brush our teeth, return and retire.

Our usual late morning arousal, make coffee and when that is done, Sadie and I walk around the campground while Kathy showers. We meet back at Rudy, tidy up, stop at the pump out station and head for the HUT INN for its Sunday Brunch. 

Well fortified, off to Copper Harbor to where the sidewalk/road ends. Back down the Peninsula via the scenic route, Egg Harbor, Eagle River, and a lighthouse tour, memorabilia of a desolate existence.

Tonight we camp at Goegebic Lake State Park. Tomorrow, Monday October 15, the water will be turned off for the season. For us Tomorrow, Madison Wisconcin, Andre's.

Another step in time.

You are standing at the foot of a steep rise viewing Biblical history. Your heels are at the edge of a wharf and fishing village. You look up with your back to the sea, the Aegean Sea. The road down comes from the left in the picture, cobblestoned and steep. An orange cone remarks a private parking spot; there are not many. St. Paul brought his message from quay to  port, up the steps to Roman amphitheater and preached.

Now all rubble ruins seem to be the same, flowing from one to the other. People thousands of years ago walked and toiled and hoed the rocky soil, tended their grapes for wine, herded and sheared their sheep for wool and slaughtered the sheep for mutton, drove their goats amongst the cliffs, milking them for fresh milk and to make cheese.

The visitor, high atop some rock paved road, looking very much the part: French Foreign Legion draped hat, fit over sun glasses, sun screen long sleeved shirt, LL Bean kaki  trousers that have removable legs to make shorts, and a reliable Relic watch to be sure we make each pickup destination on time.

Finally, History; the path to the acropolis, where pagan gods and goddesses were reincarnated by their statues to be peacefully invaded by one who spoke of one God and would go on to incite the desecration of those representatives. 

LEAH'S Request

We have returned to Istanbul, added Andrew to the email list, and, although we did a lot of touring, there is so much more to do, just on the European side of Istanbul, let alone the Asia side.

This is the exist for Hagia Sofia, the 6th Century church the was Christendom's most important before becoming a mosque in the 15th Century. Church, Mosque, now Museum.

Shopper's delight: The Grand Bazaar,covered housing 4000 shops; begun earlier as the Spice Market.

In the ancient Roman Hippodrome, a 3,500 year-old obelisk was brought from Egypt in 390 Before Christ.

Notice something familiar? The shape of the entrance-way, here to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and its similarity to the entrance to the Sultanan, the way-stations for ancient caravans on the Silk Road in the middle of Turkey's high dessert.

Topkapi, the medieval palace of Ottoman sultans. I remember seeing this shape of tower in Nimburk, now Czech Republic. Helpful in timing the period of this construction.

You want opulence? This is opulence. This is also the entrance to the sultan's consultant's minister's chamber. The list of who's who and what's what is on the side panel. Inside the chamber, the sultan's window overlooked the minister's chamber, was obscured for the sultan to hide behind and watch and listen to the various ministry's debates. Nobody knew if he were present or not. Anything that the sultan heard or observed he didn't agree with, well...85% of the ministers were executed at one time or another. I guess an Ottoman ministerial position was high risk for high reward; which gave rise to high intrigue in palace politics.

We return to Gallipoli, the sight of Chuchill's Naval disaster during WW I, to open a second front as the German's were pushing towards Moscow. Tsar Nicholas II was becoming worried and wanted the Allies to apply pressure to Germany's Southern flank as the Western Front was now a stalemate. As it turns out of course, the Tsar had more to worry about from the Bolsheviks than the Germans. 

Churchill was Minister of the Royal Navy and thought, and was advised, and there was a consensus on this, that the Turks would run and hide as a combined naval force of battleships steamed up the Dardanelles towards the Straits of Bosporus and Istanbul. Fail; three battleships sunk the first day. Then the military consensus thought a land campaign would be more successful and the Aussies and New Zealanders were landed at the shores of Gallipoli. A 100,000 dead later, the land force was withdrawn. The area now known by Aussies & Kiwis as Anzac, celebrated April 25. Two years later, the Imperial Axis surrendered, Allied warships sailed again the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, through the Straits of Bosporus into Istanbul without firing a shot.

 The sultan became a puppet of the Allies, eventually dethroned by a charismatic former Ottoman General who called himself Ataturk. Ataturk had made a name for himself, rising from low ranking military status to become a lieutenant colorant, then holding at bay the combined Allied force at Gallipoli. He became Turkey's non-elected president for life until his death in 1938. He abolished the monarchy, provided no role for religion in the political structure, adopted women's suffrage, replaced Arabic writing for Western Characters, abolished all religious schools: i.e., Madras, establish universal public education, prohibited the wearing of headscarves in public educational facilities and made Turkish the official language.

Turkey had been a part of the Imperial Axis during WW I. Turkey was "neutral" during WW II. Following the Soviet Union's establishing and Iron Curtain, Turkey became a member of NATO as the keystone in preventing the Soviet Union from reaching across the Black Sea to control Middle Eastern oil, and hence the West's economic survival, during the Cold War. 

I pause in today's narrative for the pleasant side of our trip: Kathy of course and our cuisine. Kathy stands on the European side of the Dardanelles at a restaurant were we had another, in a long list of authentic Turkish meals. Each meal along the way was different, although the salad dressing aboard the gullets (82 foot sail boats), made with sour pomegranate juice, olive oil and spices was absolutely the piece de resistance.

I conclude today's travelog, leaving the family begging for more.

You want boats? I give you boats.

High atop a volcanic island, a view of our two ships, sail furled, wait for our return. We have climbed 250 meters to find four Christian churches, at progressive elevations built over a thousand years by monks. Each church in turn represented a catastrophe of earthquakes, pirates & drought. The island was abandoned, the deceased were buried in the now dry cisterns, relics and icons transported to some far distant places, partial painted murals withstand the heat and dryness. The Little Ice Age with its atmospheric low humidity, responsible in part for the European Dark Ages, has global impact: you are there.

Our ship was boarded by the Turkish Coast Guard looking for... found a family of Turks,  Gringos and all paperwork in order. Up anchor, secure the flukes and off we go.

As river silt has made an estuary over the last 3500 years or so, we cruise in 28 footers amongst the tidal basin, grasses, reeds and creatures who inhabit this type of environment, logger head turtles (sorry, pics show fins and not much else). This is the location for the partial filming of "African Queen" starring Katheryn Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.

A skeleton of a new boat in the making. Planking to be added. Interior "Spartan."

A glimpse of a before and after woodworking boat project.

In the opening photo, Kathy stands atop an island, the angle looking down upon our ships. Now a view of the acropolis (enlargement of photo to see) as we sail off and look back.

An exclamation point to our journey; from Istanbul to Ankara via Gallipoli, Troy, Izmir, Antalya, Konya & Cappadocia. Good voyage & bon appetit.

Are we there yet?

Archaeology, digging around in the dirt to sift through eons of accumulated rubble, produces images of ancient Romans in Myra and the Church of Saint Nicholas; yes, that's right, the coal baring priest who rewards and punishes children according to their behavior. St. Nicholas is also the patron Saint of prisoners and merchants. Can you tell the difference?

Rome was not built in a day and in its far flung empire, the needs of the people were addressed. Here an aqueduct bringing snowmelt to town.

Friends Romans Countrymen, lend me your ears.

A merchant. In her left hand, a cigarette. Bowls and trinkets authentically produced in Turkey.

 
 From the coast and its towns and cities that hug the water's edge, we head inland. To do so we must climb steep mountains where the snowfields begin at 5000 feet and the tree line ends at 10,000. We have found the Western portion of the Silk Road whose other end lies East of modern day Pakistan.

.

The Silk Road caravans were vulnerable to plundering so every 15 miles or so were built fortresses where merchant and animals could spend the night to gather under one roof. In the dessert high plains a city of Konya was the birth place of a  Madras and the Whirling Dirvishes. In such a revamped way station, we saw a performance.For our caravan, we continued  East across the fertile dessert through a rain storm until reaching our cave dwelling in Cappadocia, late into the evening just in time for dinner to be over.Following the morning call to prayer, we aroused to the city out our window and the beginnings of the cave dwelling Christians, also repatriated to Greece some fifty years ago. Caves had no running water, sewer, nor adequate flu ventilation for their underground fires. Early deaths and high infant mortality were the norm.And for those of you who do not live in a cave, you too can deliver a respiratory burden 50 times that of cigarette smoking and comparable to living 100 meters below ground in oil lamp lit quarters, reeking of fire and waste water and be safe from your enemies whom you rarely get out to see.

C

Rewind to Istanbul

Turkey, a country of 65 million is Islamic except the 100,000 Christians. Those churches built after the Roman Emperor Justinian became Christian and during the subsequent Byzantine era were either converted to mosques or destroyed. Those former Christian buildings still standing are now museums.

The Blue Mosque is in use daily with the call to prayer 5 times a day beginning at 4:15 AM and last call at 9:15 PM. The words of the Imam are repeated for the congregation by a chanting choir stationed opposite the Imam. This choir is in leu of today's amplification systems.

The more the minarets, the closer to royalty one gets.

The Romans were here also with their pantheon of pagan gods and goddess; their statures properly defaced (noses cut off) as images of god are forbidden. 

Fortresses along the Bosporus Straits guard the distances between Asia and Europe. 

A quaint village at the bottom of a steep drop to the water's edge was where we ate and slept the night. We were in the steps of St. Paul the apostle who walked these stones proselytizing. We walked down the cobbled road in the night, flashlights ablaze. The back wall of our room dated to a thousand years before Christ. The following morning, a small van took us up to our bus, high on an overhanging cliff.

What could be more appropriate than a boat cruise on the Eastern side of the Mediterranean and the mountainous Turkish coast. Kathy sits on the forward lounge. 

Aft, under the blue Bimini an open lounge area, perfect for before dinner cocktails and night time sleeping. I was  the only one who slept out every night; stars, moon, no bugs. Fish cavorting did arouse me once or twice.

A three person crew manned the 82 footer; winches supplied the power except when one of the anchor flukes caught the restraining bowsprit cable and would have banged away at the hull if not repositioned and secured.

We sailed away to a lost/ghost city, abandoned when the Greeks were repatriated to Greece 50 years ago. The dwellings were not inhabited by the local Turks as they believed the Greeks had left a curse upon the houses which would in turn descend upon themselves.

A Greek Orthodox Church is abandoned in this ghost town, not converted to a mosque, nor a museum for the same reasons: curses.

We conclude this portion of the evening's narrative with a scene of idyllic Mediterranean beauty: turquoise waters, waves gently lapping upon a sandy shore.