The Valley Camp-Sault St. Marie freighter museum

Today we went to see the Valley Camp freighter museum in Sault Ste. Marie. (By tomorrow I will have memorized how to spell the name of this town!) It was very interesting and we really enjoyed it. For $11.00 a person, you get to explore the bowels of the freighter on three different levels where there are over 100 maritime exhibits. It's the largest maritime museum in the Great Lakes. There is a memorial exhibit of the Edmund Fitzgerald, with one of the lifeboats there, you can see and walk around all different parts of the ship, the living quarters, the engine room and many more parts of the ship. There are also four aquariums on one of the levels that are stocked with the habitat and species of Great Lakes fish. The perspective of the length of this freighter is lost in a photo, but one of the photos shows Eldy walking towards the bow of the ship. This particular freighter is a "shortie" in comparison to the rest of the Great Lakes freighters. Another photo shows a lineup of the 1,000 foot freighters that navigate the waters of the Great Lakes and the Valley Camp is dwarfed in comparison. The lighting inside the ship adds to the aura of mystery and intrigue of the history laden artifacts inside the freighter. There are all kinds of cool things to learn inside the freighter--shipwreck stories, what the freighters carry and how much, names and cargo, what the bells and whistles mean on the ships, photos, paintings, even a native American section. We must have walked around for at least an hour and a half exploring the Valley Camp. Way cool!

Not only do we explore the local historical sites, but we also explore gastronomical delights..FOOD! Yesterday we ate lunch at Zorba's, a Greek restaurant, and if you like gyros and other Greek food, you will really enjoy this restaurant, it had one of the best gyros I've ever had. Today we tried the Palace Saloon- a mix of Mexican and American food. It was very bland, can't recommend it except it has a really cool atmosphere and a solid mahagony bar area which dates back to 1909....there is another restaurant called Studebaker's, which is on I-75 spur (business route)--- it has a great breakfast menu but is open all day as well....Other than the Tower of History (a monument built by the Catholic Church honoring missionaries with an awesome observation tower, which we did not explore), I think we've covered Sault St. Marie fairly well....Munising, here we come!
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