Author Archives: geek

Legislative Assembly of Ontario

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My cruise of the Great Lakes has ended in Toronto, which means vacation is almost over. I am spending one night in Toronto before heading home, so I decided to take advantage of that by visiting the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. I still have lots of state capitols to visit, but since I am here, I decided to visit a Canadian providence capitol, similar to my visit to the National Assembly of Quebec. The Legislative Assembly of Ontario building is beautiful, but it felt somewhat small. It is also slightly but ingeniously deceptive. I say that as it looks like the vast majority of the interior is wooden, but our tour guide pointed out that many of the columns that appear to be wood are actually cast iron with a covering. The assembly room itself looks like the United Kingdom’s House of Parliament, including the green color scheme. Presumably that was very intentional.

Of note, one of my standard questions now when touring a capitol or other similar building is how do they change the lightbulbs. The chandeliers in the assembly room are lowered closer to the floor by a person who goes up into the attic to lower them.

Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Legislative Assembly of Ontario

Door to Legislative Chamber

Legislative Chamber

Legislative Chamber public galleries

Legislative Chamber ceiling

Hallway

Hallway to Legislative Library

Stairwell

Welland Canal

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The ship I am on cruising around the Great Lakes is docked at Port Colborne, Ontario, which is at the entrance to the Welland Canal from Lake Erie. The Welland Canal connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and allows ships to bypass the rather inconvenient Niagara Falls. We are docked right in front of Bridge No. 21 of the Welland Canal, which has given me and some of the other passengers frequent entertainment in watching the bridge go up and down and large cargo ships enter and leave the canal. When you are on a ship less than 100 feet from a giant cargo ship, it just doesn’t seem possible that the giant cargo ship will fit in the canal or under the bridge, but of course it does. The below slide show is a collection of a series of photos I took from my cruise ship when the Algoma Buffalo entered the canal.

Detroit River

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Yesterday, my cruise of the Great Lakes left Detroit headed south. We left while there was still daylight, which allowed me to get some good photos of Detroit, Windsor, and the bridges over the river.

Downtown Detroit

Renaissance Center

Windsor

Detroit River looking north from downtown Detroit

Ambassador Bridge

Ambassador Bridge with Gordie Howe International Bridge in background

Gordie Howe International Bridge

Gordie Howe International Bridge

Gordie Howe International Bridge

Ford Piquette Plant

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Today my cruise of the Great Lakes stopped in Detroit, and I took an excursion to the Ford Piquette Plant. It is a privately owned museum in the first building Henry Ford owned and operated as a plant. The first Model T’s were built at this plant. The museum has a great selection of early Ford Motors on exhibit including numerous Model T’s and earlier models, which is essentially the alphabet before the letter T. The museum has some old cars that were competitors of Ford Motors also. We had a wonderful tour guide who is a retired Ford Motors engineer and explained how these cars worked. His explanation of how car lights work, which I will not attempt to explain, quite frankly scared me. It just seemed like a disaster waiting to happen. One thing I found really interesting was the realization that the cars before the Model T had the steering wheel on the right side. Our guide explained that for a variety of reasons, the steering wheels were all initially on the right side, but with the Model T, the company rethought if it should be on the right and changed it to the left. For about ten years after that, Ford’s were built with the steering wheel on the left, but other companies put theirs on the right. Then at some point, everyone decided to standardize it on the left.

Among the examples of other company’s cars is where a couple designed for women, including the Detroit Electric 75 Brougham, shown below. The car was amazingly electric (considering we still don’t have that many electric cars), and the interior was quite unusual. The driver would sit in the back seat. According to our guide, it was rude for a high class lady to speak to the back of another lady’s head, so the front seat is turned to face the back seat, so all the women are facing each other.

In summary, it is a fascinating museum.

Ford Piquette Plant

Ford Piquette Plant

Ford Model B Tonneau

Ford Model (?)

Detroit Electric 75 Brougham

Ford Model T chemical fire truck

Ford Model T dump truck

Parry Sound

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Today, my Great Lakes cruise arrived in Parry Sound. The town of Parry Sound is small, and I did not do too much exploration. However, in the afternoon, I and several passengers went on a three hour cruise of the 30,000 island area as it is called. The cruise looped around Parry Island and along the way went through some ridiculously narrow channels. Words cannot describe the beauty of the area, and I don’t even think my photos below do it justice. The are is simply gorgeous. The islands are part of the Canadian shield and are pure bedrock of what appears to be mainly gneiss. Plants, including conifers, are defiantly growing straight out of the rock. It is simply beautiful.

Narrow channel near Rose Point

Trees growing out of rock

Small islands

Small islands

Islands as far as the eye can see

Small inlets

Narrow channel

The orange on the rocks is lichen

Small islands

More bedrock

Approaching Hole in the Wall

Side of Hole in the Wall

Cruising through Hole in the Wall

At the exit of Hole in the Wall

Sault Ste. Marie

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Today our cruise visited Sault Ste. Marie, which is the name of the city on both the Michigan, U.S. side and on the Ontario, Canada side. We docked though on the Canadian side in the St. Mary’s River on the Lake Huron side or elevation. I never actually went into town though. I boarded another boat with many other guests for a lock tour. We sailed through the Canadian lock into the Lake Superior side or elevation then made a giant semicircle to return to the Lake Huron elevation via the MacArthur Lock on the U.S. side. We then sailed downstream a little bit before returning to the dock. It was a really enjoyable cruise, and I always love locks. Besides going through the locks, I enjoyed seeing the steel plant on the Canadian side. I also was fascinated by the Sault Canal Emergency Swing Dam on the Canadian side. I had never heard of such a thing, so I appreciated learned about it.

International Bridge with some of the St. Mary’s River rapids in front

Canadian Lock

Sault Canal Emergency Swing Dam

Algoma Steel

International Bridge and railroad bridge

U.S. Lock with construction of new lock visible on left

Rock pile indicating Canada/U.S. border in St. Mary’s River

Mackinac Island Transportation

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When I was in Venice, I was obsessed with how all transport was done via walking or boats, including utilitarian and emergency services. On Mackinac Island, with the exception of emergency vehicles, everything is done via bike or horses. I couldn’t get pictures of all of it, but I had fun catching photos of as much as I could being done bike or horse, as opposed to what I am used to via car or truck.

Police bike riding by normal human transport carriage

Newly arrived visitors being transported via carriage as well as their luggage

Three horse carriages for long island tours

ADA accessible horse drawn carriage

UPS cart delivering Amazon.com along with everything else

Golf club cart

UPS cart with fancy Grand Hotel carriage on right

Luggage bike BOSS!

They don’t grow hay on island, so hay is transported daily via carriage (with UPS carriage in front)

Horse poop collection via a tricycle

Out of focus photo, but this appears to be the garbage carriage

HVAC repair bike

Mackinac Island

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I’ve always wanted to visit Mackinac Island, but I had never gotten the chance, and also it is really expensive. Hence, when I saw that the planned cruise of the Great Lakes I was taking stopped here, I was really excited. It is a cute island that is mainly concentrated in a small downtown area along with the huge Grand Hotel and its associated land, such as its golf course. There are some private houses further out. However, most of the island is a state park including the historic Fort Mackinac. With the exception of emergency vehicles, all transport is done on the island via bikes or horses. The island offers horse drawn carriage tours of the island, which many of us from the cruise took. We rode one carriage pulled by two draft horses from downtown to what I can only describe as a transit station for horse drawn carriages, where we changed to a larger carriage pulled by three draft horses for the longer island tour. Our tour included a guided tour of some of the downtown highlights then after the carriage change, we went to Arch Rock and historic Fort Mackinac. Finally we went to the famous Grand Hotel, which charges admission unless you pay via your tour. I have to admit that I am very glad I visited, but I really don’t feel the need to return. Downtown was incredibly crowded, and everything is expensive. It is clearly a great place to hike and bike, but I think there are cheaper places to do that.

Post Office

Courthouse and Police

Grand Hotel

Arch Rock

View from Arch Rock

View from Fort Mackinac (my cruise ship is on far left hand side of photo)

Downtown Mackinac Island from pier where cruise ship is docked with Fort Mackinac on hill in background

Downtown Mackinac Island

Mackinac Bridge

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Today my cruise of the Great Lakes arrived at Mackinac Island. On the way there, shortly after sunrise, we passed under the Mackinac Bridge. It is a gorgeous suspension bridge with green metal work. They clearly do maintenance on it as it was built in 1957, and it looks great. Naturally half the passengers on my cruise were outside on deck to watch us pass under the bridge. I was definitely among them. Below are some photos of the bridge.

Mackinac Bridge

Mackinac Bridge

Mackinac Bridge

Mackinac Bridge

Mackinac Bridge

Muskegon, Michigan

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For the first full day of my cruise of the Great Lakes, we stopped in Muskegon, Michigan. It is a cute town that has done an admiral job of preserving its past as much as possible. The downtown features some new buildings but also some historic buildings. A block or so away from downtown are some gorgeous painted ladies houses. Our cruise had a trolley that took us on a loop around downtown as well as one that took us a half hour or so from downtown to the beaches. Some of the beaches are on Muskegon Lake, which is connected by a channel to Lake Michigan, where other beaches are.

Hackley Public Library

Hackley Schoolhouse

Hackley and Hume Houses

Muskegon Depot

Muskegon Lake

Muskegon Channel, where many people were welcoming us on our arrival