North Country 2011--Day 16

Another day of waiting with just a little sightseeing.

We spent another day waiting around for the RV repair guys. The Service Manager finally called about 4:30 PM to say they were sorry they could not get us worked in. They hope to get us taken care of either tomorrow or Saturday. That means we are stuck staying close to the coach so we can take it over there as soon as they call. We came to Michigan because we had never been here and thought it would be a good place to visit. Never thought about all we'd see was the campground. We did see a strange aircraft this morning. We heard a funny engine noise and went outside to see this contraption flying above us. Really don't know what you would call this thing. The unit has three wheels mounted to the frame with a motor with a rear propeller. Definitely a one person flying machine. He made a couple of passes over us and then headed back to the west.

We did do a little sightseeing here in Ishpeming. Close by is the Cliffs Shaft Mine Museum. We decided to drive over and check it out and still be fairly close if the RV guy called. This was a very large iron ore shaft mine that closed in 1967 after almost 100 years in operation. They had three main shafts that went down to several levels that then had many miles of mining tunnels. The bottom level at the time it was closed was over 1250 feet down. The picture to the right is of the housing for the elevator above "C" shaft. This was the shaft that brought the miners into and out of the mine. The main mine is now sealed off and has filled with water. We did go down through the underground tunnel that connected all the buildings to "C" shaft. (Several years ago we went to a mine museum in Northern Minnesota that actually took us down several levels and then took us by mine train well into the mining tunnels.) The picture to the left is of a truck used to haul the ore away. This is the smallest of the three sizes of these trucks that were used in this area.