Camper on fire in the campground...read on....

August 22, Saturday, Continued, We went form a drive to Houghton. We saw the Quincy Mine Shaft Historical Site. We decided to stop and take the tour.This was a 2 hour tour in the building where they had a steam engine ...Big Ball Pulley... operate the mine cables to pull up the copper filled cars(7 tons) to the top of the mine and drop it into the mining buildings for mining the copper. There were 92 levels to the mine in it's hay day. Now there are only 7 floors down, the rest are filled with water. We then loaded onto a cog car for a descent down the mountain to the seventh level on the outside. We then loaded onto a outdoor wagon with bench seats pulled by a small John Deere tractor into the mine at one level into the shaft 2,000 feet, wet,damp,and dreary. We had hard hats and Carhart jackets on, it was 43* down here. I don't know how miners can do this everyday for a 10 hour shift. When working the mines are full of rock dust all the time. We then heard stories of how they worked here and the tools they used.( I will stay above ground to work!!!) We walked around a little then back up the cog railroad up the mountain. We saw interesting antique mining equipment all around the fields just rusting away.

We then drove around seeing the sights in Houghton, there was a RV park along the river, I stopped and she said they have been full all summer. Back to camp...zzzzzzz

August 23, we wanted to drive around today too but the Van just went grr..grr..grr..Battery Dead!! Being sunday, I said lets wait till monday when something is open to fix the van. we just hung around the camp and watched the waves on the shore then later tonight we watched the beautiful sunset!!! We collected rocks too just like "Lucy" in "The Long Long trailer" movie.

August 24,Monday..load up laundry and grr..grr.grr again, a neighbor camper helped jump start the van..Nope it didn't start. So I called CoachNet RV Airstream Road Service from the camp office..cell doesn't work here. They said someone will be there 45-60 minutes. 45 minutes later a tow truck showed up, he hooked up the van for the garage trip. On the way his fire pager went off..Camper fire in McLain Park, my ears perked up!!! They said site #12 I was in #33..relief. The scanner said fully involved camper and car. As soon as the tow truck dropped me, he got a call from 911 to respond to pick up the camper.

Off he goes, I am here to fix the van I hope. The man "Dave" checks out the battery and finds it ok, just wondering is there a second battery? YES there was..that was the one that was dead..guess what? It is under the floor at the back wheels in a box strapped up to the floor. The other man "Rodney" stuggles to retrieve the battery..got it...yes this is the one DEAD!! They order one and it is here in 10 minutes. Rodney installs it shortly and the Van starts!!! Yeah!! Problem fixed..

The tow truck man returns with the motorhome on tow truck rollback...sad..sad..completely burned out. The people were out walking and their 2 dogs were left inside and perished in the fire...sad..sad!! Carol was there at camp when the firemen arrived and grabbed the camera to take pictures from a distance, she got some pretty good shots too!! I am glad I trained her to take good shots these past 2 months...Great Job Carol!!! I made copies of the shots and gave them to the people. They also lost the car which was parked behind the motorhome.

Well we started to do laundry this am and we made it to the laundry by 5pm..not bad?? We will be leaving in the am for Mackinaw City on tuesday...Just follow along!!! Pictures are posted ...http://picasaweb.google.com/AirstreamHobo/UpperPeninsulaMichigan# 2http://picasaweb.google.com/AirstreamHobo/Rt20NebraskaIowaIntoWisconsinMichigan# new albums posted today

God Bless...AirstreamHobo & Carol