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Days 20 & 21.

Perham, Minnesota to Belle River, Ontario.

1568 kilometers.

Not long after waking up, I found this skatepark. I almost passed on it because it was getting late, but decided that I better ride it, as I may not find anything else for the day.

I should have passed. The ramps were way too small and I got a cut that I should have probably got stitches for.

As mentioned in Day 19, I came to a point in Montana where I had a decision about highways. One highway led to Mount Rushmore, one to Northern Michigan structures.

Concluding that Mount Rushmore will be there for a long time & that more people have saw it, I decided to go north and into Michigan.

This was Northern Michigan, literally, I was about 50 kilometers from the northern tip of Michigan. Some great isolated land.

The reason I didn't see Mount Rushmore - the Quincy Dredge #2.

Copper was extracted in this region for nearly 100 years. Rocks from the area were stamped and the brittle non-copper rock would break apart leaving the copper behind. Afterwards, this rock was ground into sand and dumped into nearby lakes.

After WWII, the "stamp sand" was found to contain enough copper where it was profitable to extract the sand from the lake bottom. Quincy Dredge 1 was built and it could suck the sand off the bottom of the lake and bring it in. It would do this during the summer months and was a common site amongst the locals in the area. During the winter months, the dredge would sit docked with pumps used to remove the small amounts of water that leaked into the hull. On Sunday July 15th 1956, the pumps stopped working and the dredge began to sink and partly touched the bottom. It was deemed uneconomical to save the ship and some minimal salvaging was done after the ship sank to the bottom of Torch Lake.

Apparently, Quincy Dredge 1 still sits there and you can see its roof to this day. I didn't know this fact beforehand or else I would have looked out for it.

As for Quincy Dredge 2? It was purchased before Quincy Dredge 1 in some strange foresight. It was used until 1967 and sunk under presumed similar conditions in 1968.

You didn't expect me to stand outside and touch myself did you?

I didn't like the road nearby at all, but seriously I traveled 3 hours out of the way for this.

This part was kind of creepy. There was absolutely zero wind this day & it was very calm on the water. The only noise was the cars that passed and the occasional fish that jumped up & scared the shit out of me.