Sault Ste Marie and the Soo Locks Summer 2022

For our second trip up north we finally made our way to Sault Sainte Marie. It's the oldest city in the state of Michigan. I'd always been told that the Soo Locks were kind of boring by people that I'd spoken to in the past. I actually liked the area and found it to be rather peaceful. You have to go through a federal security checkpoint to go into the observation area and that was a little unnerving. I almost didn't go in just because I'm crazy and I prefer not to deal with that sort of thing. It was definitely worth it though.
I found Sault Sainte Marie to be an interesting little town, unlike anything that I'd seen in the Upper Peninsula so far. There were some areas that seemed a little more run down and reminded me of home. It was nothing that would make me feel unsafe but as I said it was interesting. Lake Superior State University looked like a nice place and the downtown and Main Street were pretty.
There was a lot of sprawl in the area too which was kind of shocking. There are strip malls and chain stores all over. You could live a pretty normal suburban type of life it seems up there if you wanted to. I 75 just ends and turns into the bridge to Canada which, on this day at least, seemed to be a road barely traveled. I imagine you could do the crossing pretty quick. I always wanted to check out Lake Superior Provincial Park in Ontario and that would be the route to take. Maybe one day I'll get to. It seems to be a beautiful area from the pictures that I've seen.
Sault Sainte Marie Ontario right across the water has over 70,000 people so that's pretty shocking. We don't have cities in Michigan that far north with populations like that. One day I'd like to check that out too.