SOO

The two Sault Ste. Marie

The last time I was in Sault Saint Marie, I was fifteen years old and on a trip with fellow high school students. We were on a cruise through the Great Lakes, and I had just fallen in love for the first time with a boy who, according to my daughter, now looks like a walrus in his professional photo, which we tracked down. He and I danced the polka all night to the ship’s orchestra. As the saying goes, I felt like a million bucks.

After eating meals in Munising, Michigan, for three days, I now feel like a million pounds. Part of travel is trying to keep your meals balanced and healthy; eating in restaurants is not the best way to a healthy lifestyle. The break in Jackson did us well, as did the days in Buffalo, and some of our restaurant meals have been

The International Bridge connecting Michigan & Canada

excellent. But not in Munising. And when, on our final night, we decided to get frozen Lean Cuisine dinners, and a bag of microwaveable green beans to still our craving for veggies, we were appalled to find in the supermarket there four aisles of frozen foods and half an aisle of vegetables. Perhaps transportation to the Upper Peninsula is the problem, but it doesn’t explain why, when I ordered a salad, I was confronted with a mountain of processed meat on top of a small layer of lettuce. By the way, the local specialty seemed to be pasties.

Now we are in Canada and the first item on the agenda was lunch at an organic café. The Canadians here sound pretty much like us, look pretty much like us, and the food was just what the doctor ordered—or would have if he knew what we’d been eating in Michigan.

The two Soo-s