"Cap'n" Brad in the pilot house

Tuesday, July 17th camped at East Harbor State Park: The day started with an early morning bike ride around the park. Very early. And, I was promptly rewarded for enjoying the solitude with a critter encounter.

Momma skunk and a fairly recent offspring wandered out in front of me down near the beach. I did a quick stop, hoping to convince her I was not a belligerent sort of person.

I think it was a her. I certainly did not get close enough for any kind of anatomical confirmation and they simply disappeared into the marsh grass leaving no evidence of their passing. Thankfully.

The day’s forecast called for a high likelihood of rain so cousin Brad Crownover (a local resident) and I decided to tour a couple of nautical museums and give the local walleye population another day of rest.

The Maritime Museum of Sandusky is located on the near east side of town. They describe their mission as “…interpreting the maritime history of the area, including boat building, recreational boating, passenger boats…shipwrecks…and, the boats of Sandusky’s Underground Railroad.”

Their displays are not as expansive as their mission statement, although they are located in a modern facility. If you are really curious check here: www.sanduskymaritime.org.

Next we ventured about 20 miles east to the delightful town of Vermilion, OH and visited the Inland Seas Maritime Museum operated by the Great Lakes Historical Society.

Their facility is as attractive as the town and the enlarged building was even better than I remembered it from a long-ago visit.

One of the highlights of their display is being able to walk down a passageway into the actual pilothouse of an historic great lakes vessel, the ore carrier Canopus that was built in 1905 and added to the museum in 1992.

More information for this award winning facility is here: www.inlandseas.org.

Turns out the weather forecast was correct.

We were tinkled on most of the rest of the day.