071717_Last day in Escanaba

Well, all good things must come to an end...I guess this must too.  Today my goal was to visit one last haunt.  I got directions to my Dad's old cabin and railroad station that his Father worked from for years.  I had already been told it had been abandoned and burned to the ground many years before but just to go there and maybe feel Dad's presence once more was worth the effort.  My Dad passed away in 1980 so he has been gone a long time.  I think of him once in awhile around his birthday, Chirstmas time or other holidays but not a lot anymore.  It's been a long time.  Pictures remind me of him but I haven't heard his voice since Nathan was 7 months old.  Nathan is 37 this year.  Seems like a million years ago....

We headed off to Nahma Junction, which no longer exist...really.  It's just a place in Google Maps. The station is long gone and so is everything else.  However, after I took the pictures of what we saw there, Arlene realized that there was a shed there that looked vaguely familiar.

Note the door on the right...

 

This is a side view of the shed.  Since I was just taking pictures in the general area of where the depot once stood and the surrounding area, I snapped a couple of picts of this shed.  It's long since lost it's usefulness and will soon be sawdust and go the way of the world...  Behind it would have been the Seger cabin (long gone and replaced by a nice new house with new tenants and a road out to Hwy 13.  The depot would have been directly in front of this shed, to the right. and the railroad, which still exists, by the way, and is still in use, would be less than 75 feet from here.

 

Notice the doors on this storage shed?  Granted the current shed is only a fraction of the size but, hey, it's 60 years later!  If you notice in the 1st picture above, you can barely make out some faint yellow paint on those doors.  I figure it was turned into a kids playhouse or something many years ago and the rest of it was discarded.  The railroad is just to the left of the depot on the left there.  That cinder ash road is still there, by the way, some of it anyway.  Not so much, though.  Look at the length of the shed.  Pretty much the same, isn't it?  Although, the shed certainly hasn't weathered the years very well.

 

This is pretty much what the area looks like today.  All is gone and a few derelict railroad ties are perched on concrete blocks.  Looks like they have been there a while.  The cinders are on the right of the blocks.  The railroad spur is long gone as there is no reason to stop there any more.  There's no depot, no water tank, no Seger cabin built by the family.  All traces of the Seger's ever living there for a couple of decades have been erased.  But, that is progress.  Only a few of the older Seger's even remember what this place ever meant to anyone.  At least there was something there to remind me of Dad but that won't be there the next time I swing by, most likely.  But, I could feel him there, one more time.  I remembered a few of his stories.  Most of which involved him jumping on train cars as they sped by to the horror of his mother, but, Mom's are like that, aren't they?

 

One last look across the railroad crossing and it's time to head back to St. George tomorrow.  This is the road that leads back into Nahma Junction.

 

We made one last stop for items in Escanaba and headed back into our motel room for our last evening before we departed for home.

  

On our last day out we stopped by the lighthouse at the end of Escanaba.  A throwback to the time they needed this on the bay to keep barges from running into the land.  We weren't able to go into it as they weren't open in time for us to get to our flight but it was a nice looking restoration.

 

This gives the history of the Sand Point Lighthouse.

The flight home was, well, adventurous...  We got to Green Bay in plenty of time only to be told it was an hour and 20 minutes late.  That meant we were going to barley make our connecting flight in Chicago to Las Vegas.  I talked to the airline (United, of course) and they booked us on the next flight.  However, the plane got in a little early and we scrambled to make it to the original flight and managed to do a standby, actually getting better seats than what we originally had reserved!  Go figure.  BTW, when the car rental agency tells you they are upgrading you to a full sized Chevy Malibu, don't take it!  Not my favorite car.  So much worse than the Nissan Maixima I was supposed to get.  A whole list of issues with the car and it only had 2,000 miles on it...argh.  At any rate, we got home to the sultry 100+ temps in Las Vegas and managed to get home that evening.  A memorable trip to Upper Michigan, not to be forgotten.  Many relatives, friends, and experiences.