09-03-2010 Duluth to Gogebic, Michigan

We left Jay Cooke State Park this morning in the rain, but not before taking some time to check out the swinging bridge over the St. Louis River.  The bridge was originally built in the early 1900’s, flooded and destroyed twice, and then the bridge you see here was completed in the 1960’s. It spans the St. Louis River, a wild cataract of brown tinged water cascading over sedimentary slates.  The brown color is disconcerting at first for westerners used to white water, but is caused by the diluted acids from the organic soils that these waters flow through.

The Bayfield marina is the jumping off spot for the Apostle Islands Bayfield neighborhoods have many restored Craftsman and Victorian homes converted to B&B’s

We traveled across Wisconsin on a northern route, and spontaneously went north to the small town of Bayfield.  Even in the dreary rain, Bayfield was a beautiful place.  There were flowers everywhere, amazing creative little shops, an excellent visitor center and a gorgeous bay.  Bayfield is the gateway to the Apostle Islands, full of sea caves and wild trails.  These islands are a well known destination for kayakers, and we fit right in with our kayaks and bikes on the baby car.  Well known to everyone but us, I guess, since I had never heard of them until we saw them on the maps of Lake Superior.

I have an old saying, “I could live here”.  Of course other criteria comes in when deciding where to live, and proximity to my family is a big one, so maybe I really couldn’t live here.  But if I could just plop this town down somewhere in Oregon, it would be perfect.  The Chamber of Commerce has a great brochure with photos and stories of people who came to Bayfield to visit, and stayed to open small businesses and thrive.

After Bayfield, we knew it was time to find a place to sleep, and with this being a few days before Labor Day knew that it could be problematic.  A quick phone search revealed a large lake in Michigan to the east, and we called and landed a electric site in the park.  Something we have found in most of the state parks in this part of the country is that they are expensive.  The initial camping fee is reasonable, but all the parks have a day pass that is required in addition, and extra charges for other little details as well.  Most of our park stays are running over $30.00 a day at least.  Since we are only traveling for six weeks, it’s not ideal, but manageable, but if we were full-timing these state parks might be a bit too pricey.  Especially since electricity is sketchy and WiFi non existent.

Gogebic was windy and wild as we settled in, and also very crowded.  The sites were grassy, with big ruts from the wet soils.  The electric cost extra, and with the weather we were glad to have it.  We set up, hooked up the power, and it worked for a few minutes before going completely dead.  Of course, instead of looking at the storm around us, we tried to figure out what was wrong with our power system, or what we had done wrong.  Later, I finally went to the camp office thinking perhaps the breaker was down.  What I hadn’t considered was the weather.  Duh.  The power was out all over the campground. 

 

09-02-2010 Exploring Duluth

Our campsite at Jay Cooke was perfectly comfortable, and after a very wild night of hard rain and thunder, it was good to know we didn’t have to rush off anywhere in a hurry.  Planning two nights in one place is great, because then there is at least a day to explore some of the local area. Once we reach Niagara Falls, Labor Day will be in the past and we do hope to spend a bit more time relaxing and seeing the local sights. 

We asked the waitress last night what shouldn’t be missed in Duluth, and she insisted that the Skyline Drive and Enger tower was something that everyone seemed to think was the thing to do.  After a relaxing morning, a good breakfast, and a good MoHo cleanout, we took off again in the Tracker to see a bit of the town.   The visitor center near Spirit Mountain has a great display of panoramic photographs labeled with all the sights of the Duluth Harbor and is a great way to get oriented to the layout of the city.  They also provided two maps and a full page of descriptive directions for negotiating the Skyline Parkway.  The drive was dramatic even on a cloudy day.  The gardens at Enger park were filled with hostas and other familiar perennials that we grow at home, but they were so much bigger than what I can grow at Rocky Point.  Amazingly, the tower was open and there was no fee to climb the several flights of stairs to the top for the view of the Duluth Harbor.  In fact, no one was around except the pigeons, and Abby even managed to climb all those stairs to the top.

After winding around the bluffs overlooking Duluth, we drove down to Canal Park to explore that area as well.  By then it was raining, so we got out the umbrellas and raincoats and made an attempt to see some of the area.  The Lakeshore walk follows the shoreline for a couple of miles but with the rain we decided to have lunch instead. 

I was tickled to find my favorite Walleye on  the menu and enjoyed the succulent, delicate white fish found only in these cold northern waters.  The last time I had walleye was in St Paul several years ago when Mo and I traveled there during winter. I wasn’t disappointed.  Both times I have had walleye, it has been the most delicate, tender, moist, fresh, sweet fish I ever ate.  Bar none. 

We checked out a few shops and then drove down to the Rose Garden.  This part of Duluth is wonderful, with so many walkways, trails, bike paths, and gardens.  I would have loved to spend some time here when it wasn’t raining, but even in the rain it was a special place.  Only one ship passed through the Aerial Lift Bridge while we were there, but I was glad to see it in operation. 

We skipped the traffic and ambled home to Jay Cooke in the rain and settled in for a peaceful evening.

09-01-2010 Scenic Highway 61 Lake Superior

As we scouted about for “things not to miss” in this part of the country, the North Shore Scenic Route kept appearing in brochures and on maps.  Highway 61 follows Lake Superior from Duluth all the way to Thunder Bay, but we decided that going as far as Silver Bay would be sufficient for this late afternoon trip. The traffic through Duluth wasn’t unbearable, even in late afternoon, and we negotiated the narrow lanes in the midst of construction without much of a delay. On the east side of Duluth, however, the scenic route becomes the 61 Expressway, and for much of the distance north we had a perfect view of scrubby trees with only momentary glimpses of the water.  The construction zone was a bit confusing as well, and we missed a turnoff to the “real” scenic route, but didn’t figure that out until our return trip in the late evening.

After passing the very tiny hamlet of Silver Bay, we drove north on Highway 1 to find the community of Finland, where something Mo read in a brochure led us to believe there was a Finnish town with shops and Finnish culture to view.  We did find Finland, and the culture consisted of a small wooden carved statue at the “Heritage Site” in a grassy patch along the highway.  That was certainly a bust!

We headed back to the highway to try to find Lake Superior. Earlier in the day we had attempted to get a campsite at Tettagouche State Park, but when we finally arrived there, both of us were relieved that we had been unsuccessful.  Tettagouche was a bit of a scrubby, barren place, with campsites tucked into the stunted trees of this harsh shoreline.  Our state park pass for the day did gain us free parking, though, so we found a trail down to the beach and took Abby for a walk and a swim in Lake Superior.  The trail was well built, and the views were good, but the beach was quite tiny.  It certainly didn’t meet my original expectations of this huge expansive Lake Superior, the largest fresh water body in the world!

After a bit of a hike, a swim for Abby, and some photo opportunities, we drove back south on Highway 61 in hopes of seeing some more of the lake, and possibly some beaches and waterfalls.  We found the Split Rock Light Station where there is a fee to simply hike around and photograph the lighthouse.  In the adjacent state park, however, our trusty pass gave us the opportunity to hike the trails to an excellent viewpoint of the lighthouse.  Gooseberry Falls state park turned out to be the best of the three, with many miles of trails, a lovely campground on the shoreline, and several waterfalls along the Gooseberry River.  The day was getting a bit late for photographs but the hike was great and the falls were dramatic; cascading over shelves of dark metamorphic slate.  Even at that late hour there were quite a few people hiking around the falls trails.

We continued on our way back to Duluth and stopped again at Two Harbors, where another lighthouse stood watch over the bays.  Here we saw the huge iron ore loading docks for the big ships moved ore over Lake Superior. The sun was setting, it was after 8, and I was getting hungry.  Look out when I get hungry and my blood sugar drops!  We tried to find “food” using Garmin Girl, since on this little jaunt we were in the Tracker with the MoHo safely parked many miles away in Jay Cooke.  We also found the turn for the real scenic highway 61 and saw great views of the lake and distant shores of Wisconsin in spite of the dimming light.  Garmin Girl tried to take us to some brewery in downtown Duluth, but it was a bit much for our tired bodies in grungy shorts so we passed on that suggestion and continued until we found a Perkins cafe not far west of Duluth. 

The food was marginal at best, but it was food, and the waitress was entertaining.  There were some rather strange looking people in that restaurant, and I am sure we fit in just fine.  By the time we got back to the MoHo, Jeremy was waiting with plaintive meows, wondering why all the windows were open and the fans on full blast when it was freezing cold.  I wondered the same thing as we battened down the hatches, donned sweaters and jammies and fell thankfully into a warm bed.  Sometimes the feeling of being horizontal after a day like this one is just too wonderful to describe.

09-01-2010 Bemidji to Carlton/Duluth

This may be close to the most perfect day possible in Northern Minnesota.  The skies are so blue and the sun so white brilliant that I have to squint even through my sunglasses.  The temperature this morning was in the high 50’s and now as it is getting close to noon we are approaching 72.  Humidity seems non-existent today. We are continuing our travels east on Highway 2 and just passed Grand Rapids.  I know there is also a much larger Grand Rapids in Michigan, but this one is a pleasant small town of under 10,000.

Our campsite last night had electricity but no water, but the park showers were less than 100 yards from the site, so we both took advantage of the unlimited, free hot water.  Our site, one of the few pull through’s with electricity, seemed to be right in the middle of the path to the showers, but once we were parked, no one seemed to use the path through our campsite.  Of course, the campground was close to empty, so that may have helped. The long, long, very long, trailer was parked in the site adjacent to ours, and the owners had several small children, but with all the thick forest we never heard them at all.  Night was perfectly cool for sleeping and quiet this morning except for the songbirds.

This morning I took advantage again of the nearly instantaneous wireless connection to search for our next port and we decided on the Jay Cooke State Park just a few miles south of Duluth.  Often the state parks are a bit spendy with the extra fees tacked on, but the campsites are usually spaced well, and much more private than many public RV parks.  Our plan today is to park the MoHo and then use this magnificent day to explore Highway 31 north of Duluth to Silver Bay.

Lawns. I must talk about lawns in Minnesota. Lawns here must have a great deal of importance in Minnesota culture.  At the visitor center yesterday there was a very large glossy brochure, placed right next to the large “Travel Minnesota” brochure, titled:”How to Manage your Minnesota Lawn”. This morning as we drove back to the highway through the local neighborhoods, we saw many small tidy houses surrounded by acres and acres of huge lawns, all brilliant green and manicured to perfection.  Often as not, on this Wednesday morning, there was someone out in a very large lawn machine mowing.  Although one time we did see a lawn that had to be five acres with two people busy operating regular walk behind gas lawn mowers.  Of course, irrigation is non-existent, as this place gets enough summer rain to support all this verdant landscape.

Our drive east of Bemidji passed the southern portion of the Chippewa Forest, more verdant green hardwoods, interspersed by spruce bogs, firs, and red and jack pines.  Lakes are becoming so common that we roll our eyes and say, oh gee, another lake.  It’s much like that feeling in Europe when you think, “oh, gee, another beautiful cathedral”.  Reading the AAA Road Guide made us want to stop and drive some of the side roads, but Mo reminded us that the goal of this trip is actually Toronto and Niagara Falls, so we need to somehow stay focused and refrain from wandering off in every tantalizing direction. As Laurie said recently, this is the big difference between touring the country in six weeks and crossing it without a deadline. 

Early in the afternoon we passed through the town of Cloquet, on the St Louis River.  In addition to many well cared for Craftsman homes and neighborhoods, there was a small unassuming gas station perched on the corner where we planned to turn east.  A closer look at the AAA guide book revealed this gas station was one of 13 structures built by Frank Lloyd Wright.  What a little treasure!  Continuing along the river to the smaller town of Carlton, we were impressed with the entire area.  The homes were tidy, the yards immaculate, everything seemed so fresh and inviting.

Earlier in the day I managed to get a reservation for an electric site in the state park for tomorrow, but they wouldn’t allow me to book anything for today.  We decided to take our chances and when we checked in to the park, were able to take site number 1, first-come-first serve site number 1.   Although on the main road, it was better than taking another site closer to our reservation for tomorrow because we didn’t have to move.  We do know better than to travel on Labor Day weekend without reservations, and out west it would be impossible.  (I am remembering a Labor Day at the California coast in a marina parking lot!).  But we are doing it anyway and are hoping for a small city park or out of the way RV park to take us in over the weekend as we continue traveling east.  The reservation at Killarney Provincial Park awaits us for Sunday night, and one way or the other we will get there!

Jay Cooke State Park is bisected by the St Louis River, and includes a swinging bridge that has been restored, several CCC stone buildings, and 4 large loops in the campground. It was perfect for us, and we set up quickly so that we could get to the Scenic North Shore route before too late in the day.