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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.
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| The Bayfield marina is the jumping off spot for the Apostle Islands
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Bayfield neighborhoods have many restored Craftsman and Victorian homes converted to B&B’sWe 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.
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. 
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.
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!
Have I mentioned the battery problems with the Tracker? Sometimes, completely unexpectedly, the battery will be dead. Totally silent kind of dead. Since that first time back in Spokane, it has only happened when it is still hooked up, but is more of an annoyance than a really serious problem. This morning it was dead again, and Mo decided that maybe she wasn’t doing something wrong and she just needed a new battery. We were in luck. Checking the Road Atlas for a Wal-Mart showed one right in Devils Lake, just a block away from our already planned stop at the Exxon for propane. Details. However those details did slow down our travels a bit and after buying propane and a battery, we didn’t get out of Devils Lake until after 11am. 
It was to be an easy day, though, with only 200 miles to Bemidji, our planned destination. The roads were clear and straight, with huge wide medians filled with green. Have I mentioned green? And blue? There is so much sky in this part of the world, and even when it is half covered by clouds there is so much blue. In fact, seeing sky that goes brilliant blue all the way to the horizon in all directions is a treat that I was looking forward to and could only imagine. I know the west is beautiful. Westerners always have to make comments about this part of the country, “but it’s so FLAT”. “I couldn’t live without the mountains.” Well, I do love the mountains, and I love the west, but with mountains in the west come fires and haze and murky skies during much of the summer when it should be blue. Today was blue. And green. And white. It was an amazing day of brilliant color and sky. Yesterday I fell in love with North Dakota, and today I fell in love with Minnesota.
Now my daughter will accuse me of being a soil nerd, but I also had a blast using the iPhone SoilWeb application developed by Toby O’Geen at UCDavis. You just hit the screen, and in a minute your gps location finds the soil that is mapped there and a screen pops up with the soil profile, the description, and the classification. The application is essentially using web soil survey, but it’s great fun to get it on the fly. So when the phone tells me I am crossing a fine smectitic frigid Aquertic Argiudoll, I know by this name that the climate is fairly cold but not in summer, that the soil has wetness issues, that is has cracks in it from the fine clays, that the surface is deep and dark, and that it gets summer rain. I am not sure if any other scientific classifications explain so much about the thing they are classifying. 
We stopped in at a visitor center just inside the state of Minnesota and while I continued to drive, Mo reviewed some of the possibilities for the next few days. She started reading about the Itasca State Park, where you can walk across the Mississippi, and we couldn’t figure out just where it was, but she thought we needed to go there. A conversation ensued about timing, and how we were going to make it to Niagara Falls if we kept wandering off to do other things than what was originally planned. About that moment, a sign appeared, Itasca State Park, 21 miles south, and within a moment we made the decision to go there. For me this is the best part of a road trip, that spontaneous moment when you just take the turn down the road, unplanned.
Itasca State Park is where the headwaters of the Mississippi River emerge from the lake on their journey to the Gulf of Mexico. The river is the third largest in the world, and it drains more than a third of the entire United States. Here in the park, the river is just a riffle without a thought of what she will become. The interpretive center had excellent maps and posters describing the area, the river, the history, and so much more. There were campgrounds there, and initially we thought we might camp, but then decided that we could still get to the park in Bemidji by six or so and it would be a bit further down the road so we headed back north.
Garmin Girl has been silenced, but she still is giving directions that are usually very good. Yesterday she tried to take us across some very wet dirt roads on the way to Devils Lake, but today she navigated the way to Bemidji State Park without a hitch. This park is much more closed and shaded than Devils Lake, but still isn’t crowded at all at the moment. We were offered a pull through electric site and took it happily. After a simple setup and pizza for supper in the convection oven we took off walking the Homestead Trail to the Rocky Point Overlook on Bemidji Lake. The trails are extremely well maintained, wide and well planned, surrounded by deep, moist hardwood forest. I do love the hardwood forests, and I am sure that before this trip is over I will have many more photos of sunlight backlighting the leaves through the shadows. 
Once back at camp, I discovered to my amazement that here, in the middle of the forest, in Bemidji Minnesota, I have free internet access compliments of the Minnesota State Park System. So while Mo built an evening campfire, I uploaded the last couple of days photos, and finished writing blog entries as well.