Getting Wet

 6-7-21 - Monday

The plan for today was to have an easy day.  But we do not know how to have an easy day.  We decided to drive Hwy 13 along the Lake Superior shoreline as much as it would let us, maybe do a little rockhounding.  We headed out about 9:40, without breakfast, the camp hostess said the little towns we would go through should have a restaurant.  75 miles later, in Bayfield, we found restaurants.  The only one we found along the way was closed, and Joe gets grumpy when he gets hungry.  So at 11:30, we had breakfast/lunch.  We had been to Bayfield on our trip through here in 2019, and actually took a boat tour from here through the Apostle Islands.  After we ate, we drove the streets, checked out the marina, etc.  This is a cute little fishing/tourisy town, and lots of flowers and trees are blooming right now so it was very colorful.  I took a picture of a beautiful pink bush, but it is a bit blurry.  And the lilacs are still blooming here!

  At 12:30, we headed back, and there was a road through the apple orchards, which are very popular right here.  The brochure says "Bayfield's location near Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands creates a unique micro-climate, which allows fruits and berries to flourish." So of course we took that.  A lot of the apple rows were labeled with the type of trees there, and there are a lot of markets or barns that sell produce in season.  We didn't see any of them open.  We did see blueberry bushes, strawberry plants, and peach trees, but again, we are too early for any of this. We wandered around on this J Road, thinking it would come out a little further west, on our way back.  But when it did come out, 25 minutes later, we were east of Bayfield, so we got to drive through the town again.

Moving along west again, finally, we took a side road down to the beach at the National Lakeshore.

This was a nice beach area, but not much in the way of rocks for collecting, it was just little pebbles.  A gal on the beach said there more a little further down the beach, so I walked down there.  Joe had elected to sit in the chair up under the trees, so I was on my own--he couldn't even see me over the ridge.  Well, I saw something larger in the water a little further out, so I took another step, then reached out with my rock picker.  The sand under my feet gave way, and I tumbled into the water.  It was cold!  And I couldn't get my footing, so I floundered around there for a while, swallowing the lake, until I finally got to my feet.  I gathered up my rock picker and headed back to our chairs.  Joe saw me coming, and asked if I feel in or got in on purpose.  I had to tell him I fell in.  He had been on his way down with the camera but his phone rang, so he missed all the action.

We took our chairs back down to water's edge for a little while, but there were just no rocks to be found.  And since we were on a national property, I couldn't take them anyhow.  So we moved on.

We got some information from another lady there about where we might find rocks, so we drove to another site, but it too was part of the National Lakeshore, and it was another sandy beach.  It was a popular kayak area, and they were giving lessons to a group.

Back on the road, we saw a few interesting things.  A pair of huge, tree-size boots.

And 3 sandhill cranes (here's two of them).  They are a little different color here than in Florida, more brown than gray.

And a nice view of Lake Superior.

We came through the little town of Port Wing, not much more than a wide spot in the road.  They had a sign advertising a "testicle festival."  Don't know what that is about.  Another sign Joe saw in the little town of Free Flow said "population - 1."  He thinks that was the name of the town, I didn't even see the town, much less the population sign.  I mentioned before these towns up north are pretty small.  Before we got back to the campground, Joe couldn't stand it, he had to turn down a dirt road, which happened to be old Hwy 13.  He just knew we would see something on this road.  And he turned out to be right.  He spooked a turkey, and then a deer came flying out of the woods, right in front of the jeep.  He had seen it coming, so we were already stopped for it.  We saw one other turkey back out on the main highway, that was it for wildlife today.  

We got back to camp at 4:00, put another 173 miles on the jeep today.  I was pretty uncomfortable in my wet clothes.  There is a swimming pool here at the campground, heated I think, and Joe told me I should just go jump in.  There were other people in the pool, but I opted not to join them.  It only got to 75 today but it was plenty warm on the beach.  

Joe decided he wanted a steak for dinner, so he looked around on his phone for a steakhouse in Superior.  He didn't find anything he thought sounded good, so we ended up driving into Duluth, across the bridge, to a Texas Roadhouse.  Our steaks were good, but it was after 9:00 before we got back to the RV.  Fortunately, the sun was just setting.  

Tomorrow is a travel day again.  East across Wisconsin.  We will see where we end up.