Friday, May 31, 2024

Off to Duluth

Our appointment at the tire shop is at 8:00, so I set the alarm for 6:00 for our 35-minute drive into Duluth and through morning traffic.  Joe woke up 10 minutes before the alarm went off, and when I drug myself out of bed he was already dressed and putting stuff away to get ready to travel.  Neither of us slept well, but that is not the way my mornings usually start.  When I drove the Jeep down to throw away the trash, I did get a nice photo of the lake in the early morning.  We never did get back down there to pick up rocks-- too windy and chilly.  But plenty of other people did.  It was very annoying watching them down there getting MY rocks.

.

Joe was going 90 miles an hour getting ready to travel, but I got my chores done, and we were on the road by 6:30,  As soon as we cleared Two Harbors, which isn't very big, we saw 2 deer. In fact, Joe had to stop and honk at one to keep it from crossing the road in front of us.  Shortly after that, we saw 2 more in the medium between the lanes of the highway.  Joe remarked that we probably need to be out earlier to see wildlife.  Duh.

As we drove into Duluth, still along Lake Superior, the houses had huge lilac bushes.  They are just now blooming here, and are beautiful.  The houses along here were also huge and beautiful.

Here's a view of Duluth's sister city, Superior, Wisconsin, just across the bridge.  Duluth is a very hilly town so there are views here.  We have stayed in Superior in the past.

We got to the tire shop 45 minutes early (traffic was no problem) and waited until they all got to work.  Then we left to get breakfast, and drive around a little to kill time. The restaurant had several vases of lilacs on the counters.   We figured out our exit route to get out of Duluth.

We stayed in the area but drove up and down some of the streets.  There were lilac bushes in every block.  Since I only get to see them when we travel, in the spring,  I was soaking up every one.  I still have mine in the RV so I didn't steal any today..

We wound our way back to the tire shop and they had just finished, and were walking the paperwork up to the office.  It only took them about 2 hours to replace all six tires, so we were happy about that.  By 10:40, we were back on the road.  While I was waiting for Joe to come out of the office, I watched this customer explain her needs.  I'm thinking she may have just got off her night job.  And she was no spring chicken.  We fueled here ($3.039) and got on I-35 heading west.

We made our way across Minnesota to the Leech Lake Corp of Engineering (COE) campground.  We are probably just past mid-way through the state east-west.  This is a lovely campground, we haven't been down to the water yet but will check that out today.  Lots of campers towing boats through the campground. We are staying here for $13/night with our American the Beautiful pass.  However, the bugs are bad, everywhere right now.

We traveled 153 miles today and arrived at our campsite at 1:40.  Once Joe hooked up the electricity and I parked the Jeep, we never went outside again.  It was a nice day but we just were exhausted.  It was enough entertainment watching the campers arriving and setting up.  I watched one family with kids, unloading bikes and scooters, balls, hammocks, and remembered those days when our kids were still young.  I'm always happy to see families bring their kids to these kinds of places.  This is the second COE campground we have stayed at, and we have found them to be very nice.  The Brundiges recommended them to us so we are trying to find ones on our route west.  The other one we stayed at was in Missouri last year when we went to the Tom Sawyer stuff in Hannibal.  

We have 3 nights here, then we will continue on toward Montana.  We have decided to make a stop in Medora, ND, to see the Medora Musical, which we missed when we came through here a few years ago.  We were too early in the season then, I it starts June 5 so I think we will make the beginning of the season this time.  It is right outside the Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which we really enjoyed and would not mind going through again, so now we have at least one destination.  We can't make that in one day from here though, so we will need to figure out mileage and campgrounds for our next stop.

My arm/shoulder is a little better.  I think my range of motion has improved, and the pain is less.  Day by day.  But my right knee continues to be a problem.  Decisions ahead on that issue.

 Thursday, May 30, 2024

Slow Day

First, 2 things I forgot from yesterday.  1) I'm thinking Cathy should change the banner to the blog from fishing to water falls.  But we haven't given up completely on fishing, so maybe not.  2) We saw a deer as we came out of the Silver Bay Marina.  No picture, thus I forgot.

Today we had what was a "down day" for us.  I think I was just worn out from bouncing around in the Jeep -- my arm, shoulder, and both knees were aching.  So I took the day off -- although I did fix breakfast, wash dishes and sweep.  Joe made a trip into town to the hardware store, and also picked up a few items at the grocery store.  In my incapacitation on this trip, I'm finding out that Joe could have been doing lots more things over the last 55 years.  He's very helpful with laundry, is capable of grocery shopping by himself, etc. He fixed a drawer today, and dumped the RV so we can get an early start tomorrow, so he did chores too.

We had our morning swimmer again.  I didn't see her in the water but got a picture as she wrapped the towel around her, then she just left.  This was before 8:00 a.m.

We did go into town for lunch, to Culvers, and we both had their chicken and wild rice soup, which was just OK.  But every restaurant in town that has soup has the chicken and wild rice.  It must be a thing up here.  Actually, they seem to use wild rice in a lot of things up here -- maybe it's a local crop.  $13.99 for 3 lbs.

I discovered that lilacs are just beginning to bloom here.  This little branch found its way into the Jeep!   We took the back way into town, and I saw a blooming bush but we didn't stop.  So then we had to go back down the back streets to find it, which we did.

It's driving me crazy watching all these rockhounders out our front windshield, so even with my 2 bad knees and my bad shoulder and arm, I decided I had to give it a try.  Unfortunately, it was chilly and very windy (white-capping), so we didn't last very long.  But if the wind dies down, I may try again this evening.  I probably only picked up 6-8 rocks.  But there's someone down there almost all the time, just a couple people or so, so there must be something worth picking up.

Our tires are in, so we have an early appointment tomorrow in Duluth.  Hope that goes well.  Then we have reservations for the weekend at a Corp of Engineers Campground at Leech Lake Dam, about 100 miles west. Looking forward to a nice weekend there, we were probably lucky to get a spot since we didn't even try until about 5:00 p.m. today, because of the uncertainty of when the tires would be done.  We will probably need to start booking camp sites a little ahead now that it will be June for our next one.

 Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Back up to the Falls

I need to correct some information from my last blog.  I stated that we had traveled 625 miles across the top of Lake Superior.  It was actually 507 miles.  I started my calculation from the wrong date.  I'm changing it on the original page, but I didn't want mis-information out there.

Before we left the campground this morning, there was a young girl that drove up on the shore of the lake right in front of us, and took a swim.  Just in her swimsuit.  The lake temperature here at Two Harbors is 38.3 degrees.  She didn't swim long, then got back in her car in her wet swim suit and drove off.

Today was laundry day again, so that was our first order of business.  When we finished that, Joe dropped me off at the "General "Store," a big gift shop, and he went to find a car wash.  I didn't buy anything but I thought these chairs on the porch would be cute at Tiffany's house.  I sat in one while I waited for Joe and when I got up, the arm came off.  They are plastic, not wood.  So maybe not.

We got our laundry put away, then drove back up the road to find those falls we passed yesterday.  This road is the North Shore Scenic Drive, and it certainly is.  

We went about 40 miles back, skipped the first falls for the return, and then couldn't find the second one.  We drove right past, all the way past where we ate yesterday because we couldn't see it from the Jeep.  I had a better view from the RV.  So we turned around and got our bearings, and started back.  Joe pulled into this one marina at Silver Bay.

and we drove down to the boat ramp, then to the marina.  They had some pretty good-sized boats harbored here.

Joe was really impressed with this cleaning station.  It's right as you leave, free, and has vacuum, air hose, washer, a full service cleaning station.  He told John that what he needs in Florida.

He also told John this should be his next truck, to tow his boat.

We found the falls we missed, Beaver Bay.  It was a little bit of a walk back from the parking lot, and a little chilly, but worth it.

Our next little diversion was driving into the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, but we couldn't get back to the lighthouse without paying a fee, and it looked to be quite a hike.  We could see it from the highway because it is out on a point, but it would have been interesting to check it out.

The second falls was at the Gooseberry Falls State Park.  This one we could walk down to without paying the state park fee.  It was quite impressive, and they had a very nice visitor center.

There was the high falls, middle falls, and lower falls.  We did not walk down to the lower falls but got the other two.  Joe even hiked down to the rock.  We spent some time here, enjoying the beauty.

The bridge after the lower falls is in the foreground.  We are very close to Lake Superior, and all these rivers and creeks feed the big lake.

This other guy in the blue shirt would not get out of Joe's way.  The guy was videoing the falls, and Joe wanted to take a photo of me with the falls in the background.  I was afraid he was going to poke him with his walking stick.   Joe finally had me move over a little and took the picture, but he was getting aggravated at that guy hogging the photo op spot.

This was probably the most walking/hiking we have done on this trip, and it was good to have our walking sticks.  There were several sets of stairs too. 

We had scoped out Betty's Pies yesterday, a little restaurant just out of town, so after this trip we stopped there for dinner and pie.  The pie was really good.  They had the flavors on a rolling marquee that kept flashing through, and if they ran out of one kind, it got posted on the marquee.  The first one they ran out of was pecan.  There was probably 10-12 different choices, some gluten-free. 

Back at the RV, we were looking out the front window of the RV and this big ship came by, pretty close to shore.

We guessed it is heading for Cliffs North Shore Ore Mining at Silver Bay, just up the road a ways, that processes ore pellets.  ,It was the first taconite processing facility in North America when it opened in 1956 as Reserve Mining Company.  North Shore Mining operates an open pit taconite mine in Babbitt and a processing plant in Silver Bay.  Northshore makes high quality DR-grade pellets for electric steel furnaces. It's right on the highway, in fact it is on both sides of the highway just outside of Silver Bay.

 h

Tomorrow we wait for the phone call about the tires.  We can't make any plans until we finish that mission.  So maybe we will just take a day off.

 Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Two Harbors, Minnesota

Leaving Thunder Bay this morning, heading back into the US. We got on the road about 10 minutes till 11 and soon started seeing some farm ground as we got away from my beautiful Lake Superior.  We passed a couple planters on the road, and have seen some plowed fields, and maybe some fields of alfalfa growing.

.

.

We passed one side road that was named Wilderness Road and it was all we could do to keep from pulling over and unhooking the jeep to check it out, but we had managed to hold back on that and continued on our way.  We also passed a "Joe Road," so that was another battle.  As usual, we have a few construction delays on our route. .Five in the first 20 miles.  

We reached reach the border crossing at about 11:40, came right through the Canadian side -- we didn’t even have to stop, but at the US one we had five cars in front of us so that took a few minutes, but then we sailed right through.  They asked us a few questions but didn’t come aboard and didn’t take anything, so thtat didn’t take too long and we were on the move again.  Almost immediately we had views of Lake Superior again on our left. Welcome back to the lake. And to the U.S. Where dollars are real dollars and we have miles, not kilometers.

This is the Canadian border patrol.

This is the U.S. one.

We fueled in Grand Portage, Minnesota, the first town in the US, at the price of $3.199. We were happy to see better prices again. It was a big gas station and Joe circled around to the outside pump.  When he stopped there, those pumps were broken. He circled around again to the second row of pumps and they were premium only, ao he circled around the third time and success. Finally, he found the right pumps. He said we were making our own circle tour.

We looked all over Canada for the Canadian moose, but all we ever saw was the Canadian goose.

This is a really pretty drive on Highway 61 south from the border to Duluth, although there are long stretches where the roads are not very good.  By the time we got to our destination, I had a headache just from bouncing. But we have lots of views of Lake Superior.  Gas is about 10 cents higher than we paid at the border.  We went through 2 tunnels on this drive.

 

This highway has gone from bad to worse. We’ve been on a lot better gravel roads than this highway is. There are a lot of pretty rivers and creeks feeding into Lake Superior -- many of them with waterfalls right by the road.

From the Canadian crossing border at Sault Ste. Marie to the Canadian crossing border at Pigeon River was 507 miles (I originally stated it was 625 miles but that was incorrect) and took us 11 days. We thought it might take 2 to 3 weeks. We made four camping stops all for three nights, except the one at Rainbow Falls, which was two nights.

We stopped for lunch in Northwood and I saw a picture of a falls on a river at Beaver in the shop next-door. I thought that was behind us but then when we went got back on the road, we just drove past it. I got part a partial picture of it .  We saw one very similar, probably 30 miles back that I totally missed the picture but this road is so bumpy, we won’t be going back to get it.  At our lunch stop, Joe made some calls about tires, and found a place that could take care of us.  He is going to call us back with price and timing.

I also saw this item in the store (a hardware store) that I don't think we would find in our Phoenix area stores.

Here's another thing we wouldn't see in Phoenix, although I saw an article the other day that said a bar in Scottsdale is going to build a curling club.

We changed time zones when we crossed the border so we’re now in the central time zone -- we get an hour back, that’s good news for us

Gooseberry River was another one that was on a postcard and we passed it now so we will probably drive back to this one. My picture wasn’t very good through the fence so I might get a better one, if we drive back to it.

Joe got the call from his tire person and he can take care of us.  He thinks he will  get the tires within the next day or two so we will wait for a phone call from him and spend some time and money at the tire shop.

We got to our campground, Burlington RV Park, about 3:35, 2:35 current time.  And we hit it just right because when we came out of the registration office, there was a line behind us.  They were repaving the parking lot right in front of the office, so that was a mess.

But we ended up with a great campsite with a view of Lake Superior right across the road.  There was a group of scuba divers suiting up when we left for dinner.

I'm still suffering some from my fall on Sunday, so I decided to have my shoulder and arm checked out now that we are back in the U.S.  We drove in to Urgent Care and got right in.  They took xrays and declared me OK, although the doctor thought there might be some damage to my rotator cup.  Dealing with 2 bad knees and a sore shoulder/arm creates quite a mobility problem.  There are rocks right across the road, and I haven't even been over there yet!

From here on, we don't have an agenda, timetable, or destination.  But it was 105 degrees yesterday at home (55 here), so we will head for some place cool.