Across Minnesota

 6-6-2021 - Sunday

We were rudely awakened about 2:40 this morning by gale force winds rocking the RV. There wasn't much we could do, but Joe did bring in the two slides.  We went back to sleep, and saw nothing amiss when we got up, but the camper behind us had a pop-up shade that got destroyed.  It wasn't too windy by then, so we got on the road about 9:00, heading east.  A windy day was forecast, so we were not sure how far we would make it.  If our 95 degrees on Friday didn't destroy the lilacs, last night's wind probably finished them off.

Driving along, we saw this car that would have been perfect for Barbara and me during our "cruising" days.  Surely, if the odometer was clocking too many miles, we could have just driven it from the other end -- maybe that would have taken miles off!  It passed us on the highway, but of course I didn't have the camera ready.  Then we saw it at a gas station, but again, we were past too quickly to get a picture.  Then, lo and behold, it pulled up beside us to turn at a stoplight, and Joe got a picture out his window!  The photo of the day!

It was a pretty uneventful day, except for Joe battling the wind.  We crossed into Minnesota at 10:35, having driven 87 miles.  We drove Hwy 2 all the way into Wisconsin.  We had toured some of Minnesota in 2019, so we just drove straight across the state.

 This area was mostly farm ground.  And lakes.  We started counting Minnesota's 10,000 lakes, but didn't stay with it.  The wind gusts kept most of Joe's attention. (He did spot 2 deer early on the drive.) There were more trees in eastern North Dakota and Minnesota than we had been seeing, and sometimes that sheltered us from the wind, but when the tree row ended, we got slammed.  And we had more than our fair share of road construction.  Just before Duluth, I asked Joe how many miles we had in today.  He said, 352.  But take 50 off for the weaving, so we probably got 270. We stopped for lunch and fuel outside of Bemidji, and there was a little flea market on the parking lot, so I got to go shopping for 5 minutes.  But everyone was putting up their stuff because of the wind and heat.  I bought Joe a jar of carrot cake jam.  How special is that!

We came into the edge of Duluth about 4:25.  Hello again, Lake Superior!  There is a Cody Street here (we didn't take it).  We took a wrong turn merging onto I-35 to get across the bridge, but quickly corrected it.  (Joe didn't trust the GPS.)

About 3:00, I called the campground we stayed at 2 years ago, just across the bridge outside of Superior, Wisconsin.  They had a spot for us, so that was our destination.  We crossed the Wisconsin state line about 4:35, and arrived about 5:00, got registered, and pulled into our campsite.  Joe went out and hooked up the electricity, we turned on the A/C, and haven't stepped outside since.  It was 88, but very hot.  People were swimming in the pool, and on the beach we saw from the bridge.  Summer has arrived here.

Joe put in a lot of miles today, 354.   We decided to stay here for 2 nights, maybe do a little shopping, a little maintenance, find some rocks on Lake Superior's coastline, and take it easy.  We will see how that works out.