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.
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.
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.
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.
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