We got up at 6 am this morning and left
Ely. We stopped at the Ely Visitor’s
Center and used the dump station and then went to the grocery store. We had to detour on our way to Grand Marais
today through a gravel forest service road.
The Casita really got dusty. We
found an RV space in Grand Marais at the city RV park that is right on Lake Superior. We finally got to see a Great lake!
We had a quick lunch and then drove to Grand
Portage National Monument. This is
where the Voyageurs (French fur traders) came to sell the furs from their
trapping trips to the northwest. The
furs were shipped to London and Paris to be made into fashionable clothing and
hats. There is an 8 ½ mile foot path
(portage) that the Voyageurs used to go around waterfalls and cliffs on the
Pigeon River before they could reach Lake Superior. They had to carry two ninety pound packs and their canoes over
the portage. There is a reconstructed trading post and fort with people demonstrating period activities like canoe building and cast iron cooking.
On the way back to camp we stopped at Naniboujou
Lodge. The lodge was built in the 1920s
as an ultra-exclusive private club. Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and Ring Lardner
were among it charter members. They
originally wanted a membership of 1,000 but when the stock market crashed on
Black Friday precipitating the 1929 depression, the club began to fail. By the mid 1930’s it was in financial
shambles and was sold. The paintings on
the ceiling are by Antoine Gouffee and have never been touched up or
repainted. They were absolutely
gorgeous.
When we got back to town we went for a walk on
Artist Point and out to the lighthouse.
Then we had a Surly beer at a bar.
We didn’t get to go to Surly Brewing while in Minneapolis because the
tours were all booked.
There is an old 13 foot Boler and a 13 foot
Scamp at camp. We talked to the Scamp
couple from Minnesota.
We didn’t leave camp until about 11 am. We drove south toward Duluth. The first stop we made was at Cascade
Falls. We hiked up to the falls near where it flows into Lake
Superior. Then we stopped at Split Rock
Lighthouse State Park. The lighthouse
and outbuildings have been restored. We
got to hear the fog horn even though it was a bright beautiful day. We had to take a trail and 174 steps down to
the shore to be able to get a good picture of the lighthouse. Of course
then we had to go back up the stairs.
We also stopped at Gooseberry Falls State Park and walked to the falls
there.
After getting an RV site at Two
Harbors city park we drove into town and saw their lighthouses. We also looked for a geocache here with
another guy who was looking and none of us could find it. We left and stopped at the American Legion
for one beer and then went back to
camp. I fixed dinner while Jim
sat outside and looked at maps and books to see where to go tomorrow.
We drove south through Duluth and into Wisconsin
today. We are headed to the Apostle
Islands National Lakeshore. We stopped
at the Northern Great Lakes visitor center and got some information. Jim bought a book from the gift store about
geocaching. We also found a geocache
here, then we drove to Washburn and got
an RV site at the city park on Lake Superior.
After unhooking the Casita we drove to the main visitor center in
Bayfield and watched a movie about the Apostle Islands. From Bayfield shore you can see two of the
22 islands – Madeline and Basswood. Several
of these islands have primitive campsites that can be reached by boats, kayaks,
or ferries. Then we went to the Sand
Bay visitor center. From here you can
see Sand Island and York Island. When
we left, we drove to South Shore Brewery in Ashland and had a beer. After supper we found a geocache behind the
trailer on a small bridge. We walked
down to Lake Superior and I went wading.
We arrived in Michigan at 9:50 am. This is my 50th state to
visit. We drove to the UP (Upper Peninsula) and got a
site in Hancock at the city park. We
will be here for three nights so we can get a site before all the weekenders show up and take up all the spaces. We walked over to the city beach next to the campground. We may go swimming here tomorrow or Saturday. We went to the
Isle Royale National Park visitor center and watched a movie about the island. It has no roads and only primitive campsites. The National Park operates a boat ride to the isle for
$120.00 per round trip. The next boat is tomorrow and
won’t return until Saturday. We would
have to camp overnight on the island and we don’t have any camping gear so we aren't going to go there. Most of the people who go to Isle Royale are rugged outdoor types --backpackers or kayakers. We are a little too old for that.
We went to two brewpubs in Houghton and had a
beer at each. One was The Librew'ry and one
was Keweenaw Brewing. Jim tried to get
his hair cut at 4 pm but the barbershop was closed. We are now in the Eastern time zone and didn’t set our watches -- it was
really 5 pm. We went back to camp and I
fixed supper and we rented a redbox movie, “ The Artist".
We slept until 8:45 this morning. I guess the time change affected us. Jim needed a haircut and we found a place in
Hancock. It’s supposed to rain tonight
and some tomorrow so we wanted to drive the Keweenaw Peninsula today. We stopped at the Quincy Unit of the
Keweenaw National Historical Park. All
of this area is about the copper mining era.
We went to the Laurium Manor owned by Thomas Hoatson Jr., owner of the
Calumet & Arizona Mining Company.
This house has 45 rooms and is 13,000 square feet. We visited the Phoenix Church, the Central
Mine Site, and Central Methodist Church.
This church has services only on the last weekend in July and is a reunion of families of the original
miners.
We drove to the end of Hwy 41 in Copper
Harbor. This highway starts in Florida,
goes through eight states, and is 1,990 miles long. We saw the Copper Harbor
lighthouse which was built in 1866 and is the oldest operating lighthouse east
of the Mississippi. We visited Ft.
Wilkins historic state park. This fort
was established to maintain order during the copper rush of the 1840s. There were people in period costumes who
were in character for the era when the fort was active. Jim bought us lunch at Tamarack Inn in
Copper Harbor. We ate pasties. They are similar to Natchitoches meat pies.
The miners carried the pasties down in the mines with them in tin pails and
would heat them up with their candles.
The pasties were served with brown gravy on the side and coleslaw and
they were really, really good.
We drove back to camp via the road along Lake
Superior and stopped at Eagle Harbor lighthouse and drove by Great Sand Bay
which has a nice beach. After arriving
in Calumet, we stopped at the Calumet visitor center of the Keweenaw National
Historical Park and saw a couple of short movies about the area. We had a beer at Red Jacket Brewing in the
old 1905 Bosch Brewing Company building.
There was a mural on canvas above the bar that was painted in 1906. We got back to camp and sat outside about 15
minutes before it started to sprinkle -- that
ran us inside the Casita. I
fixed dinner and we watched some TV.
Jim and I went to get breakfast at Hardee’s this
morning. At the 4th of July
parade we got coupons for sausage egg biscuits and bacon cheese and egg
biscuits. We got two of each. After breakfast I went to Walmart to pick up
some items. Then Jim and I went to the
half price bookstore and then found four geocaches. One of them was cleverly hidden beneath a stone at a veterans memorial park. Jim wanted to go for a swim in Portage Lake and I went with him. While he was in the lake I sat in my lawn
chair and did some embroidery. Later we did a couple of loads of laundry.
We got up at 3:30 am and could see the Northern
Lights. We got in the Silverado and
drove outside of town beyond the city lights and stood on the side of the road
and watched them and the Moon-Venus-Jupiter conjunction. The lights were
awesome - fast moving flashes, rays, and waves covering most of the sky. We
went back to bed around 4:45 am. We
slept until almost 9 am. We left camp
and drove east to Munising, Michigan.
On the way we stopped at Ishpeming and shared a beer at Jasper Ridge
Brewery. In the parking lot using Jim’s
phone I found a geocache in an old ore mine rail car while Jim watched my purse
in the bar.
We got a site at Tourist Park Campground in
Munising, a city park right on Lake Superior.
We are one camping site off the lake.
There is a tent by us. The sun
was shining and there is supposed to be some rain for the next two days. Jim got on line and booked us a sunset boat
tour of Pictured Rocks at 7:30 pm. When
we got to the boat dock around 6:15 it had clouded up and fog had started to
roll in. We rescheduled the trip for
tomorrow at 2 pm. If it is raining or
foggy we will reschedule again.
We found a geocache across the road from camp
and two of them in town. After
rescheduling the boat tour we went for a beer at a local pub. We were the only ones in there and had a
nice visit with the bartender. We went
back to camp and I fixed dinner and we sat outside at the picnic table. You can’t see the lake because of the fog.
We stayed around camp this morning until about
10:00 and then went to the visitor center for Pictured Rocks National Lake
Shore. We hiked to Munising Falls. Then we drove to Sand Point and Pictured
Rocks National Lake Shore Headquarters where they had a maritime exhibit. We drove to Miners Castle visitor center and
went to the overlook for Miners Castle and then hiked down to it. On the way back out the road we hiked to
Miners Falls.
We went back to the Casita for lunch at 2:00 pm
and watched a little TV. Then we went
to look for geocaches. We found one at
an old lighthouse and two just off the beach.
Then we found two more. We have
found 77 so far. We drove into town and
went to the American Legion and had a couple of beers. The weather today was not too hot but the
humidity was awful. We went back to camp
and I cooked dinner and we sat outside and played Phase 10. We had a reservation for the 2:00 pm boat
trip to Pictured Rocks but we rescheduled again for tomorrow. It was cloudy all day until about 7:00 pm when
the sun came out for a while.
