July 5, 2012

We left the Casino RV park and drove to Bemidji and stopped at the famous 1937 Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statue.  A half a block away was a statue of Chief Bemidji.  There was a Walmart in Bemidji and we stopped for a few groceries.  Then we continued on to International Falls without stopping.  Jim drove a total of 276 miles today.  In International Falls we found a giant statue of Vic Voyageur.  There sure are a lot of giant statues up here!

After getting our site at the only RV park in town, we drove to the visitors center at Rainy Lake in the Voyagers National Park. This park is really only accessible by boat and most Minnesotans own their own boat.  All of the boat dock parking lots were full. There are over 500 pine-covered islands scattered in the large lakes and over 450 miles of undeveloped shoreline in Voyagers National Park.  We watched a movie and got some information on the park.  We drove to Kabetogama Lake visitors center and inquired about the boat tour from Kabetogama Lake to Kettle Falls tomorrow.  They had only 1 space left.  There are no boat tours on Saturday, and Sunday only had 1 space left.  We don’t want to stay until Wednesday so we drove to Ash River visitor’s center and looked around.  We walked a trail to the Kabetogama Lake and then another trail to see a beaver pond.

We went back to camp and had supper then went to the VFW and had a beer.  Everyone told us to stay in the U.S. to get to Grand Portage, Minnesota instead of driving through Canada.  We will head out for Grand Portage tomorrow.  We wanted to take a boat ride to Isle Royale National Park in Michigan from Grand Portage, Minnesota but the first day available is next Wednesday.  We won’t be able to go on that tour either.  It was much cooler today and the humidity was low.