Continuing our travels around Lake Superior.

Same lake - different day

I don't know what it is about Lake Superior that is keeping us close; there are 5 Great Lakes and we will see/touch all of them.  For the moment though there is only one and we are there!

We spent 2 lovely days in Grand Marais - it was truly beautiful! We biked everywhere; found a coffee shop and a fudge shop! All tastes catered for! I bought a CD - Loon Echo Lake -recordings of loons mixed with music including Vivaldi and Debussy's Claire de Lune. We went out for dinner on the second night - Dockside Fish Market for a meal of  fish and chips sitting on a deck overlooking the lake.

On Friday 31 August we crossed the border into Canada and Pigeon River. We turned our clocks forward an hour - now on Eastern Time Zone and only 12 hours behind Perth!
Miles became kilometres and petrol/gas became litres instead of gallons.

We had no problems at the border with visas or the RV. The reason for our entering Canada to continue driving around Lake Superior was accepted with a smile as if the most obvious.

And now we could seriously start looking for a moose ... or even a bear!

Monday 3 September - in Wawa, Ontario.

We have spent the last 5 days exploring the shores of Lake Superior and last Friday we crossed the border into Canada. A little backgound information on Lake Superior ...

It is the largest freshwater lake, by surface area, in the world:  31,700 sq miles or 82100 sq kms
It holds 10% of the world's surface fresh water.
East-West it measures 350 miles or 563 kms
North-South it measures 160 miles or 257 kms
Average water temp is 40F or 4.4C
Length of circle tour is 1,300 miles or 2092 kms.

The Ojibwe also known as the Chippewa call the lake Gichigami meaning "big water."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the name as "Gitche Gumee" in The Song of Hiawatha, as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song,"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald".

The first French explorers approaching the great inland sea during the 17th century referred to their discovery as le lac superieur. Properly translated, the expression means "Upper Lake," that is, the lake above Lake Huron. The English, upon taking control of the region from the French in the 1760s, following the French and Indian War, anglicized the lake's name to Superior, "on account of its being superior in magnitude to any of the lakes on that vast continent.”

Many towns around the lake are either current or former mining areas, or engaged in processing or shipping. Today tourism is another significant industry. The sparsely-populated Lake Superior country, with its rugged shorelines and wilderness attracts tourists and adventurers.

Lake Superior has been an important link in the Great Lakes waterway providing a route for the transportation of iron ore and other mined and manufactured materials. Large cargo vessels called lake freighters, as well as smaller ocean-going freighters, transport these commodities across Lake Superior.

The southern shore of Lake Superior between Grand Marais, Michigan and Whitefish Point is known as the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes" and more ships have been lost around the Whitefish Point area than any other part of Lake Superior. The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was the last major shipwreck on Lake Superior, sinking 17 miles (27 km) from Whitefish Point on November 10, 1975.

According to legend, "Lake Superior seldom gives up her dead". This is because of the unusually low temperature of the water, estimated at under 36 °F (2 °C) on average around 1970. The water in Lake Superior is cold enough year-round to inhibit bacterial growth and bodies tend to sink and never resurface. This is alluded to in Gordon Lightfoot's ballad, "The Wreck of theEdmund Fitzgerald". The Edmund Fitzgerald's 29 crew members all perished.
So there you have it ... thanks to Wikipaedia

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On our last morning in Duluth we got up early to watch a freighter come in to Duluth port, which by the way is the further inland than any other port in the world.  It was a large ship; the bridge lifted right to the top and the ship glided under it, coming in between the 2 piers.  It was quite a sight. The bells started to ring about 20 minutes before the ship went under the bridge and traffic was held up for at least 25 minutes - you would certainly need to check the Shipping News before heading off to work!

 We took 'the road less traveled' out from Duluth - old Highway 61 - it was great! Driving beside the lake with constant views of the vast tract of water that we love!!!!  Well perhaps a little exaggeration but I am coming from a perspective of 500 miles later and we are still enthralled! We were headed for Grand Marais, Minnesota - yes there is a Grand Marais, Michigan directly across the lake! We had made bookings ahead as were approaching a long weekend in the states and Canada - Labour Day on 3 September and anticipated that camping spots might be tight. 

We stopped at Gooseberry Falls; water very low given the time of year but very 
pretty. Also went on a tour of the Split Rock Lighthouse. We were told of the weather on the lake in winter - quite a different story. Waves can be 30 feet high.
I forgot to mention morning tea at Betty's Pies! World famous so how could we drive by?  Delicious!!
Arrived at Grand Marais mid afternoon - a beautiful place.  The RV park is right on the harbour and handy to everything that we wanted - bikes to the fore! After evening meal we went for (another) bike ride to a pretty lookout.
The evening light created an impression of the lake, horizon and sky merging into one - almost like a watercolor. Just amazing!  I know we are going to enjoy our stay here.

28 August 2012

And I have finally brought the blog up to date!
We have spent 3 days in Duluth; we set off tomorrow following the North Shore Scenic drive which will take us along the shores of Lake Superior all the way to the Canadian border and beyond. Lake Superior is aptly named,  It is magnificent from every vantage point.

It's not that bad!

We have done a lot in the last 3 days including many walks over the Aerial Lift Bridge, bike rides around the lake shores - and main streets when we rode to the laundry !- Trevor has swam in the lake and I have walked the piers; we have been tourists in Canal Park, visited the US Army Corps of Engineers Lake Superior Maritime Museum, taken a trip on the North Shore Scenic Railroad ... and enjoyed it all.

Tonight we ended up at a bar. We were on our bikes which we locked up outside - Trevor didn't have his glasses and I only had sunglasses.  When it came time to ride home the sun had gone down - it took more than a moment to undo the bike lock! Many (unhelpful) suggestions from me!

Sunday 26 August 2012

A beautiful morning! I walked - through the golf resort - we had toast and jam for the first time for a long time! Homemade rhubarb and strawberry jam made by a friend of Ron's in Hill City.
The new toaster set off the smoke alarm - it made a hell of a noise- probably not the place to do that!

Now headed northeast on Highway 210 (from 10)  Driving through small towns  - populations range from 75 to 5-6,000.  A 2 lane highway lined with birch, aspen and fir trees. A few of the trees look to be turning already. We pass several really long trains carting iron ore and grain. Smaller farms  replace rolling plains; lots of small lakes;  green and very pretty. Minnesota is nicknamed  'The land of 10,000 lakes'.

We stop at the Visitors Centre outside Duluth, Minnesota's third largest city. As we have not been travelling on the interstate for a couple of days this is the first chance since we entered Minnesota to get maps and information for this part of our travels.  We are recommended to an RV park which is right in Duluth - not the one we had considered about 10 miles out.  Lakehead Boat Basin Inc  provides marine services and supplies and has some full RV hookups.  It is close to everything especially the Aerial Lift Bridge a huge steel structure linking the mainland to the mouth of the Duluth harbour with a 385 ft (115m) span. The bridge can raise at the rate of 138 ft (41m) a minute to let  large freighters into the harbour.

So - we have it all without having to hire a car. We can bike or walk to everything that we want to do.

28 August 2012

We have covered approximately 1000 miles since we left Rapid City last Tuesday. We are now in Duluth, Minnesota which sits on the southwest point of Lake Superior the largest of the 5 Great Lakes and the largest freshwater lake in the world. We are loving being here.
Gordon Lightfoot sang of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald in the late 1970's and was our introduction to his music which we have loved ever since. The bulk iron ore carrier the  Edmund Fitzgerald went down in November 1975 with the loss of all 29 crew,  in Lake Superior.

Our road to Duluth  ...

We left Sheridan Lake about 11.30am after  last
goodbyes. Traveled down Highway 16 into Rapid
City headed for Eddies Truck Centre for the RV
chassis check.  We left at 5.00pm! But all good!
We traveled east on I- 90 to Wall and booked into
the Sleepy Hollow RV Park. Far enough for one day.

The next day we set out for Pierre (pronounced
Pier) the capital of South Dakota and the second
smallest capital  in the US. Pierre lies in the Missouri
River valley and forms an oasis in the largely treeless plains of central South Dakota

 There are acres and acres of crops with banks of silos on each property.














From Pierre we travelled due north through the centre of the state following the Missouri river which integrates into a vast lake system.  We were to get close and personal with the Missouri river for the last time at Bismarck in North Dakota.
Today I offered to drive for the first time! We were on a long 2 lane highway and the opportunity to change drivers took 70 miles - thank goodness - then white knuckles, total concentration, little conversation, anxiety and tension filled the drivers seat!!  Oh bless ... a gravel road so better change drivers! Buggar!
Actually our day was to take a dive as we ran into 20 miles of road works in the late afternoon and picked up 3 stone chips into the front windscreen - a large truck coming from the opposite direction at speed. We found a place to stay the night at Linton, just over the border in North Dakota - a small RV park -  booking in by the honesty system as it was fairly late. For those interested it is not far from the birthplace of Lawrence Welk.

The next day we drove into Bismarck, capital city of North Dakota. We went 'off road' onto a secondary highway for a closer look at the Missouri river - it was a beautiful morning; the sun was behind us as we were going west; undulating hills, small communities and endless fields of sunflowers nodding 'good morning' as we passed. It was a pretty valley with crops as far as the eye could see.

We had the RV serviced at Kupper Chevrolet in Mandan. What lovely people! Brad the service manager was a star - he was sure we would fit into the lube bay and we did - just!  They also attended to the stone chips on the front windscreen. We were at Kuppers for about 3 hours. Then found an RV park; Trevor assembled our new portable barbeque and we had steak and salad for dinner.



On Friday 24 August we woke to thunder and light rain. It was windy too. To go or not to go???
We decided that if the weather was lousy we might as well be driving. We left the RV park at 11.00am on I-94 heading east  for Valley City about 130 miles away.  The weather cleared once we were on the way but became very hot and humid as the day wore on.

Valley City is nestled in the Sheyenne River valley. It was founded in 1872 with the name of Second Crossing of Sheyenne when the Northern Pacific railroad crossed the river there. We visited the Rosebud Visitor Centre: home to 'Rosebud', a renovated 1881 Northern Pacific Superintendent's Car. The centre features interpretation of the history of the Sheyenne River valley.  Valley City is also known as the City of Bridges.

We stopped at the Wagon Wheel RV park which sits atop the highest hill for miles - and has a good view. BUT -  it was very exposed!
In the early evening the wind picked up considerably.

At about 9pm there was thunder; then thunder storm warnings started flashing on TV over the regular program.
I was worried; Trevor not visibly.  I got up and dressed. I admit I was a bit panicked. We were so exposed on the top of the hill.  Trevor said 'what do you want us to do ...'??
Finally I went to bed but it was a short night. The winds buffeted the RV. I think that I felt every buffet but must have slept for I woke up at 6.00am to quietness! Then we had a really heavy rain shower which by 7.30am cleared and a beautiful day!


11.30am Saturday 25 August

Driving through Fargo and Moorhead and across the
border into Minnesota. We are headed for Detroit Lakes east on Highway10. Now more rolling hills and farm lands -crops and stock. Much greener with lots of trees. We are on a secondary highway which is far more interesting though generally not such good driving.
We have clocked over 5100 miles (hence the service in Bismarck) We have done about 4000 kms since we purchased the RV!



Detroit Lakes is on the Detroit Lake. It is quite large -
population 8500 and very pretty. Everyone appears to be on holiday??
Of course! It's the weekend!

No wonder we are finding it difficult to find a spot to stay.We finally book into the Forest Hills Resort which is set on a golf course - rather a good one even to our untrained eyes. It also has parking for RV's.
There are lots of permanent homes, gardens and trees. Golf buggies flying around everywhere.  It was lovely!  We just sat outside in our new outdoor chairs - paper, sudoku and the odd (very odd) fly.

Detroit Lake