Isle Royale, Michigan

Our friends Danna MacKenzie (daughter of the a fore mentioned birthday boy) and Jack McDonnell live in Grand Marais, MN.  They also own a boat called 'Tis Grand.  We managed to convince them to take us to Isle Royale in Lake Superior.  We are clever and devious!

So on Monday August 19th we left port with mild wave action.  For those of you unfamiliar with Lake Superior I'll explain what little I know about the wave action.  Diana and I have seen the lake just lay flat.  This is very rare in our experience.  Normally we see 1 - 2 foot waves.  But many times we have also seen 6 - 8 foot waves and the lake be very nasty.  Part of the beauty of Superior is her ever changing mood.  Keep in mind that hundreds of ships have been sunk on the lake.

 Anyway we went to Suzy Island and found a secluded bay and anchored there the first night.  After dinner we watched the moon rise.  Awesome!

Tuesday morning we headed toward Isle Royale.  We arrived, docked and settled in fro a few days.

We did some hiking, dropped the dingy in and explored the shore line and had a great time.  It was very warm there, in the low 80s and I got hot.  So what better way to cool off than a dip in Lake Superior?

The water temp most of the way over to the island was in the 40's or 50's.  In fact we chilled the beer by putting it in the lake one day.  But the water temp was closer to 65 by the dock.  Not too bad.

One morning while I was walking I came across this fox.  She was not afraid of me and I was not afraid of her.  But we sort of danced with each other for about 10 minutes.  She would move to one side of the path and lay down.  I would move, then she would jump as if we were playing.  Finally a few other folks showed up and the dance was over.

On Thursday we left the dock and headed toward Rock of Ages light house.

This is an amazing light house because it is built on a rock.  Another cool thing about Superior is the varying depth of the lake.  Most of the way out to the island the lake was between 300 to 600 feet.  Near Rock of Age the depth will vary from protruding rocks to several hundred feet then to just a few feet in very short distances.
That night we anchored in a cove at Birnam Island.  This is an old fish processing bay.  The buildings still stand and a few cabins are occupied but we had the place to ourselves.

Friday morning we pulled anchor and took the about 5 hour cruse back to Grand Marais.

The weather on the trip was warm and sunny and the lake lay flat.  A very smooth ride. Thanks to Captain Jack and to Danna for a great trip and helping me cross Isle Royale off my bucket list.

The party

We stayed 1 night in Grand Marais then put the RV into storage.  We went to Lutsen and stayed with our dear friends Barb and Dan MacKenzie at their log home just a few feet from the shore of Lake Superior.  The real purpose of the visit was to help celebrate Dan's70th birthday.  Both his daughters came as did 2 grand kids.  A great time!

In addition to that party we also celebrated Lisa's birthday and our anniversary.

Whipped cream and raspberries on a bald head...yum!?  Any time with the MacKenzie clan is unique.

Birch Lake, Ely, MN

We had a very remote site for camping near Ely.  We drove 3.5 miles on a dirt and gravel road then turned left and drove another 1.5 miles to Birch Lake.  we had no hook ups so were dry camping for 4 days.  We backed into our sight but realized the best view was behind us.  So the next day we pulled the RV out and turned it around.

This is our view out the front window.

This is our view from our beach chairs during happy hour.  Happy hour may have lasted longer than 60 minutes a few nights!

We took one day and rented a canoe and just explored part of the lake.  That evening we paddled around the island you see in the picture.

We drove the Jeep into Ely one day and spent time at the International Wolf Center and at the North American Bear Center.  Many of you know I love wolves so I found the wolf center to be great.

These wolves are in captivity because they may not be able to make it in the wild.  The center uses them for educational and study purposes.

The bear center was interesting but we did not see any bears.  With our time up in Ely we headed toward Grand Marais, MN on the shore of Lake Superior.

The Decision GRR

We have talked since before we started this journey about following the Mississippi River south as part of the winter tour.  While at Itasca we learn of the Great River Road that does follow the river from one end to the other.  Now this is not just one road, that would be way too simple!  This is a series of national, state, county and local unpaved roads that will take us fro the headwaters to the mouth.  As a committee of two, we decided that we would attempt this journey.

So on August 8, 2013 we took the first part from the headwaters to our campground.  That covered about 5 miles of the 2500+ the river travels.  On the 9th we followed the river north to Bemidji then to Grand Rapids, then to Jacobson.  With our current plans we will be taking a break for awhile but will resume again in mid to late September.  It will be very interesting to 1.) see if we make it, 2.)see what adventures we find, and 3.) see how long this takes.  Remember part of the overall plan is to be in Phoenix in March for spring training baseball.

It supposedly takes  a drop of rain 90 days to get from Itasca to the end of the river.  We will be much longer than that.  We'll keep you posted!

Itasca State Park

The trip from Sioux Falls to Itasca was a long day but event free.  Itasca State Park is where the Mississippi River begins.  From Lake Itasca it flows north for a while then begins to turn south.  We were here in 1974 as part of our honeymoon.

Exciting times

Our main purpose in coming to Sioux Falls was to establish South Dakota residency then to get our wills and such in South Dakota legalees!  We chose SD because it has very favorable laws for full time RVers.  They have short term residency requirements, no personal income tax, and several other things that just make it great for full timers.  The DMV lady said they have thousands of folks that do this.  The DMV knew immediately what we were trying to do based on our mailing address here in Sioux Falls. (We have a mailing service for our mail)  DMV was very helpful in getting is our SD licenses and telling us where the court house is so we could register to vote.


In addition to the business side of things we have seen some cool stuff while in Sioux Falls, South Dakota!  We went to a baseball game with the home town Canaries hosting a Canadian team in a non-conference game.  Neither team is affiliated with Major League Baseball but baseball is baseball.  The quality of play was not very good but we had a great time.  For you folks from Richmond, VA I'll tell you that the stadium where the Canaries play is called "The Bird Cage".  It is smaller than the Diamond (seats only 4,500) but it is a much nicer facility. 

Made a trip to Falls Park to see the falls after which the city was named, and just had a nice relaxing time here.  This is a nice city and everything is reasonable close and all the choices you need for shopping etc.

We leave here on the 6th or 7th and head toward northern Minnesota.

The Badlands

The original plan was to drive from Custer to Sioux Falls in one day.  A long day but doable.  Then Diana decide we should leave Custer and drive through the Badlands.  We found a campground that was in the park and offered dry camping or electrical hook up.  Because it was hot and we knew we would want ac we took electrical.  We left early and got our spot about noon and spent the rest of the day in the Badlands driving from one overlook to another and doing some short walks.

We did get to see some long horn sheep and lots of prairie dogs

And then there was sunset from our camp sight.

A very good day!

Devil's Tower and the center of the United States

We decided to take a day trip and go to see Devil's Tower in northern Wyoming.  What a cool day.  On the way there we went through Bell Fourche.  We see a sign saying that near town is the geological center of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii.  Well, we had to stop for that.  But it is not in Bell Fourche, it is about 20 miles from town off a dirt/gravel road surounded by farm country.  To get to the marker you have to get through a barbed wire fence then walk about 100 yards into some pasture land.  Watch carefully where you step t is active pasture land.  So here we are at the center of the U.S!

You can see by the 1959 date it was calculated after AK and HI became states.  The calculation is somewhat suspect in that this spot is considered to have a margin of error of  3 - 4 miles.  So maybe we were there and maybe we weren't.

 It came as no surprise to me that within 20 miles of the center of the U.S. is a Dairy Queen!  How perfect is that?!  So we had lunch.

We continued on toward Devil's Tower and it can be seen for miles before you are even close.  It is no wonder the Native Americans consider it sacred ground and still hold ceremonies and powwows there.  This thing just pops up out of nothing.

On the way home we took a side trip through Sturgis.  You know, where the big bike rally is each year.  We got there about 8 days before the rally starts and there were street vendors already set up prepared to sell you what ever they could.  Every corner and side walk was already full.  It was very impressive.  While we saw lots of bikes it was clear many more would be arriving soon.

Mean while, back at the campground about an hour and a half away, more campers were pulling in with Harley Davidsons.  Several of them said they were there for the rally but would likely only go to Sturgis one day and hang out in the Black Hills the rest of the time.  In the church we attended on Sunday they were telling everyone the bikers were coming and what a busy week it would be.  I knew the rally was big but did not realize that it spills over for miles and has a very positive image and economic impact.