Views From the North Shore Scenic Byway (aka: Hwy. 61 Along Lake Superior)

Posted on July 15, 2021 by rvrrat520

With Voyageur’s N.P. in our rear-view mirror, it was southward-bound. Still having issues finding available space at the RV parks, we snagged a one-nighter at the Cloquet-Duluth KOA and caught a couple more nights at the Tettegouche State Park. Between both stays, we managed some minor hikes to sights between Duluth and Grand Portage (the US/Canadian border), about a 146 mile stretch. As a start, Minnesota Point is a narrow strip of land projecting out to “sea” (meaning onto Lake Superior) which has several beach areas. Driving out that way we got some expansive views from the roadway looking down at Duluth. The day we were there it was not the greatest of beach weather, but the beaches were still pretty busy. On our way out of the area we got to see an “Aerial Lift Bridge” in action. That would be a form of a draw bridge that leads to the Duluth Harbor Basin. At the mouth of the canal they have the Duluth North Pier Lighthouse and the Duluth Harbor South Breakwater Outer Light, as well as the Duluth Harbor South Breakwater Inner light. Snapped a few pix, waited for the boat traffic to clear the aerial lift bridge, and off we went for more adventure.

A look down at the area of Duluth Harbor

Congdon Park in Duluth is home to Tischer Creek and the Tischer Creek Falls. They put in a nice creekside trail that was about a mile and a half of small waterfalls. We let Woodrow Wilson take us on that walkabout. Here’s a mishmash of sights along the trail…

The town of Two Harbors contains the Two Harbors Lighthouse Museum as well as the Two Harbors Lighthouse. We weren’t real keen on seeing ANOTHER lighthouse museum, but we hoofed it out to the lighthouse for views of town and the lake. Right across the bay from the lighthouse there was an interesting iron ore mining/processing center.

Beaver River Falls, located on, oh, let’s guess…the Beaver River, in, maybe, let’s see, the “town” of Beaver Bay, on, well, Beaver Bay of Lake Superior was another of the advertised “10 Best Waterfalls on Minnesota’s north shore”. Well, maybe in another life. At present time there was very little water in the river, so the “falls” were less than spectacular.

Split Rock Lighthouse is a popular tourist stop along the north shore. We opted not to pay the $24 to be able to get up close and personal with it, mainly because I am a cheap b@$t@rd and we have actually seen our share of lighthouses, both coasts and all points in between. But they had a nice wayside rest that had a clear view of the lighthouse, so I got my pix anyway.

Gooseberry State Park contains Gooseberry Falls with a short hike to see them. The hiking trails are easy, well kept and travelled, and parking can be a zoo during season. They say there are (5) total falls along the river here, but we kept to the main touristy few.

Tettegouche State Park gave us a pretty good workout. The trail to get to Two Step Falls was a mere one tenth of a mile from our house. The only issue was then it was a matter of 200 stair steps straight downhill to get to the viewing area. I know that I sucked a lot of air getting back to the top, but it was worth the view. High Falls was only a half mile hike from our house, but then it also added 100+ more stair steps, straight downhill. Again, the view was worth it and you also encounter the swinging bridge. On a more even note (terrain-wise; “even”, get it?!?) it was an easy walk down to see the mouth of the Baptist River. We happened to accomplish that one early in the morning with NO beachgoers anywhere to be seen.

Caribou Falls was another disappointment. We let Woody lead the way along the path which followed the Caribou River. They advertised less than one mile to get to the falls, however, the river was pretty sad water volume-wise. We hiked more than one mile and saw no end in sight. I had my suspicions about the location of the falls and think we passed by the area without realizing it. The photos advertised were obviously in a heavy torrential setting, far from what we were looking at. It was still scenic, as the pictures suggest.

The Cross River Falls were pretty cool even though the water was low there as well. And these were right off the highway with no hike required.

Temperance River State Park is home to the Temperance River Falls. These falls landed into some deep gorges and again, this was right off the highway with very little hike to get to.

Cascade River State Park contains its namesake falls. These also included some fairly deep gorges. With most of the sightseeing points of interest located within various state parks, it is very convenient that if you pay for any of the park entrances ($7 per car/day), your pass gets you into all the parks. And as you can see, there are a lot of state parks here on the North Shore.

And for our grand finale, we hit up Pigeon Falls on the Pigeon River at the US/Canadian border. In the advertising for these falls they are likened to another border waterfalls area, namely Niagara Falls. Sorry, no where near in the same class as Niagara and not even close to size and scope. But still, these were pretty cool falls, with an easy paved/boardwalk path to get to them.

OK, so I hope I left nothing out. And I really really really hope I get the right photos with the right narrative. But, hey, if I don’t, sue me. If you can find me. And remember, you should click on each of the photo blocks to be able to see the photos uncropped, in a carousel manner. Until next post…

Land of 10,000 Lakes

Posted on July 11, 2021 by rvrrat520

Voyageurs National Park was our next tourism destination. We broke the drive up and did a couple of nights at the Jackpot Junction Casino in Morton, MN. While there we found a couple of points of interest to see. The Birch Coulee Battlefield was a small area on the outskirts of Morton. It is touted as one of the bloodiest battles of the U.S.-Dakota War even though it was only a day and a half battle back in 1862. That, and there were only about 20 men killed during that skirmish. Horses fared worse, they had about 90 casualties. The battlefield was a short walking circular path through the field, with little history lessons posted here and there. They also had small concrete markers with footprints on them to designate the standing location of combatants, pointing out into the field to small white marker posts which designated the locations of enemy fighters. This battle was pretty much a close quarters type of battle as evidenced by the distances depicted, and it easily demonstrated the ill-fated logic of the U.S. force on choosing such an open, unprotected location to set up camp.

The other point of interest was Ramsey Falls on Ramsey Creek in the town of Redwood Falls. This was an easy drive-to with no hiking required. There is a nice viewing platform at the parking area, and if you want a closer look you can do a tiny bit of rock scrambling to arrive at the top of the falls.

The view of the falls from the observation platform/parking area

Onward and upward, again, we lucked out and I think we found the absolute last available RV site in the entire Great Lakes area. It just happened to be Arnold’s Campground and RV Park in International Falls, MN. Now, the town of Int’l Falls is nothing to write home about, it is a run down small town right on the Canadian border. In fact, if the U.S. side residents need to hit a Walmart or a Safeway, the only ones in the area are across the Rainy River in Fort Francis, on the Canadian side. And, according to signs posted around Rainy Lake, all non-essential cross-border traffic is prohibited. So there’s that…

I have to say, we were seriously underwhelmed by Voyageurs National Park. Even the rangers say it is not a real popular park in the Nat’l Park system. We hit the 3 visitor’s centers at Rainy Lake, Kabetogama Lake, and at Ash Creek. They are not open every day, even during this, the peak season, which tells you a little something about their popularity. We were in serious lake country (“Land of 10,000 Lakes, duh!) but driving around and through the area the scenery is mostly thick, green trees. Even the “lake view” trail near the Ash Creek Visitor’s Center provides you with a semi-obstructed (trees) view of water. We made one attempt at night viewing, trying to catch sight of the Aurora Borealis from the Rainy Lake Visitor’s Center, but only managed to fight the mosquitos until midnight. We spoke to a ranger about the lights on another day and he mentioned they are best seen in colder weather, more often during Spring and Fall. Such is our luck…

For our last hurrah at Voyageur’s N.P. we broke out the bicycles for a nice leisurely ride on the Rainy Lake Trail. That trail starts near the International Falls Chamber of Commerce in town and pretty much follows both Hwy. 11 and the Rainy River to the Rainy Lake Visitor’s Center. The trail weaves it’s way off and onto Hwy. 11 on it’s 15 mile stretch to the visitor’s center and is paved the whole way. You have to be ever vigilant due to the large number of BIG red deer roaming the area, particularly the nearer you get to the visitor’s center. There are not a lot of sights to see along the way, again you travel through thick stands of trees. But we got our 30 miles in and it was a pretty good workout during the last leg of the trail heading to the visitor’s center.

That catches us up for now. Stay tuned for the next blog post, same bat time, same bat channel…

7/11/2014 Time Marches On

Posted on July 11, 2014 by rvrrat520

So we get to the Grand Tetons National Park area and of course we brought crappy weather with us, for mid June anyways. We actually got snowed on during our stay here! Our first views of the mountains were obscured by the heavy clouds and overcast. But it did eventually clear up so that we could see the mountains better. Jeanne got her wild critter fix, we had a Grizzly walk directly in front of the Jeep on the main road at Jackson Lake Junction. At Mormon Row, we saw a family of baby foxes living or exploring in one of the buildings. A moose also paid regular visits to us at the campground we stayed at, Gros Ventre Campground (pronounced “Grow Von” we found out after we had been shredding it to pieces). The campground also had colonies of what the local campground host called Whistle Pigs. They were like smaller versions of prairie dogs and they whistled to each other similar to prairie dogs. These drove our Chihuahua/Terrier mix crazy.. This particular campground has 350 individual sites, a few with electric, most just a site with table and fire ring. They do have a dump station and fresh water to fill your tank with. We boondocked here for 7 days with no issues, running the generator a couple hours in the AM and another couple hours in the PM. Sure is nice with an onboard 10K generator… It helped to have the yearly access pass (1/2 off) for the National Parks, it cost us all of about $11 a night to stay here. The electric sites were a bit high at I think it was $36.50 a night. The Grand Tetons was not as much driving as we had in Yellowstone, but there was some. Some of the old settlement buildings at Mormon Row were cool to see with the Tetons as a backdrop. We are not much for early early rising, the weather was not very cooperative, so we never made it to the Signal Hill overlook for a sunrise, they are supposed to be quite awesome. But we did make it to the Snake River Overlook for a sunset. A bit cloudy, but still scenic. One of our neighbors from our Yellowstone stay suggested we hit the Bar J Cowboy Cookout in Jackson, so we did. They cook up an authentic cowboy-out-on-the-range meal, then do a musical entertainment show. Very nice.

Our initial view of the Grand Tetons, great weather and all…

Next stop was Lander Wyoming and the Lander Mountain View Campground and Cafe. Wow, talk about Sticksville! A very nice older couple, the Maleks, operate this place, it used to be a KOA way back when, the building burnt down and was re-built, but the whole tiny campground area is in need of a little help. And the cafe is the owner, I think her name was Lu Ann Malek basically cooking out of her kitchen in the main building which is also the slash office slash dining area slash living quarters, you get the picture. Hubby, Joe Malek, is currently running for his State Senate District seat. Good Luck, Joe. After a couple of days here it was on to Fort Casper Campground, Casper, Wyoming.

Here it is, the world famous Mountain View Campground and Cafe. This is the cafe…

We stayed with the same crappy weather theme in Casper. The winds kicked up something awful, we actually pulled our slides in one night, I thought the wind was going to rip off our slide toppers. And the rain dumped BUCKETS on us. It rained so hard the sirens went off in the night, warning of impending flash flooding. Oh boy, what excitement! Well, we did not float away… We found a veterinarian who could squeeze us in at the last minute, Woody was due for shots, so we got that taken care of. When we got ready to pull up stakes, our steps to the bus went goofy on us and I could not get them to operate properly. I ended up getting them in the travel position, then disconnected the power to them and added them to my growing “laundry list” of fixes needed at Tiffin for when we get there. Luckily still, none of them are Earth shattering imperative to get done. Yet.

Into South Dakota, our “home” state. We opted to stay at the Elk Mountain Campground in the Wind Cave National Park outside of Hot Springs, SD. The campground is bare bones, community water spigots but otherwise dry camping sites, with nearby restrooms, no showers. With the Access Pass for the Nat’l Parks, it was all of $9 per night for staying here. The sites were nice, level and the grasses were kept mowed and neat. We checked out the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, an active archaeological dig for Mammoth fossils, very cool. A trip up the Needles Hwy found some interesting rock formations, particularly one appropriately named “Eye of the Needle”. We made the loop around Mt. Rushmore and found that the 3 big, low clearance tunnels blasted through the rocks were actually engineered to be done in that manner so that when you approach/look through the tunnel, you can see the President’s faces framed at the end. Wow.

Off to Snake Creek State Recreation Area near Platte, SD. This was a very nice state park area on the Missouri River, an area called Lake Francis Case. Like most SD state parks, Snake Creek had electric only sites. The grounds were kept neat, lots of green grass, trees, and shrubs. They also had a nice groomed beach area. We only stayed a couple of nights here, but in the short time there, our neighbors thought they had celebrities in their midst, I guess they never saw a Phaeton motorhome before. Jeanne is still giggling about that one, she wanted to give out autographs…

A shot across Lake Francis Case from the campground

Moving on, we parked at Hills RV Park in Plankinton, SD for the next couple of nights. It was a small place but with full hookups for doing laundry and with a Passport America discount. Check in was self-service, the owners lived in a house on site but never made contact with us. Jeanne heard there was a tornado that ripped thru this area a few weeks ago, in Wessington Springs, so we had to do a road trip there. The damage was not extensive, but some of the local folk I’m sure would beg to differ. A few buildings, a few cars, a few signs, but I don’t think there were any fatalities.

Big Sioux State Recreation Area was next on our dance card. This was a state park in Brandon, just outside of Sioux Falls along the Big Sioux river. This was electric only and the whole area felt like a mosquito breeding ground. We were PRISONERS! in the bus, afraid to go outside and ring the dinner bell for the mosquito smorgasbord to begin! It’s a shame, and HAS to be a hilarious sight, to see grown humans taking the dogs out for a walk, wearing long sleeved hoodies in 95 degree heat! But we did. We got a chance to actually pick up our mail in person at this stop, since Alternative Resources is here in Sioux Falls. Mosquitos were not bad in town, so we got a chance to take the Princess (Madison) to the groomers at PetSmart, took Woody for a walk around the actual Sioux Falls, and stopped by Billion Jeep Dealership where they were able to get me in for an appointment in a couple of days, bless their souls. The Jeep has been making a high pitched cricket type noise as we drive on down the road and it is similar to listening to fingernails on the chalkboard, been driving me NUTS! We had to escape the mosquitos, so we left for the Tower Campground in town for the one night to get us to the Jeep appointment. Tower is a fair sized park, we stayed here 2 years ago while establishing our residency here, but it is in the flight path of military jets that come and go at all hours. Jeep got our problem solved (quick adjustment to the passenger side manifold flap or something-or-other) and off we went.

We made our first foray into the state of Minnesota, “land of a thousand lakes”, and, as we quickly found out, “land of a bazillion mosquitos because of a land of a thousand lakes”!!!!!! We stopped at a podunk campground, Shady Acres Campground (Passport America), in Garden City, MN. This campground is the actual county fairgrounds (very small county) and the sites are all on the lawn area. I HATE MOSQUITOS! Give me rattlesnakes, copperheads, spiders, bears, wolves, mountain lions, ANYTHING but mosquitos! I look like a connect the dots puzzle…We snuck into Mankato last night for dinner and ate at Mazatlan Mexican Restaurant-very good food if you are ever in the area. Awesome Margaritas…Because of the mosquitos we won’t be able to get out of here fast enough tomorrow, but flee we shall as we continue eastbound toward Green Bay, Wisconsin.

We made our way to Apple Creek Campground in De Pere outside of Green Bay. There is a big shortage of RV campgrounds around Green Bay, so we settled here. Very quickly I thought we landed in the middle of a Jerry Springer show. Enough said, you get the picture. We took the tour of Lambeau Field, a very interesting and informative venture, learned a lot about the only publicly owned team in the NFL. Unfortunately they were just finishing up on a massive renovation to their Pro Shop and we missed the Grand Opening by a day. All in all, Mr. Rodgers’ neighborhood is very nice, lots of brick and brings thoughts of Pac Bell Park to mind.

Field level from the GB players’ tunnel.

We also checked out a couple of the local cheese factories and got our fill of curds. You just can’t be in Wisconsin without sampling the cheese! One of the cheese factories was near Algoma, so we trekked over to see Lake Michigan. It is kinda weird to look out on the horizon and see nothing but water but to realize you are only looking at a lake, not an ocean.

After a couple of days it was off to the Chicago area of Illinois. We stayed at a very nice county park, the Paul Wolff Campground in Burnidge Forest Preserve in Kane County, near Elgin. From here we tripped into Chi-Town, against the warnings from the campground host not to drive anywhere near the city because of the so-called congestion. We braved it in the Jeep, drove to Wrigley Field then to the Magnificent Mile and on to Navy Pier. Yes it was congested a wee bit, but it was no different than driving in downtown San Francisco. The problem in Chicago is trying to find anywhere to park, the camp host said most parking garages were going to run about $40 to park. But we did find curbside metered parking near Wrigley. Magnificent Mile was pretty awe inspiring and JAM PACKED with pedestrian traffic. While in Elgin, we were aimed at Giordano’s Pizza by the camp host. I don’t think I will be able to look at a Round Table pizza ever again! Giordano’s serves a stuffed pizza pie that is out of this world.

In the limited amount of total time spent driving through the state of Illinois, I have now crowned Illinois drivers, truckers in particular, as the absolute worst drivers of all the states we have been in. Cell phones stuck in faces and ears, tailgating is their way of life. At 60 MPH on freeways a couple of times I had truckers race up from behind me to within 3’ of my bumper and stay there, with opportunity but no attempt to pass me. Where are the cops when you need ‘em? The toll road system in and around Chicago is a serious pain in the buttocks too.

Shipshewana, Indiana is where we are now for a few days. Amish/Mennonite country. Wow, they are everywhere, carts and bicycles. We went and ate at one of the Amish restaurants, the Blue Gate Restaurant and Bakery. Food was OK, a bit salty, but they serve a lot of food. We walked the main drag, checking out the shops which included many furniture stores with good quality Amish furniture. It’s a whole other world here.

Jeanne overseeing an Amish traffic jam at the local bank…

Time to move on, still headed toward Red Bay Alabama. Not quite sure where our next stop will be…

Road Trippin', Watkins Style

Prowled county roads for a living, prowling country roads in retirement!

Category Archives: Minnesota

Views From the North Shore Scenic Byway (aka: Hwy. 61 Along Lake Superior)

Land of 10,000 Lakes

7/11/2014 Time Marches On