Yawn! 7-30

Today we woke up to an eerie fog wafting through the trees. It was 69 degrees with 85% humidity and no sun so we decided to take a walk. We drove into West Branch and walked through their beautiful park and past the historical buildings down town. It was too much to carry my camera, all under 1 pound of it, with this humidity. It sure makes you drag. We did our usual clip and we were both dripping and we probably only walked less than 2 miles, it wasn’t even hot. We both like drier climates!

So that was the highlight of our day. The rest of the day we talked about the problems in our society, politicians, and what our route should be the next couple of months.

I am leaving you with another lovely sunset picture over Lake Superior taken a few days back.

Happytown, USA 7-29

Not much to tell today. Hot, humid, still, stuffy and overcast. We cruised around the very busy area of West Branch. Their downtown buildings are old and in great looking condition. There are outlet stores by the freeway and every kind of fast food imaginable. We did some shopping at Super Walmart. You can tell a lot about an area’s people by going into a Walmart, I call it my Walmart test.

All mid western towns have these water towers. Some are shorter than others and most just have the towns name painted on it, but this was the Happiest one we have seen so far!!!

Lar checked out two tire places here in town and the only tire they both have to offer for our trailer are Firestone Transforce HT 10 plys. We can’t seem to find anything bad about them on the internet. They seem to be a newer model, so unless one of you out there has heard something horrible and wants to warn us, on Monday morning I guess the trailer will get a new set of tires.

So that’s all for us today, could someone out there send some air our way! I’d give anything now for a bit of that New Mexico wind we were having a few months ago!

This is one of the pictures that didn't get uploaded on Tuesday from Lake Gogebic.

West Branch, MI 7-28

We pulled out of Germfast this morning at 9:45. This is the ultimate rock lovers house! I loved it. Such a lot of work, I wish someone had been there so we could ask how old it was. It had a lot of debris on the porch as if it was being redone inside.

We continued south until we hit highway 2 and headed east. We traveled along the shores of Lake Michigan. It looked so much like the ocean, beach grasses blowing on the sandy dunes, waves rolling into shore, and no sign of land on the horizon, and the horizon was to the south, not west like we are used to. There were people stopped all along swimming and playing in the water. It was very shallow for quite a ways out.

We missed the turn for the scenic lookout for the Mackinac Bridge, the longest suspension bridge in the country. It is five and a half miles long with two towers, it bridges the north and south peninsulas and straddles Lake Michigan to the west and Lake Huron to the east. The water was so many shades of blue and green with white caps! It only cost us $600 to get across the bridge. WHAT you say? Read on. The toll for us pulling the trailer was $5.00. They were doing work on the bridge and we all had to travel on the steel grate lane. Noticed a pickup truck several miles later changing his right rear tire. We continue on and hear a loud noise and the trailer shuddered a bit; we looked in the mirrors and the right front tire on the trailer is loosing rubber. We stopped and checked it out, sure enough lost some tread and the tire was hissing. We had just crossed a county line and knew where we were so with only 5 miles to the next Rest Area we crawled on down the road. Fortunately the tire hadn’t blown completely and it wasn’t most of the rubber peeling off, which can do considerable damage to a rig, we were lucky that only a wire tie had gotten busted. Not one potty word hit the air…shocking I know. Lar got the trailer blocked up and the tire changed in no time. We have our teeny compressor, which we can plug into our trailer because of the inverter Larry had put in. My Hero! So now, with one tire gone, we need to replace all the rest, don’t want to wonder when the next one is going to kick its tread off! BUT we have to wonder about that bridge because after we got going again we passed a tent trailer getting its right tire changed and then several miles more a boat trailer getting its right rear tire changed, all within 50 miles of the bridge. Makes you go hmmmmmm! But the rest area was o.k. and we had lunch while the tire was getting up to snuff so we didn’t loose too much time.

We were heading to a Passport America club campground, didn’t call first, wound around county roads with all the other people heading for the lake for the weekend, got all the way down the lane…closed for the season! That’ll teach us. I did see this cute fawn lying next to a tree and Lar saw its sibling a few feet away. So we poured over our books and I made some phone calls while Larry drove us in the direction we wanted to be heading in and I found a place that wasn’t ridiculously expensive. So until Monday we are here in West Branch, MI off of Interstate 75. Sixteen dollars a day for water/electric. It is a lovely wooded campground in the hub of everything. We saw Super Walmart, outlet stores, every fast food and who knows what else we’ll find AND a tire store. We’ll have to get that done first thing Monday morning when we leave here. Sadly our site is caddy-corner to the dump station, every once in awhile we get a whiff! We got in around 3:30 and had traveled 225 miles today.

So that was our day. It is still hot and humid. Neither one of us like this being sticky, damp all the time. The diesel we found today was $3.099, but then we found it eleven cents cheaper down here at the off ramp in West Branch, who knew?

Germfask, MI 7/27

We are having a harder time adjusting to this time zone; maybe because we are so far north and still on the most western edge of it. At ten last night we were out walking around, it wasn’t dark yet.

We had to force ourselves out of bed at 7:30 this morning. It was a little cooler and very humid. We were on the road by 9. There wasn’t a dump station so we didn’t have to take the time to do that before we left today.

We continued east on 28 and had planned to stay at the county park in Munising, but even though it was on the shores of Lake Superior we didn’t like it. It was crowded and right on the highway. So we kept on. I had to consult with our camping guides to give us a direction to head next. At Seney we headed south on highway 77 to Germfask and found a lovely campground right on a river. We got in around three and it is $19 for water/electric. At least they have a dump station which we will being using upon our departure in the morning. Larry wants to stay just one night, so we’ll head on tomorrow to try to find somewhere to hang thru the weekend. We traveled 211 miles today. We found diesel for $2.99. When we hit the road almost 2 ½ years ago diesel was $1.50. More than doubled in most places now. Puts a crimp in our plans.

The more east we have come here on the UP the more traffic and RV’s we have encountered. There are some scenic things up here to see; shipwrecks, sandstone rock formations along the lake, 200 waterfalls, but there are so many people that we have just kept on going. This is the first summer in a lot of years that we have been out with the vacationing masses. We always did our thing in May or September or camped in the middle of the forest during the summer when we lived in Chester.

The people here on the UP of Michigan have all been really nice. Just thought I would mention that. We did a load of laundry today. We had to get Larry medium shirts because all his larges were swimming on him. Wish I had the same problem! Looks like we will be at my sisters about a month earlier than we had planned. Oh well, we can swelter there the same as anywhere else. Its hot everywhere this time of year.

These pictures are of Lake Superior. It is a HUGE lake and can be very treacherous for boats and ships. Today though it looked very serene.

Lake Gogebic pics 7-26

Well here are the pictures finally, I could only get these two on so far. Lake Gogebic as the thunderstorm was building, and a shot of our campsite. It poured buckets off and on all night, everything inside feels damp with this high humidity. Our towels didn't even dry overnight, yuck.

Gogebic means "where trout rising make small rings upon the surface." This lake is known for walleye, bass and jumbo perch.


Today is a lazy day and a planning our route day. We are also trying to adjust to another time change. I'm feeling a nap coming on as I type...hmmmmmmm

Lake Gogebic, MI 7-25

This place in Herbster was so nice we considered staying another day, but we decided to move on down the road. We hit the road at 9:15. We headed east on 13. Drove through historic Bayfield; gorgeous old mansions and touristy shops. Then hit Washburn, which was bigger and they had an IGA market there, so we pulled in and got the staples of our life: milk, bread, natural peanut butter and produce. We also ran across a lovely little coffee place so I had to run in there and get latté. It was very good. After Washburn we hit highway 2 again and headed east. Ashland was a large, pretty town. Now that we are east all the towns seem to be old and historic. Ashland had a Walmart so we stopped there for stuff we needed and then continued east. We had checked out a couple of county parks but they didn’t call to us so we kept on going. We fueled up at the Bad River Indian Reservation (the rez’s fuel is always cheaper), $2.949.

Hey, Uncle Gene! This is for you because you always want to know how the truck is doing. Today our trucks odometer turned past 50,000 miles. We are one month short of having it for three years.

We crossed over into Michigan and stopped at the visitors center to get the scoop on what to see here on the Upper Peninsula and the “mitten”. Fuel in Michigan is HIGH. Regular was $3.09-3.159 and Diesel is $3.07. We found somewhere to pull over in Bessemer and made lunch. In Wakefield we caught highway 28, the northern route across the peninsula. We took 64 south along the west shore of Lake Gogebic. Lake Gogebic is the UP’s largest inland lake. We are in the Ontonagon county park and it is lovely. Twelve dollars a night for just electrical hook-up, but the sites are spread out nicely and there are trees all around; we are in an open area so we could get a good satellite shot. We haven’t decided how long we will hang out here.

When we got here the clouds were building, it was 94 and humid. We were dripping wet by the time we got set-up. Lar doing the outside and me doing the inside. As the clouds kept building they blocked the sun so it cooled off a bit and we took a little walk to scope out the lake and campground and to put our money in the self-pay box. It had started to rain as we were walking back to the trailer. We got a really good hard rain for about a half hour after dinner. They are in drought here too, so the rain was welcome.

We lost another hour today. We are now in the Eastern Time zone. Pictures will get added later...hopefully.

Lake Superior Sunset 7-24

So beautiful, decided to post this right away!

Herbster, WI 7-24

This first picture was a couple hours before sunset.

Last night the bulk of the storm went past us. We did get a half inch of rain in an hour, and fortunately the winds didn’t get as bad as predicted. It was a beautiful show by Mother Nature. The sun glowed red through the clouds as it sank away over the horizon. The rain and wind made it hard to get a great picture. I took it through the window.

This morning we got up and it was 73 with 85% humidity, just a teeny bit damp. We walked around Herbster and then down a county road to a sawmill. Herbster seems to suffer an identity crisis, they are also known as the Town of Clover. There are a few little shops, a café, post office, fire dept., and a store/fuel station/laundry combination. They are suffering from drought here too. After our walk we did laundry at the Laundromat. It was very nice and was clean. We’ve been in some really BAD ones. It was $1.25 to wash and $.25 for 8 minutes on the dryer. Came home, put everything away and had breakfast.

The rest of the day we sat in the shade and enjoyed the cool breeze, the peace and quiet and read our books. We took walks along the beach and I now have a pile of Lake Superior rocks! For a huge lake there isn’t much activity on it. We saw a large barge heading west towards Duluth and a large sail boat, that’s about it. The sun has stayed out all day. We can see clouds north of here across the lake but they are staying up there today. I think we are going to move on tomorrow.


Thats our home in the middle, this was taken from the beach.

Here's a sad note, as we have traveled the country Larry will skim the crime blotters and in every state we have been in so far, meth-labs are the biggest problem.

Wisconsin 7-23

Today we were up and out early. We hit the road at 9:15 after hooking up and dumping the tanks. We took a county road to state highway 210 to I-35 to Duluth. There was a lookout over the harbor and looking out over Lake Superior. We never really planned to get as far north as the Great Lakes, so it is exciting to be here. Amazing that these huge bodies of water freeze in the winter and cars drive out to the islands on them.

We stopped in Superior, Wisconsin and had a late breakfast after getting visitor information at a visitor center. We noticed a change in the trees and the road kill. In Minnesota and the Dakotas we saw a lot of dead raccoons; here in WI we have seen about 6 dead porcupines already. There are a lot of aspens here too. The forests are really pretty. We are traveling highway 13 along the top of WI along Lake Superior’s shores. After traveling 164 miles we found a county park with campground in a little town called Herbster. We got in at 2:15. It is $17 for just electric, but that’s o.k. we have a full water tank and being camped across the street from the lake back off the highway is wonderful.

It was sunny, in the low 80’s and very humid when we got in, but a big cloud is moving in off the lake and it is cooling down fast. It is still humid though. We are under a thunderstorm watch right now, duh, just have to look outside at the HUGE black cloud over us and see the white caps forming on the lake and hear the thunder!

Gotta go have dinner….

Lazy Day 7-22

The highway was quiet last night, so sleeping wasn’t a problem. We got up and did our yoga, had breakfast and then walked to the lake to see what was happening. The water lilies had opened up for the day and there were people already swimming and boating.

We needed to go for a long walk. There hasn’t really been a place good for that since we left South Dakota. We walked across the highway to check out the gravel road there and it wound all around through some beautiful countryside, so we got in a good walk today. You can just tell you aren’t in the west anymore out here, even with all the trees it is just so flat. There are never any mountains hazing away in the distance. No matter where you are in the west there is always a big hill or a mountain, somewhere!

There is nothing to really explore around here so it is just a lazy day of doing not much. Those of you who haven’t mastered the art of relaxation would find our day boring! It is in the low 80’s today and a little humid, but the breeze and clouds scudding by are keeping it pleasant.

These last pictures were taken last night. Beautiful clouds!

Warba, MN 7-21

Today we were on the road by 9:30. We’d gone a little over an hour when we stopped at a campground we wanted to check out. It was beautiful, but had too many checks against it. There was road construction going on, so noisy, and the trees blocked any chance of getting a shot at the satellite, no blog, and the bugs were really annoying, so we’d end up inside, we moved on. There are lots of resorts around but they are all too pricey.

We traveled 111 miles today. We are in an American Legion campground in Warba, MN on Interstate 2 east of Grand Rapids. Pulled in at 12:15. We lucked out as we were able to get a satellite shot in one of the two spaces available. All the rest of the sites are reserved for a Good Sam Rally and a family reunion. Weekends are tough in the summer. The best thing to do is find somewhere on Thursday and settle until Sunday or Monday. If you have to move on Friday then you really need to try and get in early or the few spaces that are available are gone. It is $15 a day for elec. and water.

We are on a lake that is a little larger than the last one we were at. I am hoping to get a picture of a Loon, but no luck so far. They are loud when they are calling to each other. One popped up near us but my camera was turned off and he submerged again before it got up and running.

It is a lovely 81 here right now and mostly cloudy. Keeps it cooler!

Deep Cleaning Day 7-20

Today wasn’t getting as warm. Didn’t feel like it was going to get out of the low 70’s for awhile so it became: DEEP CLEANING DAY!

We started out with yoga, which for some reason was painful today. I was feeling about 10 years older, not what I want to be feeling as I get closer to the top of “the Hill”!!! We got through it though. Had breakfast and then got busy.

Had to boot Larry out of the house, but once I start cleaning he usually makes himself scarce anyways. We had been in such dusty places the last several months that it was time for every surface to get vacuumed, and wiped down; fabrics, walls, everything. I hate cleaning, but it is a necessary evil, I am always glad when I am done. I think all of you out there who clean because you like it or because it “relaxes” you, are NUTS! I can think of a lot more fun things to be doing with my time! Larry washed the truck and ran the generator and did some other stuff. I wasn’t paying attention. So now dinner is in the crockpot and we are spending the rest of the afternoon vegging.

Today’s pictures are of the white waterlilies that are in bloom on all the ponds around here right now and the cattails. The large lily picture is one of my photos that I altered in my software program to look very “arty”.

Flowers 7-19

Today we took our walk in Bemidji. Its the best way to see a town, driving just doesn't really let you get the feel. We enjoy admiring the different architectural styles of the homes and the landscaping. The town is right on Lake Bemidji and as we headed down the street along the lake an eagle swooped up out of no where. He was being chased by a smaller bird.

We fueled up, had lunch and picked up some groceries and then headed home. Overcast today but no rain. More humid today too.

These flowers are planted here in the campground. The red one is a poppy and the others are daylillies.

Hi, Aunt Millie. Have a great re-union. Don't work too hard! Tell everyone hello for us!

Mn., day two 7-18

Today was a lazy day. We did our yoga after we got up and that seemed to be it for the day.
We walked around the campground and I took pictures of the flowers that I found and a few of the lake. Tried to get some of the Loons, but they were too far out. They woke me up at some point during the night calling back and forth to each other, other than that it was nice and quiet here.


It cooled down into the upper 50's last night. Finally after two weeks of scorching heat, a cool night. It just gets into the low 80's here and for me, just right. Clouding up this afternoon, we have a chance of thunderstorms, we'll see what happens. Rain would be nice.

First day in Minnesota

This morning before we hit the road we took a walk around town. We love all the old houses in these old little towns; no track homes. We fueled up before leaving town and headed out around 10:30.

We traveled county road 200 into Minnesota. Farmland for quite awhile and then we started hitting the little lakes and forest. We traveled 144 miles today and are north of Bemidji, MN. It is on I-2 about one third of the way across the top of the state. We are in a RV park on Fox Lake. It looks like it’ll be quiet here. We were right on the highway last night, but didn’t hear it because we had the a/c on all night.

After we got set-up we just relaxed, we got in around 2 p.m. It was in the low 80’s here and not nearly as humid. It was nice to just feel the breeze blow through the trailer again. We took a little spin around the campground after dinner, but it doesn’t look like we’ll have anywhere to walk in the morning. The road doesn’t have a big enough shoulder. We might hang here a few nights to explore around. If you have a boat and/or like to fish this is the place to be; lakes, everywhere.

No pictures today, shocking I know!!! Nothing really inspired me.

Hillsboro, ND 7/16

Here is a picture of my new crackle glass. Pretty, aren't they? I've really done pretty good, I have only picked up 5 pieces altogether since we've been on the road. I have to make a point of staying out of the antique stores so I can resist temptation. The other three I have gotten were colors or shapes I didn't have yet, couldn't resist. Red and green seem to be the least common colors and amber the most prevalent. I love glass, that something so fragile is forged from sand and fire continually amazes me.

I hope this heat wave breaks soon. Last night at 10 P.M. we thought we would step outside of the a/c and enjoy the evening. It wasn’t dark yet and the clouds were pretty. Opened the door and it was like a sauna! Ninety-five still and 75% humidity!!! Ick, yuck, pewwie. It had rained about 30 giant raindrops so it smelled like wet grass and cows too. Needless to say we ran back inside! Had to sleep with the a/c on all night.

We got up and decided to skip our exercise. Got ready to go, drove over and dumped the tanks and hit the road. We drove along the county roads. Not much traffic, but also the other drawback to county roads is unless you run across a town there is no where to pull out if you want to stop for something. Never any where to stop for pictures unless I want to be a goober and just stop in the middle of the road. We have seen that a couple times, and we don’t really want to do that. There are a lot of little “roads” that the farmers use to get into their fields and we found one of those to back onto finally. Had to have our cereal and fruit!

We only went 120 miles today. Perfect day, I think. We left around 10 and got in here after 1:00. We are in Hillsboro on the eastern border of North Dakota halfway between Grand Forks and Fargo. Tomorrow we’ll be in Minnesota. They don’t expect this heat to let up until the end of the week and we’ll be farther east and who knows what we’ll get into?

Because we are this far north already we have decided that we are going to keep north and travel through northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and drop into Ohio from Michigan. We have had our fill of farmland for awhile. It has its own beauty but seems endless!

Have to share this: there were three kids doing something with a bucket of water and a hammer in the dirt across from our site. They were at the back of our trailer at one point and Larry asked what they were doing. They were using the water to flush squirrels out of their holes and then whacking them on the head with a hammer. Seemed like a pretty barbaric game to me, I know these ground squirrels are a nuisance, but hammer-whacking for sport? They would put the dead squirrels in a bucket and later in the evening they would dump them out in the middle of the field and then they would watch the foxes and coyotes come in to eat them. A form of chumming I guess. I figure the parents were happy as long as the kids were busy doing something! Nature expeditions?!

HOT! 7-15

Today was a sloowww, sluggish, melting, hot day! Not a breath of air moved all night. About daybreak the wind came up and was gusting; hot and windy are not a good combination!

Larry left for Lisbon around 9. We had a flat tire, picked up a nail somewhere. We had noticed last evening after we got home. He was back pretty quickly. We took a walk around 10 a.m., it was 83 degrees. At least the sun isn't as intense as it is in the southern states. It doesn't burn as quickly up here in the north. Larry had a project he worked on outside in the shade of a tree for a couple hours and then he did math tutoring for a couple of hours with Michelle on the phone. I read, worked on the computer, talked to a friend on the phone and that was our day! Whew, so much excitement!

The first picture is the terrain around here and this one at the bottom is Dead Colt Creek.

Valley City Family History 7/14

Today we went to Valley City to see if we could find the places where my grandparents/dad had lived and worked.

We had a load of laundry to do so we did that first. The laundry was in an old building in downtown VC. Washing machines back to back down the center and down the right wall were the big, industrial dryers. It was $1.25 to wash and .25 for 6 minutes, but it only took .75 to dry our clothes, because those dryers are HOT. The jeans were still damp, but they dried by the time we got back home.

So looking around the inside of the building I could tell it was old. High ceiling with the old raised tin panels and wood floor. I was thinking that my grandparents or father had probably been in this same building. We decided to take a walk while waiting for the wash and I had noticed an antique store on the corner that I wanted to check out, saved it for last. We walked all around and admired the old brick buildings and walked to and over the footbridge to the college. It sits across the Sheyenne River and there has been a foot bridge there since the late 1800’s to make access easier for the towns people. Went into the antique store, it had originally been a bank. Said bank on it in the bricks and the old vault was still there. I was on a mission to get a piece of crackle glass from Valley City for my collection. Sure enough there were several pieces, but I chose the two blue ones. As we were walking out into the foyer, I noticed the stairs that went up and thought they looked familiar, which I told myself was odd, cause I would have never seen them. I really felt like I wanted to go up those stairs, but we had to get back to the laundry. So we get our laundry finished and as we leave I take pictures of the buildings there in the block, including the antique store.

Next we go up Central Ave. to the Barnes County Museum. We figured someone there would be able to help us find the house my Dad’s family had lived in. We had surmised that the street names had been changed at some point, because there was no Helena E. Ave to be found. Sure enough around 1941 they had changed all the street names. So in talking to the curator, he pulled out all the old maps and directories from that period, and he was able to tell us where my grandfather had his offices. My Grandfather was a physician, so pretty easy to find. Now this is the chilly part, my grandfather had his offices upstairs in the building that we had just been in, the antique store! Isn’t that cool! I always like knowing that I’ve still got the “vibe”. He had moved his office to this location after becoming ill. In 1928 when he had come to Valley City to set up his practice his offices were in the “Foss Drug building”. They were there for up to 9 years. He was in the office above the old bank in 1937 on.

Also in 1928 Mercy Hospital was built. It was a lovely Spanish style building, and their house was across the street from the hospital. In the early 50’s the “old” hospital was redone and enlarged and we suspect the houses across the street were sold off or destroyed, because the few that are there aren’t of the right period. In another directory at the museum they had lived at another address in the early 30’s but we couldn’t find a match for that one either. We took pictures of both of his office buildings and I went upstairs in the antique store and looked around up there too. I didn’t take to many pictures cause it was just an antique store.

So it was an interesting day trying to piece together a puzzle from dim memories of stories only half listened to in the original telling. Most regrettably I might add. You just think you’ll never forget anything or that you have forever to ask those questions! NOT.