Northern Woods of Wisconsin/Minnesota

Here are a few pictures at our campsite. A pine tree, loaded with cones, that we had to deal with in relation to our door and DR/LR slide. But it's so pretty, we just stopped short of it and moved the picnic table. There's a robin's nest with two babies just getting their feathers. And what a sunset! Add the delightful temps and no humidity and it's close to ideal. Also, there is no traffic in Duluth. We've gone over the river on the expressway several times and there is never traffic. This morning at 10:30 there weren't five cars all at the same time counting both directions. Oh how I'll miss all this back in Houston.





Monday we took a quick trip to the Duluth Downtown Waterfront District and visited the Maritime Visitor Center. We saw a couple films and toured the museum area. Ted always wants to drive!


This is the Aerial Lift Bridge. The bottom section raises up to allow ships through and then goes back down and traffic resumes crossing it. We hoped to see an ore carrier come through but no luck.


The next day we went back and walked through Bayfront Park to get to the Wm. A. Irvin retired ore carrier for a tour. Mr. Irvin was the fourth president of U.S. Steel. This carrier is 610 feet long and 60 feet wide. However, the newer carriers are 1,000 feet long, carry three times as much cargo using less men, does not use coal as fuel and can complete a run in four days versus the Irwin's seven days. It just wasn't cost effective to keep it running. This picture faces the pilot house, the next one faces the front and shows the covered hatches where ore is loaded into the hold of the ship.



We saw the engine room, crew quarters, galley, mess hall and the captain's area. We also saw the four staterooms on board for VIPs and their spouses. These were men important to the shipping industry - mine owners, bankers, etc. They received free passage on a week long Lake Superior cruise and received treatment much like an ocean cruise today - waiters, food, drinks, etc. Some things never change. We had to climb 18 steep iron stairways during the tour.


Our tour ticket gave us entry into the IMAX theater where we saw Stormchasers. It's the first time one of these type of films made me queasy. I must be getting old.

Today we chose to drive Scenic Hwy. 61 to Two Harbors, MN and Gooseberry State Park. We visited Lighthouse Point and walked out on the breakwall to the old lighthouse. We were across from the ore loaders and they said a ship would be in that afternoon.




We had lunch in town then drove to Gooseberry State Park to see the falls. There were upper, middle and lower falls. The water levels were down which allowed us to walk around the base of the middle falls.




We watched a film about Lake Superior in the Visitor's Center (Lake Superior contains 10% of the world's fresh water). It was well done and informative.

We then returned to Two Harbors to wait for the ore carrier to come in. It was fascinating to watch the captain park this huge ship right up to the loaders.








We stopped for fuel since we're heading out tomorrow and also bought 3# of wild rice. Ted used to bring it home from Winnipeg when he traveled to the Pine Falls mill. It's hard to find plain wild rice. Some of the Uncle Ben boxes have some mixed in it but I use plain wild rice for my recipe.

Tomorrow we head south for the first time since May. Next stop - Wisconsin Dells. I'm not real sure what we'll find but since we're driving past, we may as well stop.