7/11 - Minnesota to Michigan

The drive down the coast highway from Grand Portage to Duluth was half the trip…..about 150 miles.  It’s a good road but has a lot of patched places which are bumpy.  We wondered yesterday driving up to Thunder Bay why Ontario’s road was so much smoother than Minnesota’s and had no patches on it.  We don’t have an answer for that, but we’re guessing that Ontario might allow a bigger budget for road maintenance and their road also undoubtedly has less traffic on it.

The haze was still over the lake but we could see clearly to the north.  I think what we saw in Thunder Bay yesterday was lake fog more than air pollution or smoke.  The hotter the days the more fog there’s going to be and yesterday was really hot by North Shore standards (85 degrees).  Some interesting facts about Lake Superior…..it is generally considered the largest freshwater lake in the world by area, containing 10 percent of the world’s fresh water.  (Some people consider lakes Michigan and Huron to be one lake which would make them the biggest.)  It’s the third largest by volume.  Temperature hovers around 40 degrees. Maximum depth is 1333 feet.  Maximum length 350 miles, maximum width 160 miles.  Thunder Bay, ON, to Sault Ste Marie, MI, which we will have driven between yesterday and Thursday, is about 600 miles.  That’s one big lake.

Somewhere around Beaver Bay, MN, we came upon two tunnels through the mountains next to Lake Superior which were quite a surprise.  I never would have thought there’d be tunnels next to the lake.  Very nice tunnels, too.

It’s Saturday so there was lots of activity in the little towns we went through.  It looked like everyone in town was out to enjoy the festivities several towns had going on.  There were also streams of vehicles towing boats going northeast.  Boating and fishing are really big business on the North Shore.

Saturday morning in Beaver Bay, MN.  

A vendor setting up his wares in a motel parking lot.  Texas longhorn skulls seemed rather out of place.

Hwy 61 is the only coast highway and is a divided four-lane for some distance approaching Duluth.  It suddenly goes down to two lanes and runs for about four miles through a residential neighborhood.  The houses are beautiful, becoming more mansion-like closer to Duluth with huge fancy gates.  That waterfront property must be extremely expensive.  Most of the neighborhood reminded us very much of the Grove Park area in Asheville.  It was probably built around the same time.

Duluth is the county seat of St. Louis County which goes almost all the way north to International Falls.  It is the second largest county in the country by land area east of the Mississippi.  (The largest is Aroostook County, Maine, where we’ll be next month.)  Voyageurs National Park is in the northwest corner of the county.  The city of Duluth has about the same population as Asheville (approximately 86,000) but its metropolitan area is over 131,000.  Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin, on opposite sides of the harbor, are called the Twin Ports.  Together they are the Great Lakes’ largest port shipping coal, grain and iron ore.

The terrain around Duluth is surprisingly hilly.

The Twin Ports is a huge shipping center with freighters traveling to and from the Atlantic via the Great Lakes Waterway and the St. Lawrence Seaway.  These buildings looked like grain elevators but they could be for anything.

I-535 bridge from Duluth to Superior, WI.

More grain elevators (I think) and a freighter on the Superior side of the harbor.  Whatever these buildings contain, there sure is a lot of it.

Ashland, Wisconsin, from Hwy 2 which runs along the waterfront.

Building in Ashland with a beautiful mural.  Unfortunately I got the traffic light pole right in the middle.  Photography from a moving vehicle means you take what you get.  There are no do-overs.

Main street down the middle of Ironwood, Michigan.  The road was torn up for at least a mile.  None of the residents on the torn up side could get to their driveways.  Of all the many road construction sites we came across today this was the only one with people working, possibly because of the terrible inconvenience to residents and businesses.

The Ashland, WI, waterfront (complete with reflection on windshield).  It’s about an hour east of Duluth.  Looks like a lovely place to live until you consider the winter weather which is extremely cold.  The norm is 106 days with the high under 32 degrees, 40 nights with the low at or under 0 degrees…..second in severity only to International Falls.  Summers are very pleasant though. 

We’re in the town park I mentioned last night.  Only three other campers here so no problem getting in.  Bruce Crossing is minuscule.  The park has a ballfield, a small playground, a basketball goal and the camping spaces.  Nice of the town to do this since regular campgrounds are a long way from here.  It takes quite a while to drive across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.  Tomorrow we finish the drive over to Grand Marais, back on the water.