7/31 - Red Lake Falls

There's no free wifi anywhere around so we're having to rely entirely on our Verizon hotspot. Although we've got an unlimited data plan, Verizon will slow our data speed once we hit 22GB which will happen very shortly. We're almost at the limit with 3 1/2 days still to go on this cycle.

We're in Red Lake Falls for genealogy research so there's nothing much to report anyway. I'll post an update for the week once we get to our next place on Friday and start on the next month's data allowance.

7/28 & 7/29 - Cass Lake and a day off

We never made it out of the campground on Thursday. Got bogged down with housework and, before we knew it, it was too late to go anywhere.  

Yesterday (Friday) we got ourselves in gear and headed over to the museum in Cass Lake, 30 miles from the campground. I wanted to see what Cass Lake was like in the period from 1898 to 1910 when my father's uncle and aunt lived there. They married in 1898, the year the Great Northern Railroad was built across northern Minnesota with a depot at the town of Cass Lake.  Uncle H.D. no doubt saw a good business opportunity for a 24-year-old who didn't want to become a farmer like his father. He became the Indian agent in Cass Lake and opened a general store. Since Cass Lake is the central point for several reservations, he was probably very busy. 

Cass Lake street, a block back from the railroad in 1898 when the railroad arrived 

The town grew to over 1,500 people after this with lots of stores and services and nice buildings, but I can't imagine moving to this from a well-established town as an 18-year-old bride. Aunt Lydia was a brave young woman.

Cass Lake's Great Northern depot in 1906

Cass Lake Museum in the Soo Line Depot today

The museum is located in one of only three remaining original Soo Line depots in Minnesota. The tracks used to run right in front of it, of course, but they were taken up within the last 20 years so the main highway could be straightened and improved.

The economy here revolved around the logging industry as it did throughout the whole area. Lyle Chisholm, a local man who had been a logger all of his life, built a replica logging camp across the street from the railroad depot where the museum is now located. He wanted to show people what real logging camps were like so everything is exactly right. Both the logging camp and the museum were extremely interesting.

Lyle built everything himself and did a wonderful job. He had plans for one additional building but, before he could get it started, he and his daughter were killed in a car accident within a block of the museum. He was 87 and perhaps didn't see too well because he pulled out on the main highway in front of a big truck. 

Can you imagine having a team of horses pull a load like this? This is how logs were moved but normal loads weren't this big. This particular load, at Pine Island, MN, in 1909, set a record:  50,580 board feet, 250 tons, 9 rail car loads, for 15 miles pulled by six horses. If logs couldn't be rolled or dragged into a river, they could only be moved in winter when the roads could be iced. Heavy water tanks were built on sleighs to keep the ruts iced so the massive loads could pass over them.

Lumber barons stripped the northern forests by the early 1900's. Destruction wrought by their greed and shortsightedness is still taking its toll today in many ways, especially in the Great Lakes fishing industry. When the lumber industry collapsed many people were put out of work and towns declined or disappeared. Much of my extended Minnesota family moved to Yakima, Washington, to work for Boise Cascade. As Uncle H.D.'s customers left, he also moved to Yakima where he opened another general store which kept going for decades.

After finishing at the museum and eating a very good lunch of walleye fingers at the Stony Point Resort, we went back to Bemidji to find Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, characters from American folklore. These statues have been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1988 and, according to the Kodak Company, are "the second most photographed statues in the United States, behind only Mount Rushmore."

Paul Bunyan and Babe are impressively large

The statues were originally part of a winter festival put on by the town of Bemidji in 1937 in an effort to stimulate tourism during the Depression. They now reside at the Bemidji visitors center and are still drawing tourists.

Lake Bemidji from the visitors center 

The Mississippi River runs through Lake Bemidji. The city of Bemidji advertises itself as the "First City on the Mississippi."

We ran out of time and energy and never made it to the Beltrami County Museum. The Cass Lake Museum had so much information we probably didn't miss anything.

Today (Saturday) the only place we went was the picnic area and canoe launch for LaSalle Lake Recreation Area which is about a mile drive from the campground.

LaSalle Lake fishing dock

LaSalle Lake is only 1.5 miles long. There's a 10 mph speed limit on it which discourages boats of any size. Besides that, the boat launch area is unsuitable for anything larger than a canoe or kayak. A few people were out in power boats but they were small ones. It's a very peaceful place but there's no place to sit other than on the dock itself which had two families fishing off it. This recreation area is a rather strange set-up.....campground too far from the lake to walk to comfortably, an inadequate and inconvenient boat launch ramp, and the picnic pavilion way up hill from the lake (and a mile from the campground).  

Tomorrow we're moving to Red Lake Falls which is only 80 miles away.  

7/26 - Itasca State Park and the Mississippi

The weather today has been spectacular....clear blue skies, a cool breeze and upper 70's with comfortable humidity. Perfect! It made for a great day to visit Itasca State Park, home of the headwaters of the Mississippi River. The park is only ten miles from our campground.


To start things off we missed the turn to the actual headwaters. By the time we were sure we'd missed it we were half way to the visitors center at the other end of the lake so we just kept going. Itasca isn't a large lake so it wasn't a big deal. After making our rounds of the visitors center's displays and getting more than our fill of screaming children, it was time for lunch. We found the nearby restaurant at the Douglas Lodge which is right on the lake, waited our turn (about 25 minutes) and got a table with a slight view of the lake through the woods. (There's not much of a view of the lake from any point except hiking trails because of the dense woods.)

Douglas Lodge and Restaurant 

The food was good but overpriced (they have a captive audience with no other choices) and there was another crop of screaming children to be endured. Between the children, the extremely loud group of adults next to us and the clattering and banging of tables being cleared, it was a great relief to get back outside with peace and quiet. The older we get the more we hate excessive noise.

Next up was returning to the north end of the lake to find the actual headwaters. This time we were successful. The paved path from the parking lot to the site is only 800 feet long so it's very easy to get to. 

Headwaters marker several decades ago

New headwaters marker today, similar but not the same one

Water leaving Lake Itasca to form the infant Mississippi

A lot of people looked for the real source of the Mississippi for many years. There were five incorrect identifications before the real source was finally found by a European-American. It could have been found the first time around if anyone had bothered to ask the Ojibwe where it was. This was their land and they knew exactly where it was all along. They didn't attach any significance to it, though, believing that the river itself was the important thing, not its source.

 Jim crossing the 18-foot wide Mississippi by foot-bridge

Val walking through the Mississippi (with shoes on)

More of a creek than a river, definitely not even 18-feet wide here

I always thought the name Itasca must be an Indian word. Not so. The real source of the name is much more interesting. From the Itasca State Park website: In 1832, Anishinabe guide Ozawindib led explorer Henry Rowe Schoolcraft to the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca. It was on this journey that Schoolcraft, with the help of an educated missionary companion, created the name Itasca from the Latin words for "truth" and "head" by linking adjoining syllables: verITAS CAput, meaning "true head." 

As Schoolcraft got older and became very knowledgeable about Ojibwe culture he regretted using Latin words to name the lake but it was too late to change it.

Tomorrow we'll check out the museums in Bemidji and the tiny town of Cass Lake.

7/24 - LaSalle Lake Recreation Area and more repairs

After I posted yesterday's blog we had a bit of a sunset.  It wasn't spectacular but there have been so few on this trip it deserves to be seen.

Also deserving is this one of the Canada geese gathering at dusk. No matter how often people chase the geese away, they keep coming back and are multiplying each year. We were told each goose deposits 2 1/2 pounds a day which makes a real mess of things. 


Today we had a very nice 160 mile drive to LaSalle Lake State Recreation Area. On the way, we crossed the St. Louis River which meanders southeast to divide Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin. It's considerably smaller here.

 St Louis River 20 miles northwest of Duluth and Superior

The only town we went through which was of any size was Grand Rapids with a population of 11,211. It's about the size of Boone, NC, but Boone looks bigger (maybe because it doubles in size during the school year when Appalachian State's students are in town). Grand Rapids was founded as a logging town in the late 1800's, the northern-most point reachable by steamboats on the Mississippi River.  The rapids for which the town was named were a barrier to further river transport. They no longer exist because they've been under the Blandin Paper Mill's dam for over 100 years.

Grand Rapids, Minnesota

A number of notable people were born in Grand Rapids. Other than sports stars, the most famous was Judy Garland who was born here in 1922 as Frances Ethel Gumm. There's a Judy Garland Museum in town.

Our campground is truly out in the middle of nowhere, about 30 minutes from Bemidji, a town of around 14,000. Bemidji is the central hub of three Indian reservations (Red Lake, White Earth and Leech Lake). We'll be going into Bemidji tomorrow to do laundry and get the truck's oil changed. 

Our site was really difficult to get into. The campground's road along with the site pad itself are very narrow with trees close to the pad, a tree and pole at the entrance to the site, and a ditch on the side of the road across from the site which was impossible to avoid. Jim had to use 4WD to get out of the ditch but that made the truck and RV much harder to turn. He did a masterful job of getting into the site without hitting anything which was miraculous because our walkie-talkies failed to work right at that point so I didn't know he couldn't hear me screaming at him to stop. There was no way to get the RV positioned so we could use our awning without rolling up tree branches in it when putting it away but at least we can move our chairs to the shade under the offending tree. One good thing about this place is that it has excellent wifi....at least so far....so we can give the hotspot a rest for a few days.

Tree branches in the awning and very unlevel site

As soon as we got set up we discovered the water pressure out of the kitchen faucet was barely a trickle. Jim worked on it for two hours without being able to find the problem. It's going to be necessary for him to get behind the wall in the basement to troubleshoot further which means unloading everything stored down there. We've decided the trickle will have to do for the rest of the trip because unloading the basement right now is not an option. At least the water pressure in the bathroom is normal so showers don't have to be taken at the campground's bath house.

Tomorrow we'll see Bemidji, the laundromat and the oil change business.

7/23 - Duluth - Great Lakes Aquarium

Our final day in Duluth and we made it to the Great Lakes Aquarium. The weather turned gray again for most of the day (although it cleared around 5:00 pm) so it was a good thing we got to see the harbor area yesterday.  


Duluth is built on a steep hill going north from the lake and there's a great view as one goes down to the harbor. I didn't turn the camera on until right as I needed it and then found the memory card had got locked accidentally when I put it back in yesterday. Couldn't get it unlocked in time so the view went unrecorded. Rats.


We made it to the aquarium and discovered a much better view of the lift bridge than what we had yesterday at Canal Park. I know I posted pictures of it yesterday but these are better so here are two more.

 Lift bridge half up for one of the many Vista Harbor Cruise boats

Lift bridge at street level for vehicles and pedestrians with two-story buildings to the right to give an idea of the size of the bridge.

Inside the aquarium there were lots of tanks and more displays than we could absorb. We didn't miss a live display but there was no way to get through all the written ones. 

A few of the highlights....

 Living coral tank.....at least they didn't move around so the picture wasn't blurry like the ones I took of the fish.

Beautiful moon jellies.....no bones, no brains, no hearts.

Placoderm fossil - armored fish

The placoderm is worth noting. It lived between 416 and 359 million years ago. This is a life-size cast of the actual fossil which was found in Ohio. To put it in perspective, the full size of this fish was about 30 to 40 feet long. The information board next to it has an outline of the fish next to a human which can be seen in the picture. The teeth are actually sharpened sections of jawbone. It truly deserves the designation of sea-monster.

There was a lot of fascinating information about lakes, both the Great Lakes and those found all over the world, as well as the world's water situation, however, none of it lends itself to blog-posting. I'll just say that the aquarium was very interesting and I'm definitely glad we were able to see it.

One final picture of the Duluth business district and skyline to the north

It's hard to tell from pictures how high and steep the hillside is to the north of downtown. The main business district is at the bottom where there's a bit of flat land but it, too, is creeping up the hill. The hillside beyond is covered with houses from one end of the city to the other. At the top it levels out; the hillside isn't a mountain with slopes on each side. The city has spread north for several miles along the relatively flat area beyond. We're staying about 15 miles north in Saginaw (Minnesota, not Michigan). 

I really like Duluth and would love to spend more time here, but tomorrow we're moving 155 miles west to LaSalle Lake State Recreation Area which is about 20 miles southwest of Bemidji. The GPS refused to locate it until I got the coordinates off google maps. Good thing we've got a variety of electronic devices at our disposal (as well as a good old paper map). One can never have too many maps, especially when hauling something as hard to turn around as a 38' fifth wheel.

7/21 and 7/22 - Repairs and Duluth's Canal Park

Yesterday wasn't one to make a blog post out of.  We spent the entire day trying to find the parts necessary for Jim to repair the water heater which had fried its thermostat, possibly because of a power surge. We got a new thermostat without any trouble at an RV dealer about 8 miles away but then spent hours (and another 36 miles) going nine places trying to find a wire connector which would work. We finally went back to the RV dealer and got a thermostat kit (which we didn't know they had on our first visit) which included the L-shaped connectors for an additional $16. Paying so much for wire connectors which come ten to a bag for $.99 made Jim so mad he jerry-rigged what he had and made it work. The kit went back to the dealer today for a refund, at which time we found out it was supposed to have both electric and propane thermostats in it which justified the extra price. The gas thermostat was missing so we would never have figured it out. We were very happy to end up with hot water but all the running around ate up the whole day so nothing else got done.

The only thing worth taking a picture of yesterday was the storm which hit us in the evening.  Heard on the news tonight that it had 70 mph wind gusts and did some damage around the area. We had a lot of wind and heavy rain but nothing as high as 70. We saw it coming and got the awning rolled up and the outside stuff put away just in time.

Today Jim finally got to fish out of his boat for a few hours. He did catch a few things but got more grass than fish.  He's decided not to go back out on this little lake because it's so shallow the entire bottom is covered in plants and constantly de-grassing his lure isn't much fun.  

The weather today improved tremendously so we headed down to Canal Park this afternoon to see the waterfront and a departing ore carrier.  The shipping schedule is online so everyone can find out when ships are coming and going.  Watching them go under the lift bridge is a big tourist draw and is billed as something you HAVE to do when in Duluth.  

Going down the hill to the harbor gives a great view of the docks and numerous bulk storage facilities. These are built to fit the ships....or the ships are built to fit the storage buildings.....not sure which, but they fit together perfectly. Loading and unloading ships is a fine art which has been mastered by inventors and builders. We don't know what the building in the picture stores but it could be any one of the many products produced in the mid-west and transported by these ships - taconite pellets (iron ore) going to the steel mills, bentonite clay, coal, limestone, wheat and more.  Lots of other things get shipped out of here but aren't in the bulk storage buildings. One of the things I read about was wind-turbine bases (support poles) being shipped in from Spain with wind-turbine blades being sent back to Spain from the U.S.  

Aerial Lift Bridge from street level

Aerial Lift Bridge halfway up to let sailboat and tourist cruise boat through

Mesabi Minor, 1004' laker, going under the lift bridge which was fully raised (135')

Mesabi Minor entering Lake Superior from the canal

It was quite a coincidence that the one ship we were able to see going under the lift bridge was the same one I got so many pictures of as it was going south by our campground in the Soo on July 7th.  Once again, it's carrying iron ore pellets.

View of Duluth from Canal Park

Canal Park is a wonderful place with all sorts of activities and restaurants. Being Saturday afternoon it was packed with people and vehicles. There are lots of surface parking lots with pay-by-credit-card machines so it was fairly easy to deal with. We were lucky to find an open handicapped space near the Lake Superior Maritime Museum where we looked at the exhibits for an hour while waiting for the Mesabi Minor to make her appearance. 

Duluth and Superior, Wisconsin, are called the Twin Ports. Ships can go in one end and come out the other, or use only one. It depends on where they're unloading and re-loading. There are docks and bulk storage and railroads from one end to the other.

Duluth's business waterfront

Here's the view of the waterfront business district from where we were stuck in traffic leaving Canal Park. This is a very attractive city. Its population is around 87,000 so it's not too big. Average temperatures are below freezing for Jan-Feb-March with January's average high being 19 and average low 2. Summer weather is great, though, with average highs being in the mid-70's in July and August. They pay for it in the winter.  

Tomorrow is our last day here. Barring any more catastrophes with the water heater (or something else), we're going back down to the waterfront area to visit the Great Lakes Aquarium.

7/20 - Duluth - Skyline Parkway

The weather looked much better today so we thought we'd be safe trying the Skyline Parkway drive to see the view. Unfortunately, the smoke from the Northwest fires is still in the area and was lying in a thick blanket over the harbor and lake. The views would be spectacular without the smoke. 

Duluth harbor 

St Louis River

The St. Louis River enters Lake Superior through Duluth harbor. It forms the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota for about 15 miles west at which point the border heads south in a straight line. Both these pictures show how much the views are obscured by smoke.

We continued along Skyline Parkway to Enger Park, a popular local attraction. At the top of the park is Enger Tower which has an outstanding view. It was dedicated to Bert Enger (1864-1931), one of Duluth's most notable citizens, by Crown Prince Olaf of Norway in 1939. Enger was a Norwegian immigrant who started as a common laborer and became a very successful merchant. By a very generous gift, he enabled the city of Duluth to develop the park on land surrounding the tower. When he died he left two thirds of his estate to the people of Duluth.

Enger Tower

Japanese gardens in Enger Park

Gardens in Enger Park

We continued along Skyline Parkway until it abruptly ended. The scenic drive continued after this point but we couldn't determine exactly where it was. By that time we were ready to give up on the smoky views anyway. Besides that, we were getting hungry and that takes precedence over everything else.

Duluth houses, one with multi-decks

We had to wander around neighborhoods to get back to where we needed to be. The houses in the picture above are typical of some of the neighborhoods but certainly not all. The interesting thing about this group is the house that has three tiers of decks built on and around it. You can hardly see the house for the decks. The owner has a lot of maintenance to do to keep that wood in good shape. He's also going to have a problem painting the house when the time comes.

We had a delicious lunch at Olive Garden, got groceries at Walmart and headed home. I then took Lovie for a walk and her retractable leash broke. Not having a spare leash of any kind made it mandatory to go the nine miles back to Walmart for a new one. The trip turned out to have a silver lining because we'd been wanting cherries and found them the second time around. We didn't see them the first time because they weren't on the list. If things aren't on the list they become invisible even if we've been talking about them just minutes before. 

Jim put the boats together while I went back to Walmart, in spite of the heat which nearly did him in. It was upper 80's and he had to work in the sun. Temperatures are supposed to be much lower over the next few days but may be accompanied by rain. We'll appreciate anything cooler, rain or no rain.

7/18 and 7/19 - Duluth - Glensheen

Yesterday's 183-mile drive from Ontonagon to Duluth was good (as in no traffic) but turned rainy at the mid-point. There were cloud-bursts so heavy we could barely see but they didn't last long. The rain was so hard it washed a lot of the red dirt off the truck and RV which was appreciated. 

Crossing Duluth Harbor from Superior, Wisconsin

The rain didn't make for good pictures. This is the only one that wasn't just a blur of water. The harbor area is very industrial with freighters loading and unloading. It's the only port at the western end of Lake Superior and is very busy. 

Sunny evening at the campground with the locals

Judging by the deposits around the area, these geese are regulars here. Walking around the little lake is like going through a mine field.  The campground has several small lakes (or large ponds....at which point does a pond change to a lake?) so Jim is getting to fish a bit. His first cast with one of his new outfits caught a decent-sized pike. 


On our way to our destination for the day we went to a great little restaurant and had a wonderful lunch of gravlax, a Scandinavian specialty of raw salmon cured with salt, sugar, dill and other spices. Gravlax is very expensive by mail order so we'll have to learn to make it if we can find the right salmon. 


Today's outing was to tour the Glensheen Estate which was built on Lake Superior by one of Duluth's elite of the early 1900's. Chester Congdon was a lawyer with extensive business interests....iron ore mining, copper mining both here and in Arizona, gold mining, banking and various other endeavors. He started building the estate in 1905 and moved into it with his wife Sarah and their seven children in 1908. Chester died of pleurisy in 1916 at the age of 63. Sarah and her youngest daughter lived at Glensheen for the rest of their lives. The estate is now owned by the University of Minnesota-Duluth and is open to the public year-round for tours.

Front of the mansion

Mansion's lake side with fountain carved from a single block of white marble

Formal gardens on lake side

Carriage house and vegetable garden

Breakfast room overlooking the lake

The weather today was warm and dry, but haze from the wildfires in the Northwest made the lake barely visible. The view from the house would be outstanding under normal conditions.

Glensheen was built about ten years after the Biltmore Estate, during the same era as the Grove Park Inn. Driving to Glensheen we saw neighborhoods that reminded us very much of the Grove Park area of Asheville. The hills on the Minnesota side of the lake are also rather like Asheville. It's a lovely area.

Tomorrow's outing will depend on the haze. We need a clear day to do the Skyline scenic drive which has excellent views of the city and lake. The sky has cleared this evening but we're about 15 miles northwest of the Duluth waterfront so what we have here may not be the same as at the lake.

7/17 - North to Copper Harbor

Yesterday I said today's activities would be a surprise. The surprise is that we drove back up the peninsula 100 miles to Copper Harbor. I was trying to spare Jim the 200-mile drive so was prepared to do something around Ontonagon, but he pointed out that it is unlikely we'll ever get back up here so we should do Copper Harbor in spite of the distance. It was worth the drive. We have now been from the bottom of Michigan to the top.


Before I get on with today's drive, here's a bit more information about the Porkies since I have this picture of them from our campground.

A long-distance shot of the Porkies

How many people know Michigan has MOUNTAINS?  We didn't before this trip but we sure do now.  The popular Porkies ski area has 19 trails covering 11 miles and 100 acres. With nearly 200 inches of snow a year there are endless opportunities for winter fun. It's a whole lot more fun to live up here in the winter than in NC. All you have to do is put up with an average high of under 30 and average low of under 15 for three months, plus the blasts of wintery wind off the lake. In exchange you've got all the winter sports you could ever want.

Now, to get on with today.....copper is a really big deal around here. The Keweenaw Peninsula is called Copper Country for good reason. It has the largest deposits of native copper in the world. (Native copper is an uncombined form of copper which occurs as a natural mineral.) In spite of the millions of tons of copper removed by mining on the peninsula, there is still a huge amount left. As long as open-pit mining is so much cheaper, extraction of Keweenaw copper will not be cost-effective. 

The upper Keweenaw is made up of ridges and valleys scoured out by glaciers. (They are very visible on Google satellite....look up Copper Harbor to see the terrain.) We drove up the west side of the peninsula, through Eagle River (very little there) and Eagle Harbor which is a lovely little village. The area is supported by tourism and winter sports with a smattering of commercial fishing thrown in.

Holy Transfiguration Skete Society of St. John

It was quite a surprise to find this magnificent building on the lake between Eagle River and Eagle Harbor.  We thought it must be an Eastern Orthodox church (wonder why?) and couldn't figure out where the parking was for the congregation or why there were no signs out front with its name. I found it on the internet and discovered it isn't a church at all; it's a monastery belonging to the Skete Society of St. John, an Eastern Christian group. It certainly is beautiful.

Next up the coast was Eagle Harbor, a lovely little village.

Eagle Harbor Lighthouse

We got right up to the lighthouse but found no way to get a good picture of it until we left town.  

Eagle Harbor Lighthouse from north of the village

This is a really striking scene with the bright red lighthouse standing out across the bay.

As a result of my reading TripAdvisor, we took a detour to get to Copper Harbor by going up Brockway Mountain Road. The reviews just talked about the view, not about the road itself. It was paved but very narrow and extremely rough, not something anyone should try in an RV or pulling a trailer or with cats in their vehicle. (Fortunately for our cats, they were comfortably immobile back in the RV.)  After driving about five miles and wondering if the end result would be worth it, we reached the overlook at the top and discovered it was really spectacular.

 Lake Superior from the Brockway Mountain overlook

Lake Superior, little Lake Bailey and one of the Keweenaw ridges

We started driving down to Copper Harbor and found the road to be even worse. In addition to being narrow and very rough, it went up and down like a roller coaster. Seriously up and down. Coming from mountains it wasn't a big deal to us but we could only imagine the horror of the flatland touristers who had never encountered such grades and curves. And all this in MICHIGAN.

Copper Harbor and Lake Fanny Hooe (on right) from Brockway Mountain Road

Copper Harbor is a natural refuge for ships and became the area's port when the copper boom started in the 1840's. It brought in men and supplies and carried out copper until other methods came along. A lot of miners came from Europe, particularly Finland. Hancock (across from Houghton) has been called the "focal point of Finns in the United States."  Finlandia University is located there.

Tamarack Inn Restaurant, Copper Harbor

By the time we got down the roller coaster and into Copper Harbor it was past time for lunch. Although this tiny town lives on tourism, there aren't many restaurants. We got lucky and found one that wasn't packed (until after we'd been there a few minutes). The food was good and service was cheerful so what more could we want?

After lunch we were going to check out Fort Wilkins which was built to protect the mining industry from Indian attack only to find the Indians weren't interested and never bothered. The fort is still there and is now a state park. When we got there we decided to skip it and head for home since we had another 100 miles to drive and needed to get fuel and a few groceries on the way. 

We did stop at the Quincy Mine again on our way south because they had a very handy restroom. There's no such thing as rest areas along these country roads.

While stopped at the mine I took this close-up of one of the buildings to show the interesting red and white patterns in the limestone which was used to build so many places in Copper Country.

The rest of our drive was uneventful. We filled up with diesel at the only Walmart for over 100 miles (in Houghton) and got our groceries in the local chain (Pat's Foods) in Ontonagon. Everything is in order for our move west tomorrow to Saginaw, Minnesota, a short distance past Duluth.