Our time in Yooperland

Yoopers are folks who live in the UP. That is Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I know most anyone else already knows that bit of info but it was news to me. We have packed a bunch into the last couple days and I want to get a post done before we move on. When we stopped at the St Croix River visitor center near Trego the volunteers gave us a few very helpful suggestions for enjoying the UP. 

Our first night on Lake Superior was in the village of L'Anse. I was so excited to be at the Great Lakes I baked a crazy cake to celebrate. I was also pretty happy to be somewhere where it is cool enough to use the oven. The chairs hanging on the back of the bike carrier made a pretty good cooling rack.

Our next area to explore some of was the Pictured Rocks Nat'l Lakeshore. We made our base at Munising in a city operated campground. The lakeshore with a view of Grand Island is only a 100' away from the camper. We took a cruise/tour to see the lakeshore here are a few of those pictures:

The pictures don't begin to do the scenery justice. The cliffs are up to 200' high. The colors are created by minerals that seep out of the porous sandstone. We took the cruise Sunday late afternoon. 

After the cruise, we stopped for dinner at Muldoon's for a Pasty. A local meat pie, theirs was voted best in the UP plus Trip advisor gave them a good rating. Umm a tasty pastry filled with beef, potato, carrots and rutabaga. I ate it before I thought of taking a picture, so I apologize for there being no visual. 

A big thunderstorm with lots of rain came in about 3 am yesterday. It made everything very wet but also cleared out the sky so the rest of Monday was a beautiful day. We took an afternoon sea kayak trip to get up close to the shore rocks. 

Here is our guide, Haily with a young passenger. 

We were able to get right in close to the rocks and mini caves created by the wave action of the lake. 

Here is the inside view. 

This is the view from the other side. 

And this is the "bird's eye" from land later in the day. To be on the safe side we took our older iPhone 3 out in the kayak. 

I am not sure how I got this shot, but it is an interesting one!  After the kayaking in and out it Miner's Beach we decided it would be our best opportunity for a Superior dip. 

We both got in, but I stayed in a little longer than Dan. It was COLD but refreshing. 

We enjoyed a great sunset last night. 

While we were kayaking, our guide asked several of us "If you could go on an adventure anywhere in the world, what would it be?"  Dan's answer was that he is on it. How would you answer?

I will see you down the road...jb

Quick update for my non-FB readers

Just before we left Iowa I bought corn from a young woman who was selling it from her pick-up truck bed. I fixed it for lunch same day.  

Three reasons I know I am not in Oregon plus 1

Water tower painted like a corn cob (Waseca MN)

Camp ground bathroom is also a storm shelter. 

Fireflies!

There really aren't any in picture, but it was a pretty evening & I did see lots of fireflies. 

Screen shot from my phone shows 96% humidity- which does happen in Oregon but not when it is  72 degrees. 

We stopped for lunch near this beautiful church. It is the Holy Trinity Cathedral in New Ulm, MN

Today we will take a scenic drive along the Mississippi then cross to Wisconsin. 

What are you doing this weekend?

jb

My Other Nebraska Story

One of the pleasant routines of our life in a camper is morning coffee for me and tea for Dan. Almost always Dan is up first and he soon delivers a fresh pressed cup of coffee to me. All I drink is that one cup but I do really like that one cup. The morning we were in central Nebraska, at the Bessey campground, the glass part of my press broke. Uh oh... So began the challenge of finding a new press or a new way to make coffee. The first town we came to was Alliance, just south of the Carhenge. 

 The town had a cute downtown with a nice hardware store. We went there first. I prefer to support local businesses--the only press they had was really big. It's volume was over a liter, I bought it anyway. We continued to look in the only other local possibilities--Kmart & Shopko. They had the same size I had already bought but at a higher price. 

For the next couple days we made my coffee in the new big press, both a waste of space and a waste of coffee. When we got to Grand Island I did some more shopping. We checked several department stores as well as Bed Bath Beyond and Starbucks. All the stores had large presses, but nobody had a nice small just right size one. So our travels took us on to Lincoln, the big press worked but was not convenient. In Lincoln there are lots of retail options. We decided to give press shopping another shot and we were successful. 

Left one too big, middle broken, right- just right. 

I know this is an odd little side post. I think I am writing it because having to shop in unfamiliar places for a necessity as opposed to a souvenir is, at least for me, not much fun. 

This morning looks kind of stormy here in Iowa- I think we will be in Minnisota by nightfall. 

See you up the road. 

PS--we were pleased to find a Trader Joe's in Lincoln-I see chocolate croissants in my future. 

;-)

Something to Check Off of My Bucket List

Today I visited the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln. They house a collection of over 4000 quilts. On a typical visit you see only about 40. They regularly rotate shows. The three galleries I saw were: log cabin variations; quilts from kits 1915-1950; and new aquisitions. Here are a few of the ones that particularly impressed me. 

Court house quilt, a log cabin variation. 

Pineapple log cabin variation. 

This is a recent acquisition from Uzbekistan. 

This was my favorite. Here are some close ups fingers are for scale, they are 3"blocks. 

(I didn't touch, btw)

The quilt is an original design. It was the makers first quilt and it won 1st prize at Nebraska state fair in 2000. WOW

After Quilt House we visited the Nebraska capital. It dwarfs Oregon's that is for sure. We took an informative tour but I kept seeing potential quilt blocks where ever we went. 

Here are floor shots from the Saunders County Courthouse 

We spent time in the courthouse looking at records from Dan's great-grandfather's land purchases back in the 1880's. 

His name was Thompson Bissell, and he sounds like quite a guy. After we left the courthouse we drove to find some of the area or at least vicinity of where he lived. 

The land beyond the lower left corner of the sign was part of his ranch south of Ithaca. Later we went to the Homestead Monument south of Lincoln and saw a digital image of Thompson's sister-in-law, Sarah A Bissell's land claim. It is available online through a program called "Fold3.com". I did not realize homesteads were available as recently as 1987. 

We crossed the Missouri today. 

So now we are in Iowa. We are staying in county fair ground park in the town of Missouri Valley. We are trying to decide what route to take to New England. We prefer to avoid major metropolitan areas and freeways. We are very open to suggestions. 

Where is your next journey going to take you?

The Same and Not the Same

Hello from Nebraska. We are now further east than we have ever been by land. 

We had a beautiful few days traveling through the Sandhills. Our first night was at Ft Robinson state park. It is a large old army fort with some interesting history. In 1877 it was the sight of Crazy Horse's murder. During WWII there was a POW camp for Germans who had been captured in Africa. We explored the park on bicycles then came back to camp for dinner. In the evening there was a free rodeo so we rode bikes to see it. 

We only got to watch a bit of team calf roping before a thunder storm including a good bit of rain came in. That sent us scurrying on our bikes back to camp. They hold the rodeos every Thursday evening through the summer. There was a nice feeling of small town community there. 

Our next stop was Agate Fossil National Monument. We took a nice walk across the windy prairie to the sight of some special fossil finds; including skeletons of over 1600 predecessors of the rhinos who lived 19 million years ago. 

Next stop Scottsbluff, a major landmark on the Oregon Trail. While there we decided to splurge on dinner and a movie. We used Trip Advisor for restaurant recommendation and it did not disappoint. We ate at the #1 rated restaurant in Scottsbluff -- The Emporium Coffeehouse and restaurant. 

Steak with a blue cheese fritter mmmm

The movie we went to was The Giver. Also good, it was a strange sensation to get lost in a movie for a couple hours and step out of the theater and have to think for a few moments "Where am I?!"

That night we did the free thing of parking at a Walmart. The only good thing about it was the price. Too much light, noise and heat! Oh well, what do I expect for free! 

Here is something new-- Carhenge. As in stone henge but made out of cars. Who knows why! 

Tonight we are at the Saunders County Fairgrounds in Wahoo. The plan is to explore some of Dan's family history area. 

The weather is humid, more thunder storms are expected and I have bites from many different bugs than plain old Mosquitos ugh. Thank goodness for air conditioning!

I do like the sunflowers though, they make me smile.  What made you smile today?

jb

Rushmore Drive-by

We have spent 4 nights in South Dakota so far. We opted out of visiting Mt Rushmore because we were there last September and we figured we could skip the experience of the summer time crowds. 

We did at least pull in for the Washington profile view though. 

While here we took the camper off of the truck so we could navigate the narrow tunnels in Custer State Park. There was not any place to park so I snapped a few "through the wind shield" photos. 

These sort of show the idea. The scary thing to us was just after we passed the longest tunnel we encountered two tour busses on coming. Seemed crazy! It is a neat drive, quite an engineering feat. A couple of the tunnels are designed so as you emerge a view of Mt Rushmore is framed. 

The last two mornings we have riden on the Michelson Bike Trail. The whole trail is 110 miles. We just did about 10 miles each day, riding out and back from Hill City one direction each day. It was a nice place to start because the trail goes up from town both ways so we always had a downhill run back to our starting point. So why is it called "Hill City"? The trail is a nice surface, fine/firm gravel. 

It looks like hops grow wild here. I wonder if local beer makers harvest them. 

jb