The Road and The Apostle Islands

On our way to Ashland, Wisconsin, we did a couple of annoying things.  One, we let Carmen, our Garmin, lead us into a park.  She showed a road going through the park and back onto a major thoroughfare.  The park in all of its infinite wisdom, closed the road to through traffic and is only open to foot traffic!  So, we unhitched the car to make the sharp turnaround in the parking lot.  And after 15 minutes, we were back on track.  However, it was a very pretty park that provided Rick with a leg break!  Carmen was not done with us....our next stop was to be a museum and another opportunity to stretch our legs and learn about the local ironworkers.  This museum was mentioned in one of our guidebooks, "Off the Beaten Path."  After circling around the block twice, we decided to continue our journey.  No museum at the address given in the guidebook.  Maybe our guidebook was truly off!!  In any case, we made our way to Ashland, Wisconsin to Kreher Campground, which is a city park located right on Lake Superior.  No icebergs here!

Next morning with filled with bright sunshine and no icebergs!  So, we headed to Bayfield for a cruise to see the Apostle Islands.  There are 20 islands, which is more than the original 12 (perhaps someone couldn't count?).  Anyway, the cruise was thoroughly enjoyable.  A few icebergs in the inner bay, but none in the channels in and around the islands.  Everyone has told us that this winter had been the longest, coldest winter in about 40 years!  One little old lady even told us that Lake Michigan froze solid for the first time in 48 years!  BRRR!!!  Glad we winter in the desert.

While on the cruise, we saw a bald eagle on an iceberg, just waiting for those fishies!  Lots of gulls and cormorants, too.  Just a spectacular day for cruising.

One of the prettiest sights are the Sea Caves on Devil's Island.  The Native Americans called it The Land of Evil Spirits.  The wind and water make strange low moaning sounds at the Sea Caves.  No wonder people called it Devil's Island.

The lighthouse on Raspberry Island is being preserved by the National Parks.  It's a beauty!

This is Captain Jack saying farewell and calm seas until we meet again!


















We also visited the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center.  What a treat this place is!  They have a wonderful exhibit and movie plus a boardwalk.  Upstairs is a huge mural, covering 3 walls, depicting the area and people through time.  To help raise funds, local people paid money to have their faces used in mural.  The young park ranger at the front desk has an uncle and great aunt depicted in the mural as Ojibway peoples of not too long ago.  We lost a couple of hours inside the visitor center!  A must stop and see place!

Asphalt & Lake Tours

A bit breezy and brisk this morning as we started our road trip to Garden, Michigan.  Just outside of Garden is Fayette State Historic Park.  Back in the 1880's, Fayette was known as a company town producing iron.  The State Park finally bought Fayette in 1957 to preserve the buildings and land.
 

This is a shot of the foundry works which sits next to the water.  Ships used to dock directly in front of the foundry to load pig iron and then sail to ports in lower Michigan.  This town survived  in this industry for 20 years then became just a resort town before the State Park made the purchase.  

After touring the remains of Fayette, we hit the road again.  On the quest to see the famous Pictured Rocks from the lake.  We drove back to Munising and purchased our tickets.  The tickets were only half price since we would only be seeing The Castle due to all the icebergs still in the lake!  We decided to go anyway; the sun was shining and the wind very calm.

As with all cruises, we start with safety!  This is one of our guides on the boat demonstrating how to choke yourself with a lifevest.  

This is pretty much what we saw on our cruise.  We were not able to make the Castle due to the ice pack!  According to the crew, this is really unusual for the ice to last this long.  The cruise company did refund our tickets.  This means that the Pictured Rocks are on the "Come Back" list!

The view from our campsite - Lake Superior with icebergs!  Waiting for another magnificient sunset on the lake.

The start of this Blog

We are going to try something new.  A Blog of our adventures. We hope this Blog will help our friends and family keep track of us and answer the questions "Where are you?" "What are you doing now?" "When will you be coming our way?'