Madison to LeRoy

Tony decided to try the public shower at the campground so he could have a long hot shower which you really can't get in an RV.  The showers are in a cement block house and rather depressing.  Tony said he felt like he was in the TV show "Orange is the New Black" which is a show about a women's prison.  Depressing cell block stuff.

We found out a wonderful benefit that Lake Farm Park Campground had.  It was kitty-korner from a dog park.  We took Miko over there and she ran and chased balls and had a wonderful time.  She is a little strange at dog parks.  When she first gets there, she is very well behaved and extremely social with the other dogs.  After about a half hour, she starts to become rather a bully.  She sees another dog in the distance and crouches down to stalk them.  She then rushes them and won't let them alone.  She does not play nice and it ends up with me giving her a time out.  I hate to have that happen but I can't let her bully the other dogs. 

After the dog park, we headed on down the road.  Today was just going to be a travel day.  It got warmer as we went and just about the end of the day, we actually saw sun.  We ended up at Moraine View State Park right outside of Leroy Illinois.  Educational Note:  A moraine is a ridge that was created by glaciers.  We showed up at the registration desk and there were two guys there to check us in.  Really sweet goofy older guys.  They had a big basket of Buckeyes which are also called Horse Chestnuts.

From Wikipedia:
All parts of the buckeye or horse chestnut tree are extremely toxic, including the nut-like seeds.^{[7] [8]} The toxin affects the nervous system, causing paralysis and death. The USDA notes that the toxicity is due to saponin aescin and glyside aesculin, with alkaloids possibly contributing.^[9] Native Americans used to crush the seeds and the resulting mash was thrown into still or sluggish waterbodies to stun or kill fish. ^[10][11] They would then boil and drain (leach) the fish at least three times in order to dilute the toxin's effects. New shoots from the seeds also have been known to kill grazing cattle.

I had never seen these before - they are really beautiful nuts.  Very shiny and dark brown, they just feel good to hold.  These camp hosts told me that the buckeye is considered good luck if you carry it around in your pocket.  I now have a pocketful of them.

We really lucked out in our campsite.  We got a pull thru campsite so we did not have to unhook the car.  It looks over the lake and was peaceful and very soothing.  It was another glorious cocktail hour, watching the sun set over the lake.  Just what I needed and what I was looking for. 

Moraine View State Park Illinois

On The Road Again

It has been a busy busy summer, early fall.  My parents are in the process of moving from their lake residence of sixty some years to a senior apartment in the Twin Cities.  I am thrilled.  They will be closer to me and my brothers and we will get to see them more often.  They will still keep the cabin and spend their summers up there, but winters are in the cities.  My time has been consumed with packing and all the little details that need to happen with a move.  The move date was September 20 and all went extremely well.  Now that the basic move is done, I get to move on down the road.  I cannot wait.  To top it off, Tony has decided that he will accompany me again, this time for two weeks.

We decided that we would head down south - northern Kentucky, southern Indiana and Ohio.  No special reason, it just seemed like a good place to go.  I spent may hours planning the trip (which I love to do) and getting ready to go. 

The big day arrived, overcast skies, but the weather people said that there was only a chance of scattered showers.  That is ok, overcast skies are great for driving  No sun to get into your eyes.  Well, let me tell you - never, ever believe the weather people.  They just make up random stories to keep themselves amused. 

We got to the barn and started hooking up the car behind the RV.  It started to rain, not just rain, but pour.  Ok, that's ok - they said scattered showers, we can deal with it.

Well, there was a thin, thin strip of clouds showing up on the radar.  As we drove southeast, what happens but this thin, thin line of clouds decided that they will follow us all the way to Madison .  Blue skies ahead of us, blue skies behind us - but right above us, nothing but dark clouds and rain, rain, rain.  Lots of fun driving.....Not.

We ended up at a campground called Lake Farm Park within the city limits of Madison..  We got one of the last sites available that had electricity.  This is one of those parks where you feel like you are just out in an open field - not much charm.  We were only staying for one night, so that was ok.

Horse Camping at Wild River State Park

It has been quite a while since I've been horse camping.  My horse Andri has spent the last two years recovering from a serious suspensory ligament injury.  For a long while, I didn't think I could ever ride him again.  Starting this last January, we have very slowly been rehabbing him and he has finally gotten well enough that some trail riding was in order.


I hooked up the horse trailer to the back of the RV.  The horse trailer is sixteen feet long, so that plus the length of the RV makes me 49 feet long going down the highway.  Move over you big semi truckers - the new girl is in town.   One of the trailer tires was flatter than a pancake, when we pulled it off the trailer, there was a huge gash in the side of the tire.  One of the fellow boarders at the barn - Pete - changed the tire for me - what a saint.  I'll have to find a nice bottle of red wine for him.


Loaded the horses - besides Andri, we are going up to Wild River with my friend Jackie and her horse Leo(pronounced Lay-oh), another Icelandic gelding.  It was a short hour and a half drive.  Stopped at the park dump station so we could fill up with water in our fresh water tanks and then travelled over to the Equestrian Campground where we unloaded the horses, hooked up to the electricity and set up camp.  We had a few hours before our friends Eve and Dave joined us, so we practiced lounging around camp with appetizers, beer and wine.  Made a dinner with a curried chicken, onion and tomato stew. 


Saturday we eased into the day.  We had more friends coming to join us on a ride so there were seven of us hitting the trails.  The south trail at Wild River is a wonderful mix of prairie and woods.  At some points we were riding along the St. Croix River.  The paths were wide and very well groomed.  There is nothing better than cruising down a trail in a herd of Icelandic horses (and one TWH).  There is such a sense of freedom, just sheer joy, being on the back of your horse.  We were flying. 


Back to camp for lunch and naps.  We had Jackie's wife Jan joining us for a potluck dinner and then we had a campfire where several adjoining campers joined us.  Lots of wine, lots of talk.  You could not ask for a better evening weather wise, it was cool enough that the campfire ambiance was the perfect ending to the day.


Sunday, it was just Jackie, Eve, Dave and me who hit the trail.  We decided to do the same trail we did on Saturday but instead of doing the trail in a counter clockwise direction, we went clockwise.  Just changing the direction of the ride made it seem like it was totally different scenery. 


Lunch, load up the horses and head back to the barn.  It was really starting to get hot now - my RV thermometer said it was 93 degrees.  I hate it when it gets that hot - the poor horses stand back in that tin can trailer, it gets to be very oven-like in there.  When we pulled them out of the trailer, they were dripping sweat.  They were very happy to be home. 


All in all, this weekend we put fourteen miles on the horses.  Andri did phenomenal when you consider where  he started from this year.  He even got in a good gallop - who would have thought that he could come back so well.  I am thrilled.


So sorry - there are no pictures from this weekend - I was too busy either riding or sitting in the lawn chair. 

Into Wisconsin

Travel Day – starting to head toward home.

We left McLain State Park in a slight rain storm. We were heading around the southern tip of Lake Superior. Our path went through the Porcupine Mountains so there was a little bit of up and down but not too bad until we got into Wisconsin where it really started to pour and the wind picked up. Y'all know how much I love wind (Not). Through Ashland which caused me to think of my nephew Tyler and Carly who went to college in Ashland and who are expecting a baby who is only a whole week overdue. Come on kid – we want to meet you. Ashland also has a bunch of murals painted on the side of buildings and I think we will have to go back to check them out.

Ended up in the West Side Campground in Washburn Wisconsin. Another RV park, but it has WiFi and Cable TV. After five days without any sort of wired access, it is almost overwhelming. Sensory overload. We are only a few miles south of Bayfield and a couple miles north of Ashland. We are on the shores of Lake Superior again but there are not really any sites directly on the lake. But I can see it off in the distance. There is a gravel walking trail right along the shoreline which we walked. Maybe about a mile long. Miko went nuts in the waves again. She is now getting into the water about shoulder deep. Won't be too long before I have a swimming dog.

Quincy Copper Mine

Today we had to move the RV to a new site. The one (83)we had been in for the last three days had been reserved so we moved over to 79 which was still overlooking the lake. We had to move anyway because we were out of water and our tanks were full. Turns out that traveling with another person fills your tanks up so much quicker than traveling solo. Duh... Emptied the tanks with no accidents and settled in to the new home.

Tony thought it would be great to go see another mine. Do I love my man or what?  Off we go, leaving Miko at home. This time we went to the Quincy Mine which is located about 10 miles south of us in Hancock Mi. What a different experience this turned out to be.

First off, they take you down a 35 degree grade on the outside of the hill in a tram. 35 degrees is super steep. They said that normally the miners would be going down the shafts at a 50 degree grade at three times the speed that we were going. Once we got to the bottom of the hill, we loaded into a wagon which was pulled by a John Deere tractor. It pulled us into Level 7 of the mine. This mine eventually got to 92 levels, but everything below Level 7 was flooded out. The Michigan Tech School had Mining classes there and we saw a classroom carved into the rock. We probably went in the hill about 1800 feet and stopped and got out. Our tour guide Nate took us around the corner and explained how the miners worked through the decades, showing us the various types of drills and explaining how they worked. This mine was in business from 1850 through 1940 or so. He also followed the cave tradition of turning off all of the lights so we could see what true dark was like. Back into the wagon and then the tram up to the top of the hill.

Perky Audrey then took over the tour. Quincy Mine had the largest steam hoist in the world and Audrey explained how it worked and what happened to the copper once it got out of the ground. This was an impressive piece of machinery - it was a gigantic cylinder.   I can't remember how much it weighed but we are talking tons. They said that they have only extracted about 50% of the copper in this mine, but it just became too cost prohibitive to mine the rest of it out.

Home again – we are moving out in the morning so there is some maintenance items that need to be taken care of.

Delaware Mine and Copper Harbor

Another cold, rainy day.

Since the Keweenaw peninsula was mostly settled because of the copper mining, Tony thought it would be interesting to go to a defunct mine. We headed north on the peninsula to the Delaware Mine in the now ghost town of Delaware. It was a self guided tour, cost $11 to get in but it was dog friendly meaning that we could take Miko down into the mine with us. I was a little concerned that she wouldn't be able to handle it because she is not too crazy about closed in spaces. She did great. Me not so much. First you have to descend about 100 steps. About halfway down there was a gigantic iceberg which the guy at the top said came in this past winter with the cold and they had to chainsaw it to get the mine opened in the spring. Then you walk along a long corridor, I think it was about 1450 feet. They kept it lit as as it was when the mine was being worked which meant it was pretty darn dark. It was just the three of us, Tony, Miko and me. Damp and cold. There were signs along the way explaining various parts of the mine, but mostly it was just a dark dark corridor. I got a little spooked. Not liking it too much.

After we got done with the Delaware mine, we traveled further north on the peninsula to the town of Copper Harbor. We stopped and had lunch at a place called the Pines. I think it was the first time that I remember having a pasty which is a meat/potato/carrot pie that the miners used to take down into the mines. The waitress said that most people ate a pasty with ketchup, me – I asked for Ranch dressing. How upscale am I? We also stopped at Studio 41 which had 75 different Michigan artists. Nice to see art again. There were lots of copper articles. There was also a Pug puppy there who had a cleft palate. Black dog with a tongue hanging out even though his mouth was closed

We then drove up the Brockton scenic highway that goes along the west coast of Keweenaw. And I mean up – extremely steep. I had to laugh, after the first steep, steep hill, somebody had painted on the road like Burma Shave ads “You    Are    Not      Done     Yet”. They were right, it just kept going up and up and up.  I am so glad that we were in the car instead of the RV.  When you got to the top, you had a really great view of Copper Harbor. Continuing on, we got to another scenic site which overlooked Lake Superior and a few inland lakes. Breathtaking, although we almost got blown off the mountain, it was so windy.

Home for dinner and to finish off the fourth episode of Orange is the New Black – loving it.

Start of the Copper Highway Tour

It rained all night – downpour type rain, but the interesting thing is that rain on the roof of the RV is not like rain on a tin roof,but more of a gentle pitter patter which is great for sleeping so we sort of putzed around – sleeping in, moving slow.

Tony took Miko for a short walk and then we left Miko in the RV and took off for Calamut Michigan. This was a copper mining town back in the day. Reminded me a lot of some of the mining towns in northern Minnesota. Sort of depressed and quaint at the same time. We ended up at the Calamut Visitor Center which was in the old Masonic Hall. This was an amazing museum. They had many interactive displays about life in the mines, life in the town and the big troubles between the unions and the mining companies. This was a fairly small town, but it had 63 saloons at the height of the mining effort. Woody Guthrie even wrote a song about a 1913 massacre that happened in the Italian Hall. There was a Christmas party and somebody yelled Fire and in the panic that happened, 73 people died, mostly children, just trying to get down the stairs. On the third floor, there was a display about the Odd Fellows and some of their rituals which I found very interesting.

They torn down the Italian Hall and this is all that remains of it.

We then walked down Fifth Street and stopped at several different art galleries. I really enjoyed that. Up to this point, when I've traveled with the RV, I have not been able to stop at places like this because most of these places don't have parking for RVs. Now, with towing the car, I have the ability to now mix up my touristing and see much more.

We also came across a roadside attraction that commemorated a mega snowfall that occurred.  Here is a picture of Tony standing next to the snowfall marker.

  

Got back to the RV around four to find a wind advisory in effect. Winds up to 45 mph. I am so happy I am not driving in this. The wind is wild and the lake is rather agitated. It is like being on the ocean, the waves are so big. The RV seems to be handling it OK, we can hear the roar of the wind, but we are not shaking very much. I think it is because our nose is pointing into the wind which is giving us a smaller exposure. It is going to be a crazy night.

These are really big waves - you could surf on them.