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Vacation was tons of fun. We left two Sundays ago (that would be June 26) and the only plan we had was to be in Minneapolis for CONvergence on July 1. We had planned on driving into Canada and around the northern shore of Lake Superior but time didn't permit. So we just did the Southern shore: Upper Michigan and Northern Wisconsin then down to the Twin Cities.
It's my very favorite type of vacation: Mostly woods and farmland, with as few towns and cities as possible. I don't do group vacations. I do cons, which count, I suppose, as group vacations.
This is a long post, so I'm cutting it and labeling each day separate (just because I can). I put in enough detail so I could use it as reference in the future when I'm putting together a scrapbook for Myr. I wish I would remember to take pictures when I do the vacation thing. I did take the camera along. That should count for something.
Sunday
Wil had to work Sunday morning, but we managed to get out of town by 1:00, which is what we had planned. Our route took us past Peshtigo, site of the great Peshtigo Fire, the deadliest, largest fire the US has ever seen. We toyed with the idea of stopping there but we decided that we didn't need to depress Myr at the start of the vacation. It's a great place to visit but... sad. We're planning on depressing ourselves with a visit there some weekend.
We headed to the shore of Green Bay and followed it up and around into Michigan and down to the Fayette State park. The park has restored buildings from the company town that was built on the site, along with providing information on the pig-iron making process that was located there. The historic townsite was cool to walk through and we spent several hours there and along the rock covered beaches. The town had a great many displays and information. I found it interesting that, although the company town was not regarded as a good thing, it wasn't painted as an evil, either. Last year when we were traveling down in Missouri we ran across a marker for Ilasco, a company town devoted to the making of cement. It was the stereotypical company town, that brought in the National Guard to bust the strike of 1910. "The City of Dust" is a book that documents the rise and fall of Ilasco. Fayette wasn't that colorful.
Of course, with our late start we didn't eat until well after nine, which meant we had fun trying to cook and clean up in the dark. Not to mention that we were cooking over a rather small grill that we had never used before. Well, except for the potatoes that we baked in the campfire. Still, it takes quite a while to fry chops when you can only cook one at a time. *grin*
It rained slightly Sunday night. I love the sound of the wind in the trees and the rain on the tent. It was still warm at night, but not uncomfortably so after the rain. It didn't rain much but our tent had an annoying leakage problem. We'll have to look into getting a new one, I suppose.
Monday
We had breakfast at the camp and discovered that I truly despise seagulls. Nasty, noisy, messy creatures: rats with wings. Except even rats have enough sense to keep their distance. We did take time to wade in Lake Michigan. We didn't swim because it was very sandy and slightly green and the campground was lacking a shower. Still it was fun. Wil introduced Myr to the fine art of skipping rocks. The lakes have a great supply of finely sanded flat rocks.
Once we packed up, we headed north to Superior. We decided to head over to Keweenaw Peninsula and find a place to stay up there. We went through Munising and on to Marquette. We stopped at a way side in Au Train to eat lunch. It was in the high 90s that day and we decided that a walk in the lake would be great, and it was. Hard to imagine Superior being warm and welcome, but it certainly was that day. We skipped more rocks and waded in the water. There was a sign nearby that we could see "The Face In the Rock"... an old Native American sculpture in the rock. We would have had to wade quite a way around in order to see it and we didn't have time, but I did find picture of it. The reproduction they had on the sign was easier to see.
We stopped in Marquette at the info place because the extremely hot day was clouding over and it was looking very nastily stormy. We toyed with the idea of camping by Marquette but I hate setting up tent in a lightning storm, so we decided that we should find a cheap hotel to stay in -- cheap being the operative word. I must have hit ten different hotels before we found a nice, small hotel for under $50. I know that there was a better one, somewhere, but it was late and the storm was building.
The tricky part was finding food. It was after nine in a town that rolls up its streets long before then and we hadn't anything to eat since our picnic lunch earlier. We, despite knowing better, decided to cook the burgers in our room over the gas grill we had. It worked out just fine and the burgers were great. We even remembered to put the battery back in the fire alarm when we left the next day.
The room was nice and we got to watch some fun CBC television. I miss being able to watch Canadian television. I always used to be able to watch it off the satellite my folks had. It's kinda like British TV in that I find the dramas to be much more interesting than the crud they call drama on American TV. Of course, since I watch Sci Fi and action/adventure, I don't miss it that much. In the end, we watched The Tick and laughed ourselves to sleep.
Tuesday
It was cool and still rainy when we left, a welcome change from the day before. We headed up to Copper Harbor. We stopped and walked down a small creek with a beautiful rapids and small waterfall -- Jacob's Creek, I think. Myr got to play Jungle Jane and we got some nice pictures. Right after that we passed a small shop called The Jampot. It is a small bakery/preserves store run by monks from monastery that is just down the road. We bought three huge muffins for breakfast, a jar of plum butter and a jar of rose hip jam. All extraordinarily good. It was a wonderful place.
We took the scenic route -- the Brockway Mountain drive -- up to the top of the peninsula. It was fogged in and we couldn't see much, but we did get to do a little shopping in the gift shop at the top of the drive. It was very nice despite the limited view.
Down at Copper Harbor we decided to visit Fort Wilkins state park. This restored fort was the northern most fort the US had and was built on the belief that the copper strike up in the UP would cause a boomtown atmosphere that would need an army presence to regulate. There never were any real problems that came from the copper mining -- which in my mind goes to show you how severe winters and isolation go a long way to keeping the peace. The coolest thing about the fort was that it was manned by students from the University of Michigan, who played the parts of the people who lived at the fort. It was way cool even if we only met three of them.
We decided not to camp in the park and headed back, eating our picnic lunch at a very nice (if chilly) wayside along Hwy. 41. Myr waded in the river and forgave us for not staying at a hotel that didn't have a pool.
We headed west to Porcupine Mountain State Park over by Ontonogan. As you can see from the map it's a large area. We stayed in the Presque Isle River Campground and Scenic Area, which was quite a drive from Union Bay were we first pulled in. It was a wonderful campsite, even if it didn't have any water pumps nearby. It did have a stairway down to the lake. Let me tell you, 138 steps don't seem like a lot when you are going down them, but they are a test when you head back up. The steps didn't take us quite down to the lake, either. The last 10 feet of steep down-slope was all ruts and roots. The view was worth it though.
It was cool and cloudy, with a stiff wind that teased the lake into whitecaps. We spent a while futilely trying to skip rocks, then climbed the steps back up to eat supper. At dusk, we headed back down to watch the sunset -- which was gorgeous. We waded in the lake (which was surprisingly not cold considering the cool air temps), picked at the rocks then climbed the (painfully) long stairway back up to the top.
This was the most comfortable night in the tent. Not as hot as the two before and not as cold as the next two would turn out to be.
Wednesday
We did pretty good packing up and getting out of the campsite considering we always cooked breakfast before we left. I was also getting pretty good at packing up the car by this time, too. Somehow I always managed to squeeze just a little more room out of the trunk.
We planned on spending two nights at our next campsite. We were shooting for being up around the Apostle Islands area and, since there is a lot to do up there, we figured it would be a good place to stay. It was still on the lake but close enough to Minneapolis to get there around noon on Friday.
We pulled into Ashland and stopped at this huge information station they have there. It turns out that it is the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center. It's really very nice, with a small museum, educational displays, viewing tower and pathways. It just wasn't as helpful or informative as I wanted. They had lots of information but you had to ask for it specifically and I just wanted to browse. We narrowed our possibilities down and picked up information on Bayfield and Madeline Island.
Once in Bayfield we hit the local information stop. There is a ton of stuff to do in Bayfield, mostly on the water. We toyed with the idea of taking a cruise or charter but decided, since this was our first time in Bayfield, to take the ferry out to Madeline Island and spend two days at the state campground there. The day was cold and windy (as most days on superior are) and the ride over was choppy but fun. The last time my folks were up there with Myr it was too rough for the ferry to travel, so it was good that she got a ferry ride too. Lunch was a picnic in the car on the way across the lake. Fun!
We got a nice campsite and set up the tent. I prefer the campsites at WI state parks to those in MI both for price and for set up. All the MI campsites we saw were crammed together with very little trees and such in between. This one gave us the feeling of being alone in the woods, which is what I like. I tend to go recluse when I camp. *grin*
The day was very cold. Well, more than likely I wasn't feeling good and the day was only somewhat cold. Either way, I was freezing and the cold storm blowing through wasn't helping me any. But it takes more than a little misery to dampen my vacation. After we got the camp set up, we took a trip into La Pointe. It's not much of a town and, really, how much of a town does the island need. It's nice and has a couple cute shops. Mind you, it was after four and most of the places closed at two, so there was no place to get warm coffee. Still, the knitting shop was nice and Myr found a key chain that says "I love my Miniature Schnauzer" (because she missed her puppy very much).
There was also Tom's Burned Down Café. The website really doesn't do it justice, and I didn't take any pictures (of course), but I did find one on the web. To me, it looks like it was lifted right out Key West and dropped in the middle of Superior. We took a walk up and looked around but didn't stop for a drink. I may like to go back again, when I'm felling better, I may have a better attitude and ability to enjoy it. As it was, I spent most of the time thinking that the bar was like a LJ brought to life, what with all the pithy slogans written all over the place. They did seem to have a great list of performing artists that would entertain on the weekend and I thought it would be nice to see one of them, sometime.
The firewood yard opened at seven and we were planning on grilling hot dogs for supper, so we hung out in the tent playing games until then. It wasn't raining, really, rather it was a very moist wind. We played Settler's of Catan and Chez Geek. I was freezing, couldn't concentrate and Myr is a killer player. I kept threatening that if I lost I would cry tearcicles. Myr thought that was hilarious, but it didn't stop her from beating both Wil and at both Settler's and Geek. We managed to get a fire going and grill the dogs. It was damp out and there was a storm front moving in, but we had enough time to eat.
We packed everything up, either in the car or the tent because the thunder was getting louder and we managed to get inside before the storm hit. It was a hell of a storm, too. Myr counts to tell how far away the lightning strikes are, which helps give her something to focus on. We talked about different things and tried to keep the storm in the background until the was a strike and a blast at the same time. It was definitely close, that blast. As Wil noted: You could smell the ozone. We had about four more strikes just like that before the storm moved off. It's rather disconcerting to be able to feel and hear the lightning as it strikes. The only good thing was the lack of wind with the storm. If it would have been blowing as hard as the storm suggested, it would have been a lot harder to fall asleep.
As it was, it took until the lightning moved off before I could fall asleep and I woke up about 20 times that night. The good news being that at some point between the storms (we had another three or four close strikes) I managed to warm up. I probably was running a temperature, which would explain the extreme cold and once the fever broke, I was warm. Either that or the lightning was warming the area.
Thrusday
We woke the next morning to a very wet tent. The little leaks I noticed the first night of camping were much bigger this time. We had, as a precaution, put our towels around the sides of the tent and they picked up a lot of the water coming in. Well, they did have a little help from our duffel bag of clothes....
The day was warmer and a breeze was blowing, however. We pulled everything out of the tent and hung it out to dry. Then we moved the tent and dried off the tarp we used as a groundcloth. It was very wet. We moved the tent to a new place and staked it all down again.
We fared better than some. Some of the campsites looked like spiderwebs with ropes and clothes were strewn everywhere. We were also already planning on hitting the little laundromat in town and doing a load, so a couple added towels didn't matter.
Before heading into town, we drove around the island scoping out the sights and looking at the houses. It was a fairly long drive but it was very scenic. Once in town we looked through the Historical Museum but decided against going through it. I really wanted to buy a book, but I couldn't find one I really wanted. It was just one of those days. In the end, we browsed around town again, did some laundry and bought some chocolates at the sweet shop. We also stopped by a store and picked up some smoked fish for lunch.
After the wash was done we went to a scenic lookout for lunch and then took a hike on one of the many paths that follow the shoreline on the island. It was a wonderful way to spend a mid-afternoon. As usual, we didn't have a camera along but, as Myr says, we took a lot of "brain pictures". The sky was still cloudy and we could watch the rain as it moved over the mainland and hear the thunder from the storms, but it stayed dry where we were.
Back at the campsite, we took a little down time and I managed to get some writing done. Wil and Myr played some more Chez Geek. I even got involved in a game before we started a fire and had supper. We build a huge, roaring fire and had fun trying to bake some potatoes in it. For some reason they just didn't want to get done that time. I will note that that meal marked our last night of camping and, with it, we didn't eat out for any of the meals. Which is cool, really.
We packed most of our stuff up and away so we could get an early start the next morning. Although thankful for no storms, I still didn't sleep well. Don't know what's up with that.
Friday
I woke up early (went with the not sleeping well thing I suppose) but didn't wake the others until sixish. With cleaning up and packing up we managed to leave the campsite by seven, thereby missing the ferry that leaves at seven. We had coffee in the Mission Hill Coffee shop along with a delicious rhubarb muffin. Yum! It was a nice, relaxing way to kill time waiting for the eight o'clock ferry. The store had some nice wine and wine accessories but since I'm the only one who drinks wine in the family, I just looked.
The Ferry ride back was calmer than the one going over and we stood out on the deck watching the water and birds. It was cold, of course, but still nice. I'm glad that Myr sees that sort of thing as an adventure and will stand in the cold spray rather than sit in the warmth of the car.
We wanted to reach Minneapolis before two and there really isn't a road that angles across Wisconsin, but the drive is mostly country roads. The beauty of the drive made up for the longer route we had to take. Nothing I like more than driving through the back roads of farm country.
We pulled into the northern of Minneapolis and decided to see if we could find a Tea Source store. They had sent us a in store coupon and we wanted to use it. We drink quite a bit of tea around our house ever since we found out about The Tea Source at CONvergence two years ago. We bought a simple (but nice) Oolong Ceylon Ratnapura BOP and a very cool looking (and great tasting) green tea called 'Blue Needles". Tea Source doesn't seem to have it listed on their site anymore, but Snow Needle looks close to the same thing. Odd, that.
We managed to pull into the CONvergence hotel shortly after two, which was perfect.
I will post about CONvergence on a different post, as this one is already six pages long in word.
It's my very favorite type of vacation: Mostly woods and farmland, with as few towns and cities as possible. I don't do group vacations. I do cons, which count, I suppose, as group vacations.
This is a long post, so I'm cutting it and labeling each day separate (just because I can). I put in enough detail so I could use it as reference in the future when I'm putting together a scrapbook for Myr. I wish I would remember to take pictures when I do the vacation thing. I did take the camera along. That should count for something.
Sunday
Wil had to work Sunday morning, but we managed to get out of town by 1:00, which is what we had planned. Our route took us past Peshtigo, site of the great Peshtigo Fire, the deadliest, largest fire the US has ever seen. We toyed with the idea of stopping there but we decided that we didn't need to depress Myr at the start of the vacation. It's a great place to visit but... sad. We're planning on depressing ourselves with a visit there some weekend.
We headed to the shore of Green Bay and followed it up and around into Michigan and down to the Fayette State park. The park has restored buildings from the company town that was built on the site, along with providing information on the pig-iron making process that was located there. The historic townsite was cool to walk through and we spent several hours there and along the rock covered beaches. The town had a great many displays and information. I found it interesting that, although the company town was not regarded as a good thing, it wasn't painted as an evil, either. Last year when we were traveling down in Missouri we ran across a marker for Ilasco, a company town devoted to the making of cement. It was the stereotypical company town, that brought in the National Guard to bust the strike of 1910. "The City of Dust" is a book that documents the rise and fall of Ilasco. Fayette wasn't that colorful.
Of course, with our late start we didn't eat until well after nine, which meant we had fun trying to cook and clean up in the dark. Not to mention that we were cooking over a rather small grill that we had never used before. Well, except for the potatoes that we baked in the campfire. Still, it takes quite a while to fry chops when you can only cook one at a time. *grin*
It rained slightly Sunday night. I love the sound of the wind in the trees and the rain on the tent. It was still warm at night, but not uncomfortably so after the rain. It didn't rain much but our tent had an annoying leakage problem. We'll have to look into getting a new one, I suppose.
Monday
We had breakfast at the camp and discovered that I truly despise seagulls. Nasty, noisy, messy creatures: rats with wings. Except even rats have enough sense to keep their distance. We did take time to wade in Lake Michigan. We didn't swim because it was very sandy and slightly green and the campground was lacking a shower. Still it was fun. Wil introduced Myr to the fine art of skipping rocks. The lakes have a great supply of finely sanded flat rocks.
Once we packed up, we headed north to Superior. We decided to head over to Keweenaw Peninsula and find a place to stay up there. We went through Munising and on to Marquette. We stopped at a way side in Au Train to eat lunch. It was in the high 90s that day and we decided that a walk in the lake would be great, and it was. Hard to imagine Superior being warm and welcome, but it certainly was that day. We skipped more rocks and waded in the water. There was a sign nearby that we could see "The Face In the Rock"... an old Native American sculpture in the rock. We would have had to wade quite a way around in order to see it and we didn't have time, but I did find picture of it. The reproduction they had on the sign was easier to see.
We stopped in Marquette at the info place because the extremely hot day was clouding over and it was looking very nastily stormy. We toyed with the idea of camping by Marquette but I hate setting up tent in a lightning storm, so we decided that we should find a cheap hotel to stay in -- cheap being the operative word. I must have hit ten different hotels before we found a nice, small hotel for under $50. I know that there was a better one, somewhere, but it was late and the storm was building.
The tricky part was finding food. It was after nine in a town that rolls up its streets long before then and we hadn't anything to eat since our picnic lunch earlier. We, despite knowing better, decided to cook the burgers in our room over the gas grill we had. It worked out just fine and the burgers were great. We even remembered to put the battery back in the fire alarm when we left the next day.
The room was nice and we got to watch some fun CBC television. I miss being able to watch Canadian television. I always used to be able to watch it off the satellite my folks had. It's kinda like British TV in that I find the dramas to be much more interesting than the crud they call drama on American TV. Of course, since I watch Sci Fi and action/adventure, I don't miss it that much. In the end, we watched The Tick and laughed ourselves to sleep.
Tuesday
It was cool and still rainy when we left, a welcome change from the day before. We headed up to Copper Harbor. We stopped and walked down a small creek with a beautiful rapids and small waterfall -- Jacob's Creek, I think. Myr got to play Jungle Jane and we got some nice pictures. Right after that we passed a small shop called The Jampot. It is a small bakery/preserves store run by monks from monastery that is just down the road. We bought three huge muffins for breakfast, a jar of plum butter and a jar of rose hip jam. All extraordinarily good. It was a wonderful place.
We took the scenic route -- the Brockway Mountain drive -- up to the top of the peninsula. It was fogged in and we couldn't see much, but we did get to do a little shopping in the gift shop at the top of the drive. It was very nice despite the limited view.
Down at Copper Harbor we decided to visit Fort Wilkins state park. This restored fort was the northern most fort the US had and was built on the belief that the copper strike up in the UP would cause a boomtown atmosphere that would need an army presence to regulate. There never were any real problems that came from the copper mining -- which in my mind goes to show you how severe winters and isolation go a long way to keeping the peace. The coolest thing about the fort was that it was manned by students from the University of Michigan, who played the parts of the people who lived at the fort. It was way cool even if we only met three of them.
We decided not to camp in the park and headed back, eating our picnic lunch at a very nice (if chilly) wayside along Hwy. 41. Myr waded in the river and forgave us for not staying at a hotel that didn't have a pool.
We headed west to Porcupine Mountain State Park over by Ontonogan. As you can see from the map it's a large area. We stayed in the Presque Isle River Campground and Scenic Area, which was quite a drive from Union Bay were we first pulled in. It was a wonderful campsite, even if it didn't have any water pumps nearby. It did have a stairway down to the lake. Let me tell you, 138 steps don't seem like a lot when you are going down them, but they are a test when you head back up. The steps didn't take us quite down to the lake, either. The last 10 feet of steep down-slope was all ruts and roots. The view was worth it though.
It was cool and cloudy, with a stiff wind that teased the lake into whitecaps. We spent a while futilely trying to skip rocks, then climbed the steps back up to eat supper. At dusk, we headed back down to watch the sunset -- which was gorgeous. We waded in the lake (which was surprisingly not cold considering the cool air temps), picked at the rocks then climbed the (painfully) long stairway back up to the top.
This was the most comfortable night in the tent. Not as hot as the two before and not as cold as the next two would turn out to be.
Wednesday
We did pretty good packing up and getting out of the campsite considering we always cooked breakfast before we left. I was also getting pretty good at packing up the car by this time, too. Somehow I always managed to squeeze just a little more room out of the trunk.
We planned on spending two nights at our next campsite. We were shooting for being up around the Apostle Islands area and, since there is a lot to do up there, we figured it would be a good place to stay. It was still on the lake but close enough to Minneapolis to get there around noon on Friday.
We pulled into Ashland and stopped at this huge information station they have there. It turns out that it is the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center. It's really very nice, with a small museum, educational displays, viewing tower and pathways. It just wasn't as helpful or informative as I wanted. They had lots of information but you had to ask for it specifically and I just wanted to browse. We narrowed our possibilities down and picked up information on Bayfield and Madeline Island.
Once in Bayfield we hit the local information stop. There is a ton of stuff to do in Bayfield, mostly on the water. We toyed with the idea of taking a cruise or charter but decided, since this was our first time in Bayfield, to take the ferry out to Madeline Island and spend two days at the state campground there. The day was cold and windy (as most days on superior are) and the ride over was choppy but fun. The last time my folks were up there with Myr it was too rough for the ferry to travel, so it was good that she got a ferry ride too. Lunch was a picnic in the car on the way across the lake. Fun!
We got a nice campsite and set up the tent. I prefer the campsites at WI state parks to those in MI both for price and for set up. All the MI campsites we saw were crammed together with very little trees and such in between. This one gave us the feeling of being alone in the woods, which is what I like. I tend to go recluse when I camp. *grin*
The day was very cold. Well, more than likely I wasn't feeling good and the day was only somewhat cold. Either way, I was freezing and the cold storm blowing through wasn't helping me any. But it takes more than a little misery to dampen my vacation. After we got the camp set up, we took a trip into La Pointe. It's not much of a town and, really, how much of a town does the island need. It's nice and has a couple cute shops. Mind you, it was after four and most of the places closed at two, so there was no place to get warm coffee. Still, the knitting shop was nice and Myr found a key chain that says "I love my Miniature Schnauzer" (because she missed her puppy very much).
There was also Tom's Burned Down Café. The website really doesn't do it justice, and I didn't take any pictures (of course), but I did find one on the web. To me, it looks like it was lifted right out Key West and dropped in the middle of Superior. We took a walk up and looked around but didn't stop for a drink. I may like to go back again, when I'm felling better, I may have a better attitude and ability to enjoy it. As it was, I spent most of the time thinking that the bar was like a LJ brought to life, what with all the pithy slogans written all over the place. They did seem to have a great list of performing artists that would entertain on the weekend and I thought it would be nice to see one of them, sometime.
The firewood yard opened at seven and we were planning on grilling hot dogs for supper, so we hung out in the tent playing games until then. It wasn't raining, really, rather it was a very moist wind. We played Settler's of Catan and Chez Geek. I was freezing, couldn't concentrate and Myr is a killer player. I kept threatening that if I lost I would cry tearcicles. Myr thought that was hilarious, but it didn't stop her from beating both Wil and at both Settler's and Geek. We managed to get a fire going and grill the dogs. It was damp out and there was a storm front moving in, but we had enough time to eat.
We packed everything up, either in the car or the tent because the thunder was getting louder and we managed to get inside before the storm hit. It was a hell of a storm, too. Myr counts to tell how far away the lightning strikes are, which helps give her something to focus on. We talked about different things and tried to keep the storm in the background until the was a strike and a blast at the same time. It was definitely close, that blast. As Wil noted: You could smell the ozone. We had about four more strikes just like that before the storm moved off. It's rather disconcerting to be able to feel and hear the lightning as it strikes. The only good thing was the lack of wind with the storm. If it would have been blowing as hard as the storm suggested, it would have been a lot harder to fall asleep.
As it was, it took until the lightning moved off before I could fall asleep and I woke up about 20 times that night. The good news being that at some point between the storms (we had another three or four close strikes) I managed to warm up. I probably was running a temperature, which would explain the extreme cold and once the fever broke, I was warm. Either that or the lightning was warming the area.
Thrusday
We woke the next morning to a very wet tent. The little leaks I noticed the first night of camping were much bigger this time. We had, as a precaution, put our towels around the sides of the tent and they picked up a lot of the water coming in. Well, they did have a little help from our duffel bag of clothes....
The day was warmer and a breeze was blowing, however. We pulled everything out of the tent and hung it out to dry. Then we moved the tent and dried off the tarp we used as a groundcloth. It was very wet. We moved the tent to a new place and staked it all down again.
We fared better than some. Some of the campsites looked like spiderwebs with ropes and clothes were strewn everywhere. We were also already planning on hitting the little laundromat in town and doing a load, so a couple added towels didn't matter.
Before heading into town, we drove around the island scoping out the sights and looking at the houses. It was a fairly long drive but it was very scenic. Once in town we looked through the Historical Museum but decided against going through it. I really wanted to buy a book, but I couldn't find one I really wanted. It was just one of those days. In the end, we browsed around town again, did some laundry and bought some chocolates at the sweet shop. We also stopped by a store and picked up some smoked fish for lunch.
After the wash was done we went to a scenic lookout for lunch and then took a hike on one of the many paths that follow the shoreline on the island. It was a wonderful way to spend a mid-afternoon. As usual, we didn't have a camera along but, as Myr says, we took a lot of "brain pictures". The sky was still cloudy and we could watch the rain as it moved over the mainland and hear the thunder from the storms, but it stayed dry where we were.
Back at the campsite, we took a little down time and I managed to get some writing done. Wil and Myr played some more Chez Geek. I even got involved in a game before we started a fire and had supper. We build a huge, roaring fire and had fun trying to bake some potatoes in it. For some reason they just didn't want to get done that time. I will note that that meal marked our last night of camping and, with it, we didn't eat out for any of the meals. Which is cool, really.
We packed most of our stuff up and away so we could get an early start the next morning. Although thankful for no storms, I still didn't sleep well. Don't know what's up with that.
Friday
I woke up early (went with the not sleeping well thing I suppose) but didn't wake the others until sixish. With cleaning up and packing up we managed to leave the campsite by seven, thereby missing the ferry that leaves at seven. We had coffee in the Mission Hill Coffee shop along with a delicious rhubarb muffin. Yum! It was a nice, relaxing way to kill time waiting for the eight o'clock ferry. The store had some nice wine and wine accessories but since I'm the only one who drinks wine in the family, I just looked.
The Ferry ride back was calmer than the one going over and we stood out on the deck watching the water and birds. It was cold, of course, but still nice. I'm glad that Myr sees that sort of thing as an adventure and will stand in the cold spray rather than sit in the warmth of the car.
We wanted to reach Minneapolis before two and there really isn't a road that angles across Wisconsin, but the drive is mostly country roads. The beauty of the drive made up for the longer route we had to take. Nothing I like more than driving through the back roads of farm country.
We pulled into the northern of Minneapolis and decided to see if we could find a Tea Source store. They had sent us a in store coupon and we wanted to use it. We drink quite a bit of tea around our house ever since we found out about The Tea Source at CONvergence two years ago. We bought a simple (but nice) Oolong Ceylon Ratnapura BOP and a very cool looking (and great tasting) green tea called 'Blue Needles". Tea Source doesn't seem to have it listed on their site anymore, but Snow Needle looks close to the same thing. Odd, that.
We managed to pull into the CONvergence hotel shortly after two, which was perfect.
I will post about CONvergence on a different post, as this one is already six pages long in word.
