Living Our Dream

Lake Delton, WI to Munising, MI

Munising, MI - Events of Friday, July 29 to Saturday, July 30, 2011

We pulled out of Lake Delton, WI at an unusually early time of 8:15 AM. That was because we had an unusually long (for us) drive of about 5 hours plus a stop for fuel. We left early because, not only did we have a longer drive, but we would be arriving on a Friday afternoon without a reservation. We would be also losing an hour going from the Central time Zone to the Eastern Time Zone.

We were making a one-night stop on our way to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. There weren't many campgrounds near the half-way point where we wanted to stop, and the campgrounds we found were heavily wooded. The one that we did find looked from the satellite photo on Google Maps like they might have or four or three sites where we could possibly get satellite reception, but the campground would not guarantee reservation requests for specific sites. Therefore, we decided to go with Plan B, which was to drive an hour farther and stop for the night at Island Resort Casino in Harris, MI.

The campground at Island Resort Casino has two ovals surrounded by trees well away from the casino. There are a few back-in sites around the outsides of the ovals, and the pull-throughs run across the width of the ovals. There are a total of about 50 sites. The only problem is most of the pull-throughs are double sites that are set up nose to tail. In other words, if you have the rear site of a double pull-through, you can't pull through until the person in front of you leaves. Since we were only staying only one night and didn't want to unhook the toad, we really wanted one of the few single pull-throughs or one of the front sites of a double pull-through.

We arrived about 1:30 (EDT), checked out both ovals, and found only a couple of short back-ins and a bunch of rear pull-throughs left. As we sat there discussing whether to push on to our final destination or to go knock on doors to see if anyone in the front sites was planning to leave the next morning so we would know we wouldn't be blocked, a man approached the motor home. He saw us driving around looking perplexed, so he followed us on foot to tell us he had a front site and was leaving in the morning. He welcomed us to take the site behind him. He was double towing a 5th wheel and a boat and even offered to move up a little if necessary. Fortunately, he was in one of the longer pull-throughs, so we fit with no problem. We were even positioned perfectly to get satellite reception between two small trees.  We thanked our new acquaintance profusely. The photo below shows our rear pull-through site at Island Lake Casino.

The next photo shows the layout of our double site. That's our rig behind the boat near the center of the photo.

The campground at Island Lake Casino has water and 30/50-amp electric only. The roads and sites are paved, and there is a narrow strip of grass between the sites with a fire ring and picnic table. The sites are a little narrow, but at only $15 a night, we couldn't complain. The campground was nice and quiet except for just a couple of trains.

After we got set up, we walked over to the desk in the casino hotel to register. We're not into gambling, but it looked like a pretty nice casino. It was surprisingly busy considering it is in the middle of nowhere.

The next morning, our neighbors in front of us pulled out fairly early. We weren't in a particular hurry because our drive was less than three hours, and that included a stop at Walmart along the way. We forgot a couple of items last time we shopped, and we knew we would be away from any Walmarts for a while. Much of the Upper Peninsula is kind of remote, and there aren't many towns big enough to support a Walmart, much less a Super Walmart with groceries.

Margery, always looking for unique sightseeing opportunities, was disappointed that she had not planned better so we could stop in Gladstone, MI, which was right along our route, for a tour of the Hoegh Pet Casket Company. They offer tours Monday - Friday 8 AM to 4 PM. Unfortunately, we were passing through on Saturday. In addition to a variety of pet caskets, they also have pet cremation urns, memorials, and remembrance plaques.

Our next destination was Munising Tourist Park in Munising, MI. Munising Tourist Park is a city campground located a couple of miles outside town on the south shore of Lake Superior. The main road in the campground is paved (we think it's the old highway that used to pass by where the campground is now located), but all the campsite roads are dirt with a little gravel mixed in. The roads are pretty dusty when they are dry, and the wind off the lake and vehicles in the campground kick up clouds of dust from time to time.

All the sites are back-ins. Some are grass (like ours), and the ones closer to the lake are dirt and gravel. The next photo shows our site at Munising Tourist Park.

The sites have water and electric only (mostly 30 amp but a few have 30/50 amps), and most of the sites have shared hookups. Notice where our water hose is connected in the photo above. Some of the sites have the electrical hookup all the way at the rear and the water all the way at the front by the road. To camp in one of those sites, you'll probably need an extra length or two of water hose and a long electrical cord.

The other problem is many of the sites aren't very level. Some slope, and some (like ours) have high spots and low spots. When we first pulled into the site, the front wheels were on a high spot and we were pretty far off-level. When Paul pulled forward to get the front wheels off the high spot, the steps got hung up when he opened the door. He had to raise the jacks on that side to get the steps to come back in so he could move the motor home a little farther.

Spacing of the sites near where we were located at the back of the campground is fairly decent.

Once we finally got leveled and set up, we took a little walk down to the lake. The RV sites by the lake are a little close together, but there is a nice view. This is also where most of the 30/50-amp sites are, and it looks like these sites have the water hookup closer to the electric pedestal. The waterfront sites book up well in advance.

If you are lucky enough to get one of the waterfront sites, you can step out of your door, walk behind your RV to a sandy beach and swim. The water is shallow pretty far out so that the water was warmed by the sun.

There are about 20 very nice primitive tent sites along the water as well.

Although the sun was out much of the day, you can see some heavy-looking clouds in most of the above photos. Early in the evening, a storm moved through. Our weather radio went off a couple of times with severe thunder storm warnings, but we just got a lot of rain, a few small hailstones, and only moderate wind. From our window, we did see one tent blowing up the beach, but they quickly got it secured. When our satellite internet connection died because of the rain, we switched over to the campground Wi-fi so we could watch the progress of the storm. After the storm passed, the skies cleared to give us a spectacular sunset.

A small boat hurried back to shore shortly after the sun dipped below the horizon and began to cast a red glow.

Back at the motor home, we enjoyed the last of the sunset.

We have a number of things we want to see while we are in Munising, so stay tuned.

House on the Rock

Lake Delton, WI - Events of Wednesday, July 20 - Thursday, July 21, 2011

It was another short drive of about two hours from Blackhawk Park to our next stop at Country Roads Motorhome and RV Park in Lake Delton, WI, an Escapee and Good Sam discount park. Country Roads has mostly pull-through, full-hookup sites. There are a few back-ins and a few sites with water and electric only. Some sites have 30-amp electric, and some have 30/50 amps. There is supposedly free Wi-fi, but we couldn't connect even though our computer showed a signal strength of 4 out of 5 bars.

The sites are relatively wide for a private campground, but there are a few places here and there (to our right, for example) where they have squeezed in an extra site. Later in our stay, the campground filled up with a rally, and they ended sticking a large 5th wheel next to us making it a little crowded. The photo below shows our site at Country Roads Motorhome and RV Park before our new neighbor showed up.

The campground is laid out with circular roads in a bulls-eye pattern. The main road down the middle is paved. The circular roads and the pads are gravel. The next photo shows the view down one of the circular roads.

For our first sightseeing, we decided to drive about an hour southeast of Lake Delton to Spring Green, WI to visit House on the Rock. Alex Jordan, Jr. built the house on a 60-foot tall column of sandstone known as Deer Shelter Rock. The house is a unique, contemporary design that is somewhat reminiscent of the style of Frank Lloyd Wright. That's not surprising because Taliesin, which was Frank Lloyd Wright's summer home, studio and design school, is located only a few miles away.

Jordan started construction of the house in 1945 as a retreat from city life in Madison, WI. Jordan was somewhat of a recluse and initially tried to keep the curious public away. However, he found he could charge a fee for tours and use the money to fund more architectural projects and to finance his hobby of collecting. The house was officially opened to the public sometime around 1959 or 1960.

In 1988, Alex Jordan, Jr. knew he was getting up in years, so he sold House on the Rock to long-time associate Art Donaldson who still operates the attraction plus an inn and a resort nearby. Alex Jordan, Jr. remained at House on the Rock as Art Director until his death in 1989.

The house has 14 rooms, but other buildings have been added at the base of the rock to display Jordan's amazing collections and creations. The collections are a little hard to describe - some items are real antiques, some are reproductions, and some items are creations of Alex Jordan's imagination. We'll have more about the collections in our next post. 

There are three separate tours - Tour 1 includes the gate house (entry foyer), the main house and the gardens; Tour 2 includes several museum areas plus the carousel; and Tour 3 includes several other museum areas. Each tour costs $12.50. The Ultimate Experience includes all three tours for $28.50. We were just going to do Tours 1 and 2, but since the cost for all three tours was only $3.50 more, we went for the Ultimate Experience.

The tours start in the visitor center with photos, a bio of Alex Jordan, Jr., and a history of the house. From the visitor center, you can also overlook the extensive container garden on the terrace below. 

The tours exit through the container garden so you can get a closer look at the plants, but there is also a smaller terrace that is accessible from the visitor center. We both liked the summer poinsettia (amaranthus tricolor) in the next photo.

This amaryllis was very striking.

We then headed down the covered walkway that winds down the hillside past the Japanese gardens.

Along the walkway was one of the many flower urns that were all over the place. Large ones (with dragons on them) lined the driveway, and there were quite a few in the container garden in the terrace pictured earlier.

There are artificial waterfalls and ponds on the way down the hillside.

At the bottom, we entered the building where the tour for the house starts. They then sent us up the 300+ foot long covered ramp to the house. Unfortunately, because of the number and size of the trees around the base of the rock, and because the ramp is covered, we couldn't find anyplace where we could even see the exterior of the House on the Rock. However, there is a photo on the website that is available for download. The photo below, which is courtesy of House on the Rock, appears to have been taken from the roof of the ramp that leads up to the house.

 

The house is most unusual. It is typified by low ceilings and narrow hallways that seemingly wind through a maze inside the house. There is a lot of stonework, dark wood and few (if any) windows. 

There are occasional nooks with skylights covered with wooden, filigree panels where plants grow and where pieces of sculpture are displayed.

Other nooks have water features.

Shown below is one of the few larger rooms. Lighting is very dim, and we had to use a flash in most cases to be able to see anything.

There were many smaller seating areas tucked into little alcoves with a piece of sculpture and/or a fireplace.
 

You may have noticed the stained glass lamps in some of the photos above. There were many throughout the house. Although they look like Tiffany lamps, they're made by Bauer and Coble. The photo below shows yet another example displayed on a coffee table made from a stained glass window.

The 14th, and most striking room of the house, is the Infinity Room. This room was added in 1985 and extends 218 feet out over the valley. About 2/3 of the length of the narrow room is cantilevered without support. With its 3,264 windows, the Infinity Room attempts to make up for the lack of windows in the rest of the house.

The Infinity Room is 156 feet above the valley below the rock on which the house is built, so walking out into the room was a little unnerving for Paul. On top having no visible means of support, the room is tapered to enhance the perspective and give the impression the room is even longer than it is. On the other hand, Margery, who normally doesen't do well with heights, had no problem with the Infinity Room. She charged right out to the end where there is a window in the floor looking down at the treetops.

There is a scenic overlook along the highway where you can catch a glimpse of the house and see the Infinity Room and how far it sticks out. We stopped on our way back to the motor home for a photo. That's part of the house at the left end of the Infinity Room.

The House on the Rock is interesting in its own right, but the collections of "stuff" that Alex Jordan, Jr. amassed and put on display is truly mind-boggling. We'll tell you about the rest of our tour of the House on the Rock in our next post.

De Soto, WI

De Soto, WI - Events of Friday, July 15 - Monday, July 18, 2011

It was only about a two-hour drive from Osseo to our next destination of Blackhawk Park in De Soto, WI. Blackhawk Park is an Army Corps of Engineers park and campground along the banks of the upper Mississippi River. There are picnic areas, a boat launch, fishing, and a sandy swimming beach in addition to the campground.

The campground has about 70 RV sites with electric-only hookups. About 1/3 of the sites are non-reservable, but since we arrived on a Friday, we made reservations in advance. There is an older section of the campground that is heavily wooded, and a newer section with only a few small trees. We chose the new section for our satellite dish. We think the old section has only 30-amp electric, while the new section has 30/50 amps. Since is was hot and humid when we were there, we were glad we had 50 amps.

The main road is paved, but the roads around the camping loops, the pads and the patios are gravel. The sites at Blackhawk Park are extra long, but they're not as wide as we're used to seeing in a Corps of Engineers campground. But it's a nice campground, especially for the half-price rate of $12 a night with our America the Beautiful Pass.

There were a few empty sites when we first arrived around noon, but most of the sites had reserved tags on them. The place was pretty much filled by late afternoon.

As we said, Blackhawk Park is located on the Mississippi River. There are lakes, ponds and wetlands all along the river; but surprisingly, there were no mosquitoes at Blackhawk Park.

What there are, however, are trains. Two tracks run along the river bank between the highway and Blackhawk Park. Fortunately, the closest crossing is about a mile to a mile and a half away depending on what part of the campground you're in, so the horns aren't real loud, but you can hear the trains rumble past. We must have started to get used to the trains, because by the latter part of our stay, we didn't seem to hear as many. Of course, our air conditioner was running 24 hours a day during the latter part of our stay, too.

There are numerous islands in the river (the new section of the campground is actually located on an island), and there's a long, narrow island that runs along the outer edge of the campground. The second island forms a nice, protected waterway where boaters can tie up their boats right behind the waterfront campsites. The main river channel is beyond the trees to the left in the next photo.

We have been trying to walk after dinner in spite of the heat and humidity. We walked up the road one evening to see the swimming beach. Not surprisingly (the temperature was 95º and the humidity was 70% at 7:30 in the evening), the beach was fairly crowded.

 

One of the reasons we went to Blackhawk Park was because it is sort of in the middle of nowhere and there isn't much to do. We wanted a break from a lot of sightseeing to just chill out (poor choice of words given the temperatures) at a nice Corps of Engineers campground. However, we can't sit still too long, and we did find a Victorian mansion called Villa Louis we wanted to see about 30 miles south of Blackhawk Park in Prairie du Chien (pronounced doo sheen), WI.

Prairie du Chien was named by French explorers, and the name means "Dog's prairie." The name came from the chief of the Native Americans living there whose name meant "Dog." Prairie du Chien is a large, open prairie located just to the north of the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, and it became an important center for fur trade from the mid 1700s to the mid 1800s.

In 1826, Hercules L. Dousman, who was a prominent fur trader working on Mackinac Island, was sent by the American Fur Company to the frontier town of Prairie du Chien to assist the company's local representative, Joseph Rolette.

In the early 1840s, Hercules Dousman bought land near Prairie du Chien on an island in the Mississippi River at the site of Fort Crawford. We'll have more about Fort Crawford later. He built a large, two-story brick home on an old Indian mound on the island. The home became known as the "House on the Mound."

In 1842, Joseph Rolette died; and in 1844, Hercules married Rolette's widow, Jane. Hercules and Jane had one son they named Hercules Louis. The son went by the name of Louis, Louie or H. Louis Dousman, and was never known as Hercules or Junior. It was Louis who built the house that stands on the site today that came to be known as Villa Louis.

Guided tours of the mansion start on the hour. We arrived at 10:30, so we walked over to check out the fur trade museum located near the visitor center. This building was a fur warehouse and trading post built in 1851 by a trader by the name of B. W. Brisbois when an earlier log structure burned. Fur traders brought goods to the warehouses to trade to the Indians for furs.

Inside, there are displays of furs and the types of goods that Brisbois would have traded to the Indians and sold to the local settlers.

Hercules Dousman initially made his money in the fur trade. When fur-bearing animals started becomming scarce, he invested in lumber. Then he invested in steamboats that transported the lumber. When railroads began to replace steamboats, he invested in railroads. Hercules Dousman became quite wealthy.

Following the death of Hercules Dousman in 1868, Louis returned to Prairie du Chien and convinced his mother to allow him to tear down the two-story brick home and build a larger, more modern home with indoor plumbing, central heat and electric lighting. The next photo shows the front of the house built by Louis.

Louis didn't stay at Prairie du Chien long. Preferring the excitement of a bigger city, he moved to St. Paul, MN leaving his mother to occupy the estate he built. He married Nina Sturgis, and the couple moved to St. Louis where they had 5 children.

Louis mother died in 1882, and in 1885, Louis decided to move his family to Prairie du Chien so he could establish a stock farm to breed horses. Louis never realized his dream because he died in 1886 of a ruptured appendix at age 37.

As with many historic houses, photography isn't permitted inside. Ninety percent of the furnishings, paintings and decorative items in the house are original. The Dousman family left the estate in 1913, but they continued to own it. They rented it out for use as a boarding school, among other things. Following the death of Louis' wife Nina in 1930, two of the Dousman children began restoring the mansion. In 1950, the site was acquired by the Wisconsin Historical Society which operates it today.

When the family left the home in 1913, most of the furnishings were divided up among the family members. Since the furnishings were out of fashion, some were sold, but most were put into storage. Later, the family was able to turn over furnishings, decorative items, letters, family records and old photographs to the Historical Society. Some items that were sold have been repurchased.

One thing Paul noticed about the house - the availability of fine wood must have been limited in the frontier town of Prairie du Chien because the woodwork at Villa Louis was all pine that was faux finished to look like oak and mahogany. In contrast, the woodwork at the James J. Hill mansion in St. Paul and at Glensheen in Duluth that we visited recently were real wood.

Adjacent to the main house is the office. The original office, which was only one room (the door and window on the first floor to the left) was built by Hercules Dousman. The building was later expanded to include a billiard room to the right on the first floor and class rooms on the second floor. The classrooms became guest rooms following Louis' death because Nina didn't think she could afford private tutors for the children with Louis gone. 

Behind the main house was the ice house (not shown) and the preserve house.

The preserve house had privies for servants, servants' quarters, storage space and a kitchen for canning.

Also behind the main house was the laundry and a kitchen garden.

Louis built a large, two-story stable on the property for his horse farm. There were stalls on the first floor and sleeping quarters for grooms and stable hands on the second floor. Unfortunately, the stable was all but destroyed by a fire in 1911. The WPA reworked the small portion that remained in the 1930s to create a museum, but the museum is now closed because of recent flooding.

Speaking of flooding, flood protection was the reason Hercules built his original two-story brick house on the old mound. Louis raised the mound even higher before he built the current mansion. Although the basement has had water in it during floods, the first floor has never been flooded. You can see the height of the mound in the photo below that shows the front entrance to the mansion.

The mound was also the site of one of the two blockhouses for Fort Crawford. Fort Crawford was built in 1816 to protect the new frontier at Prairie du Chien when the previous fort was captured and later burned by the British during the War of 1812. Hercules Dousman removed the remaining buildings of Fort Crawford when he built his two-story brick home on the site.

When the WPA was working on the site in the 1930s, they uncovered the stone foundations of some of the old Fort Crawford buildings including the foundation of the second blockhouse behind Villa Louis. The WPA reconstructed the second blockhouse on its original site.

We appreciated the opportunity to learn about the history of Villa Louis and of Prairie du Chien. Afterward, we stopped at the Walmart in Prairie du Chien to pick up a few groceries, then made our way back to the motor home. We had another day to relax before heading out to our next stop. There will be a good bit of sightseeing to report on, so stay tuned.

Eau Claire, WI Part I: Chippewa Valley Museum

Osseo, WI - Events of Monday, July 11 - Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The morning after visiting Amnicon Falls State Park, we packed up and headed out to our next stop in Osseo, WI a few miles south of Eau Claire. It was about a three-hour drive, so we pulled into Stoney Creek RV Resort shortly before 1:00 PM.

Stoney Creek RV Resort has very generously-sized, grassy sites. The sites are mostly back-ins, but there are also pull-throughs. The roads and patios are paved, and the sites are gravel. Most of the sites have full hookups with 30/50-amp electric, but there are also some water and electric sites and 8 tent sites with electric only. Stoney Creek has free Wi-fi and cable. The photo below shows our pull-through site.

And the next photo shows a view of some of the neighboring sites down the road.

We are starting to try to take at least a short walk after dinner. It was a good chance to see some of the other amenities at Stoney Creek like their rental cabins.

The pool is the nicest one we have ever seen in a campground. It has lots of fun features for kids, especially the younger ones. Check out the frog - its tongue is a slide.

They also have a large playground, a sand volleyball court, a basketball court, a mini golf course, and a skateboard/BMX bike park complete with ramps.

Stoney Creek is truly a destination campground, and they correctly call themselves a resort. However, it's a little pricey with a nightly rate of $39 and change (including tax) during the week and a little over $50 a night on weekends. We arrived on Monday and left on Friday to avoid the higher weekend rates. The only negative we found (aside from the prices) is a fair amount of highway noise all day and all night from nearby I-94.

The Chippewa Valley Museum in Eau Claire, which is about 20 minutes north of where we were staying, was our first sightseeing destination. We went there the day after we arrived in Osseo.

The Chippewa Valley is an area that follows the Chippewa River, which runs diagonally across Wisconsin from an area about 30 miles south of Lake Superior to the Mississippi River about 60 miles southeast of Minneapolis-St. Paul. Eau Claire lies along the Chippewa River.

As you can see from the photo above, the museum doesn't look very large. That's because most of it is hidden by trees and shrubs. We were really surprised at how big it was when we got inside. Admission to the museum is only $5 ($4.50 for AAA members). There is also a combo ticket available for $9 that covers both the Chippewa Valley Museum and the Paul Bunyan Logging Camp Museum located next door. We'll have more on the Paul Bunyan Museum in our next post.

The Chippewa Valley Museum starts out with displays about the Native Americans who were the first residents of the area.

The Ojibwe Indians originally came to the area hundreds of years ago. The English and Americans corrupted their name to Chippewa.

In the 1850s, white settlers flocked to the Chippewa Valley to harvest timber. The next photo shows logs floating down the Chippewa River toward the sawmills.

There was a display of some of the personal effects and furniture early settlers brought with them.

An interesting display was an old, wooden water pipe made from a log along with an auger (foreground with the "X" handle) that was used to bore the hole in the pipe.

The automobile came along in the early 1900s. The photo below shows a 1906 Brush Model D Runabout.

And the next photo shows what some of the roads were like.

As we went through the museum, we came to an exhibit describing how the area grew and expanded. Part of that exhibit was an engineering drafting set. Paul had a set exactly like the set in the museum down to every last compass and drawing pen. The only difference was the set in the museum had a maroon case, and Paul's set had a black case. Wow, you know you're getting old when some of the things you had when you were younger start showing up in museums.

Speaking of getting old, Paul also recognized some of the items in the display of old Cracker Jack prizes.

In addition to logging, farming was a major activity in Wisconsin. Farming continued after the supply of old-growth timber was exhausted in the late 1800s. The museum has quite a few pieces of old farm equipment on display like this corn husker from the 1930s.

Wisconsin is known for its cheese, and that's because Wisconsin has a lot of dairy farms. Dairy farming was brought to Wisconsin by Swiss immigrants.

Church plays a big part in rural life, and the museum had several exhibits that related to churches. One display showing a church dinner could have been plucked right out of our memory because it reminded us so much of a church we once attended. The social hall was in the basement and looked just like the one in the photo. The food for church dinners was served through a window to the kitchen.

The Chippewa Valley Museum was very well done. It showed local history in a way that was interesting and that we could easily relate to. They also had an excellent 10 or 12-minute, multimedia presentation on farming in the area through the years. From the Chippewa Valley Museum, we went next door to the Paul Bunyan Logging Camp Museum. Our next post will have the details.

Duluth, MN Part I: Twin Ports Harbor Cruise

Superior, WI - Events of Tuesday, July 5 - Wednesday, July 6, 2011

It was about a 3-hour drive from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Duluth, MN. We stayed just across the St. Louis River from Duluth in Superior, WI. The St. Louis River forms the boundary between Minnesota and the northwestern tip of Wisconsin.

We stayed at Nemadji Mobile Home Park and Campground. Normally, we avoid mobile home parks, but this one got pretty decent reviews on rvparkreviews.com, and it had a fairly convenient location for what we thought we wanted to see and do in the area.

When Paul first heard the name of the campground, he thought Margery was talking about a Robbin Williams movie, but that was Jumanji. The campground gets its name from the Nemadji River which is nearby. The name of the river comes from the Native American name meaning "left-hand river." When viewed from the bay at the end of Lake Superior, the Nemadji River is to the left of the St. Louis River.

Nemadji is primarily a mobile home park that has a dozen or so tent/tent trailer sites and about a dozen or so full-hookup RV sites. The roads are paved, and the sites are gravel. All the sites are back-ins. The RV sites have full-hookups - some have 30-amp electric, and some have 30/50 amps.

This is an older park, so some of the RV sites are a little small. Most of the mobile homes are older, too, but they are all well-kept. The mobile homes are generally away from the RV sites, but a few are mixed in. The photo below shows our RV site at Nemadji Mobile Home Park.

The next shot shows the view down the road with RV sites on the left and a few of the mobile homes that are mixed in with RVs on the right.

The owner is super friendly and helpful. Even though she walks with a cane, she came all the way over to our site after we got set up to give us a map of the area and to tell us where the visitor center was. She apologized because she was out of the tourist magazine she likes to give out and said they would have some later. Sure enough, she came back about an hour later and personally delivered a copy of the magazine to us.

Duluth, MN and Superior, WI lie across the St. Louis River from one another at the western end of Lake Superior, and together they are known as Twin Ports. There is a long spit of land at the end of Lake Superior that forms a natural harbor. The completion of locks and canals at Sault St. Marie in the 1850s and the discovery of large deposits of iron ore in the Mesabi Range 70 miles northwest of Duluth and Superior in the 1860s transformed Twin Ports into the largest combined port on the Great Lakes. We were interested in learning about the port and seeing how the big ore boats are loaded, so our first sightseeing outing was to take a cruise of the Duluth-Superior Harbor.

Vista Fleet cruises have several types of daily cruises - a regular sightseeing cruise, a pizza cruise, a family cruise and a sunset dinner cruise. We opted for the regular 2-hour sightseeing cruise aboard the Vista Star.

The cruise starts out by sailing under the Duluth Lift Bridge and out into Lake Superior.

The bridge crosses a canal that was dug through the narrow spit of land that protects Twin Ports harbor. The natural entrance to the harbor, which is also the mouth of the St. Louis River, lies at the other end of the spit about 7 miles to the southeast in Superior, WI.

The canal has an interesting story. In 1870, Duluth wanted to dig the canal to create their own entrance to the harbor, but the move was vehemently opposed by Superior, WI because they were afraid the canal would give a shipping advantage to Duluth. They also feared the canal would cause a change in currents that would clog their entrance with sediment.

Superior fought the canal in Federal Court and won. While an injunction to stop the canal sat on somebody's desk over the weekend, about 50 volunteers went out and quickly dug the canal before the injunction could be served on Monday. Fortunately for Superior, the canal actually helped them because many of their docks were closer to the canal than to their own harbor entrance, and the currents changed in such a manner so as to actually deepen their entrance. For once, the unintended consequences were positive!

As we passed through the canal, we got a good look at the beach on the lake side of the spit and at one of the three harbor lights. The light in the photo below is white...

...the light on the south side of the harbor entrance is green...

...and the light on the north side is red.

We sailed out into Lake Superior where we could get a good view of Duluth. Duluth extends for about 9 or 10 miles along the north shore of the lake.

Lake Superior is the largest, deepest, coldest, and cleanest of the Great Lakes. It has a surface area of 31,820 square miles, an average depth of 482 feet, and it is 1,332 feet deep at the deepest point. The volume of water in Lake Superior could fill all the other Great Lakes, with enough left over to fill Lake Erie three more times. The average water temperature is 40º in summer, although shallow water near shore can get somewhat warmer. The lake freezes over in winter, and the shipping season runs from about March through December.

The Ojibwe Indians called the lake Gitchigami, which means "big water." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow used the name Gitche Gumee in his poem "The Song of Hiawatha," as did Gordon Lightfoot in his song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

After making a big loop in Lake Superior, we headed back under the lift bridge and started along the Duluth docks. One of the things we noticed on our way into Duluth-Superior was the many grain elevators along the waterfront - they are easily seen because they are so tall. Midwest grain is shipped here by rail, then it is shipped to various locations around the great lakes and out through the St. Lawrence Seaway to Europe and South America.

Some cargo arrives by boat and is shipped out by rail. Other cargo comes in by rail and goes out by boat. It depends on what the cargo is, where it's coming from, and where it's going.

We also passed a fuel depot where the freighters can take on fuel. Although large freighters can consume massive amounts of fuel, they can also carry a huge amount of cargo. Ships can move almost twice as much cargo on a gallon of fuel as a train, and almost 4 times as much as a truck.

Great Lakes freighters carry bulk cargo such as grain, iron ore, coal and salt. The silos in the next photo hold cement.

The white cylinders in the photo below are the top sections of towers for wind turbines. They are being shipped out by rail. We saw long turbine blades on another dock nearby.

As we sailed up the St. Louis River amidst the commercial loading docks, storage silos and terminals, we passed an island that is a rookery for gulls and terns. The man-made island was built to support a bridge that once crossed the river at that point. The dark objects in the water are the remnants of the old, wood pilings.

A little farther up the river, we came to the SS Arthur M. Anderson docked at a terminal that is designed to load coal. Rail cars are backed up a mile-long ramp to the top of the terminal where they dump their coal into huge bins. There are some chutes that load boats by gravity while the chutes in the photo below (shown in the vertical storage position) use conveyors for faster loading and better distribution of product in the cargo hold.

The colors on the Anderson's bow signifies the three materials she normally carries - red for iron ore, black for coal, and gray for limestone. Although the terminal is designed to load coal, the Anderson was unloading limestone using the conveyor that is permanently mounted to her deck (the white, bridge-like structure on the left). The limestone is being dumped into another conveyor that runs under the coal bins to an immense pile in a field beside the coal terminal.

The Arthur M. Anderson was built in 1952. Ships last much longer on the Great Lakes because fresh water is much less corrosive than salt water. She was the last ship to be in contact with the Edmund Fitzgerald before the Fitzgerald sank in a storm on November 10, 1975. The Fitzgerald was the last major ship to go down in the Great Lakes. She left Superior, WI the day before bound for Detroit with a load of iron ore pellets. None of the 29 crew members on board survived. The sinking was immortalized by the Gordon Lightfoot song "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald."

On our way back to the dock, we passed another coal terminal on the Superior side of the river. This one works a little differently with one, larger loading arm. Low-sulfur coal from Wyoming and Montana is in particularly high demand.

It was a very interesting cruise. It was fun seeing all the gigantic equipment and learning what it was for and how it works. After our cruise, we made another stop to learn more about the freighters themselves. We'll tell you all about it in our next post.