25th & 26th July....St Cloud, MN and The Great River Road....

Not too much of a rush this morning as only 172 miles from Mahnomen to St Cloud.....US59 south to Detroit Lakes and taking a bit of artistic licence here for a song....Detroit City...Tom Jones....
Again an excellent rest area at Frazee for comfort stop and coffee and cookies....neat and tidy townships....we are enjoying travelling on "minor" routes rather than interstates...

We arrived early enough to check out the town which was much larger than we had had envisaged....
This is the city library and they could certainly teach Hampshire Library service a thing or two....

St Cloud County Court House....

Wow The Mississippi River and only 200 miles south of the headwaters and already wider than the Thames...

The weir in Munsinger Park and running much faster than usual due the torrential rains over the past 10 days or so..

We are still amazed at the innocuous stream at the headwaters is now a raging torrent....

Tuesday 26th July...
We took our truck in for a service before heading along the Great River Road....
The patience of these guys !!!

Another weir at The Veterans Park in Sartell...

The Veteran Memorial at Sartell Park...

We have not researched this but a new sport seems to be disc golf..... 

One throws the disc (aka frisbee) into the net...from what we have seen there are different discs much like golf clubs....

The Great River Road symbol......

This was a very pretty scenic area with an area of old buildings and wild flowers with a walk to the river....speaking with a river inspectorate they are planning to reduce the height of the river in the next year but of course needs coordination as the flow here impacts on right down to New Orleans...

Last stop for today is Sauk Rapids Park...

Due to the high water the rapids are not as "visible"...

A good day...
Not such a good evening, the mosquitoes are out in force and even the trusty Skin So Soft let us down.....hey ho we are near water and it's summer !!
More soon from...
The Very Itchy Campers....

23rd & 24th July....Bemidji & Itasca State Park, The Headwaters of The Mississippi..Minnesosta..

Rather a long drive back to the town of Bemidji (but easy straight road through miles of cornfields) and we still needed to sort out the jetpac and stock up on a  few supplies, we also just had to see the statue of folk hero Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox !!!
All good fun and a story from the campfires of loggers back in the early 1900's when this whole area was about timber and the logging industry..
Paul mythical or not was a legendary woodsman and hero of the early logging days...the myth partly  sprung up as Lake Bemidji is the shape of a footprint supposedly Paul's !!!
The Blue Ox was Paul's faithful companion....
Good all round fun with the staff in the visitors centre playing their parts...

The historic town has sculptures on each corner block much like the "president" sculptures in Rapid City, South Dakota...

This and next pic 2 of the sculptures...

On route here we saw a lot of storm damage, trees down and farm buildings damaged...talking to folks Grand Rapids, MN is still without power....
Rain had been threatened all day and on the way home we had a downpour but still high 80's....

Sunday 24th July....Itasca State Park...
After yesterday's rain a beautiful blue sky morning for our visit to Itasca State Park and the Headwaters of the Mississippi at Lake Itasca...
And this is it !!! Very innocuous and a place for folks to walk across the Mississippi either through the water or across the stepping stones...

Hard to imagine that this is the beginning of the Mighty Mississippi...

Lake Itasca....

The Mississippi River...

Storm damage...

Lake Itasca from the Schoolcraft Trail....

And our lunch sandwich spot for today at Mary Lake in the state park.....

An easy walk around the lake to walk off lunch..

A really good day....we drove back via a different route this time mainly through forest with some viewpoints and historical markers...
Minnesota has 10,000 lakes and 1 square mile of water for every 15 square miles of land....
Back home and BBQ/ cook out Greek style pork chops and salad with of course a few tipples...
More soon from..
The Mellow Campers...

22nd July...Superior, WI to Mahnomen, Minnesota.....2016

It's a beautiful sunny morning as we once more head out onto US2 for the 245 miles today to Mahnomen, Minnesota....

It was a bit hairy finding the correct road after crossing the bridge but all is well and we head west....

Most of our journey is through countryside, agriculture and small communities...

This pic and one above is of our coffee and cookie stop in the very pretty town of Floodwood and a settlement since the early 1800's. It is also apparently the catfish capitol of the world !!
The welcome centre building is the restored railroad depot......

Lunch sandwich spot at Cass Lake Rest Area and Welcome Centre....
The rest area/wayside parks in Minnesota have all been excellent, the best we have stopped at on our travels in the US....
We had wondered why there is a lot of wild rice sold in these northern states and it grows in the shallow waters at the edge of the lake....it is harvested with 2 sticks....one stick holds down the stalk over the side of the boat while the other stick is used to tap the stalk to release the rice into the boat....

Camp Harris at The Shooting Star Casino RV Park in Mahnomen on the White Earth Indian Reservation....as usual this casino parks is first class...
Yorkieman enjoying his well earnt beer....very hot high 90's but a/c doing it's thing...

Beautiful sunset over our home.....
Until the next time...
The Happy Campers.....

20th & 21st July....Wisconsin Point, Superior, WI and Duluth, MN......

After a few household chores we head out to Wisconsin Point and the Superior Entry which is the only natural opening in the longest sandbar in the world...a 500 ft channel is now maintained by the US Army Corp of Engineers...currents here can reach 3 miles per hour...
Iron ore was first shipped through here in 1893 and it is still one of the main cargoes of this busy port area.....
It is also the most westerly point of the St Lawrence Seaway and still a very major port, huge silos and tankers.........

Superior Entry Lighthouse built in 1913.....

We have seen a few bald eagles soaring but not been able to catch one on "film" but managed to snap this float plane soaring over Lake Superior....
Talking of film, one of the local grocery stores advertised that they develop film...Those were the days !!

I might have commented before about the amount of wild flowers we have seen in these northern areas....also a lot of wild raspberries...these were near the long beach at Wisconsin Point.....

From Superior we cross the bridge into Minnesota and the large port city of Duluth...
The lighthouse at Canal Park....as well as being a very busy port area it is a very popular tourist area with parks, aquarium and museums....
The Army Corps of Engineers Museum was really interesting...in the early 1900's most of the canals and works on the Great Lakes such as the Soo Locks were carried out by the Corps...

I'm in heaven !!! Twin water-towers.....

Thursday 21st July...
We were awoken at 3 am this morning by a huge storm, continual lightening and thunder, torrential rain and high winds.....but all ok here apart from one of our outside chairs made a bid to escape !!...
Not so in Duluth and other towns and areas in Minnesota....we hadn't realised until we drove over to the Mall in Duluth this morning that the whole city was with out power...we did wonder why the traffic lights were not working though !!! Luckily we had been sheltered in Superior by hills of Duluth....
We had come over to visit Verizon to check our the problem with our jetpac but of course nothing they could do without power, we'll sort it at our next stop near Bemidji...

This is the bridge we shall use tomorrow when we head west on the US2 to Mahnomen, Minnesota....

Some of the huge store areas in the Port of Superior....
Blue skies today after last night's storm although it is hot and humid of course...
We move on again tomorrow to north western Minnesota to visit Itasca State Park and the headwaters of the Mississippi...
For now it's bye bye from..
The Not So Soggy Campers....

18th & 19th July....Manisitque to Iron Mountain, MI to Superior Wisconsin.....

Monday 18th July...
As they say what a difference a day makes...me thinks that's another song...
Lake Michigan this morning very calm and tranquil..
After a quick pit stop in Manistique at Verizon to sort out the dongle/jetpac we hit US2 west again for the shorter 114 mile pleasant drive to Iron Mountain, WI...mostly along the side of the lake through very neat and tidy communities with very manicured gardens...

Had to include this pic taken on route of The Big John Mine...the country song Big John (Jimmy Dean) is the first song for today...actually it would have been good had we had time to do the mine tour as talking to folks later at the campsite it is a very interesting tour of an iron ore mine...

The village of Norway....again the Scandinavian influence ..
We also passed into the Central Time Zone so now 6 hours behind UK....we hadn't expected to do this until we got into Wisconsin but the time zone does a very odd "wiggle" but hey ho we have gained an hour...think It's Five O'clock Somewhere will be at 4 today !!

Our lunch sandwich spot today is a lovely little roadside rest area complete with waterfall....
Arrived early afternoon at The Summer Breeze Campground for an overnight stop and cue next song !!
We had planned to continue our journey tomorrow via US2 to Superior but after checking with the locals the road is still closed, due to the severe storms and flooding in Northern Wisconsin and the diversion adds approx 3 hours to the journey time so with local knowledge we will go south and along US8 it will be 311 miles rather than 250 but seems the best option...
Still enjoying the pastie fest, tonight with healthy salad !!!
Our day was rounded off nicely by seeing a bald eagle soaring over the campsite....

Tuesday 19th July...
Looking our of our bedroom window at 5-15 I saw a big deer walking past the trailer....
Oppps leaving the campsite we have to wait for a logging train to pass....I'm a happy bunny.....

A couple of miles down the road we pass into Wisconsin....

One of the houses in the very pretty village of Florence, WI.....

As we turn onto SR 101 Yorkieman says are we nearly there yet !! In 7 hours we will be....this area is through the Chequamegon Nicolet Forest...
Once onto the US8 it is lumber country and agriculture the farms all again very neat and tidy, also saw farmed bison...several comfort stops at the good Wayside Rest Areas...

Not sure if this is an early sign or left over from last year BUT this was the most delightful "gas" station and convenience store in the small village of Glen Flora (population 92) we topped up with diesel at $2.27 the cheapest for weeks......
Not far from here we passed through Timms Hill with an elevation of 1915ft the highest point in Wisconsin....

We passed the end of the railcars but never did see the beginning...

Our last 97 miles on US 53 and a good 4 lane highway.....
We arrived a bit road weary at our campsite for the next 3 nights at Northland Camping & RV Park...lots of antiques (not the guests well maybe some of them) juke box, scales like my dad had in the butchers shop and the owner Cindy delightful...
No campsite wifi and our jetpac not working so a nice evening of reading....
More updates soon from..
The Relaxed Campers...