Yooper Weekend

So Friday we drove up north.

Not to Brainerd or Fargo or Ely, but to Upper Michigan.  My Grandma's cabin is over on Lake Gogebic and we enjoyed a nice quiet weekend of Saunas, hiking, and biking.  

On our way to Duluth we drove through the campgrounds in Banning State park to scope out choice camp sites there.  If we aren't going to hike into the woods, I like to have sites on the inside of curves so that as people drive around we don't have to look at their headlights.  Then we stopped at Fitgers and refilled our growler.  The Blueberry Wheat lacks the gentle subtlety of the Apricot and the rich mouth feel of the stout.  Though we haven't tried everything, I think the Apricot Wheat is the best followed by the stout.

Orchard's in Iron River sold us lunch of burgers and pie.  The wild blueberry pie is very good, and the cherry pie is also very good.

We stopped quite a bit driving up.  More than usual and it took nearly 6 hours becasue of that.  But it was nice easy driving, compared to trips that have been in snow or rain especially.  

The Porcupine Mountain State Park is one of my favorite state parks.  One of the more easily accessible trails, the Escarpment Trail, seems to have seen more traffic since I frequented the park and for a ways has lots of fencing to keep people onto the trail.  But my favorite trail, The Little Carp River Trail, is just as I remembered it.

One awesome thing about the LCRT is its annoying distance from civilization.  From Wakefield or Ontonogon it is roughly a million miles driving on a two lane road.  And then a ways down an old dirt road.  But unlike the Escarpment Trail's rocky path, the LCRT is all soft pine needles.  Excellent for hiking and tenting. Here's a nice map.  

I'm saving some significant stories for the next post about the wildlife.

there is something terribly broken about that last sentence.  lets take a moment.

whew.

ice ice everywhere and not a drop to drink

Ice was everywhere! We were planning to do a bunch of biking in Duluth, but the trails we would have used were either covered in rotten snow or flooded.

I don't like riding on rotten snow, it isn't predictable, and with narrow tires... pththth

This breakwater thingy looked more like a half sunk boat than a half-sunk building.  

When we arrived in Duluth we stopped at the rest area/visitor center at the top of the bluff, to use the facility's pamphlet racks.  

It was also mind-blowingly bright out, notice the squinting. Also very clear.

The drive up was great.  The roads were clear and the winds minimal. 

Interestingly, all the pamphlets about Duluth and Superior were hidden under the counter in the visitor center. So we had to ask for every piece of paper.  But if we had wanted information about the Twin Cities or Madeline Island it was everywhere, even in my raccoon wounds.

Duluth sounds really cool.  Like a thousand chandeliers being smashed gently.  Some of those slabs are as big as volkswagens, and some no bigger than my thumb.  wham wham wham!

Heading North

So we're heading up to Duluth this weekend.  I've driven through Duluth hundreds of times (I figure for 18 years I made the trip to the UP a dozen times a year, and a few times a year every year since) and yet I've never spent any significant time there.

So Shannon and I are going to spend the weekend seeing what the other twin cities have to offer.