30² ft Adventure 008

 5/19/2022

• Left the campground at about 730 to move on in lowering skies and drizzle.
• At the 11 mile mark on the forest service road where there was 1 bar of service I stopped briefly to let the boys know I was headed to the next campground and that I wouldn’t have any meaningful service again for 30-40 miles.
• Headed south on Route 53 headed for MN 73 south. About an hour into my trip I came to Chisholm, MN.
• I was looking for a diner that might be open because the oatmeal I had for breakfast just wasn’t cutting it.
• None to be had. Lots of them around but all shuttered because of Covid I presume. Big signs on their front lawns said "COVID Sucks" and "Closed"
  
• At I was leaving the town I saw the Golden Arches and stopped for a "#1" meal and a small coffee. The good ole egg McMuffin.
• Sign at the drive up said that because of the storm that had rolled through yesterday internet was down and they could only take cash.
• At the pay window the nice young lady told me that it was a large hail storm yesterday mid day that did the damage.
• I sat in the parking lot eating, grateful that storm never reached the campground yesterday.
• I arrived at the Bunker Hills Campground in Minnesota about 4 hours north of my final destination at about 1:30. Temps in 70s and overcast.
• Check in wasn't until 3. I had to call a number to find out the registration office isn’t staffed until 2. I might be able to check in at 230 if the site is ready.
• So I made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple for lunch waiting in the parking lot. I’m thinking salad for dinner with a pita.
• This is a very nice place and is a part of the county parks system. Very much like one of the state parks I have stayed in before.
• A little rain is predicted overnight while sleeping.
• The drive here was very nice. Through mostly vacant forested fields, bogs, over rivers and along lakes.
• Finally was able to check in to my site at 230. 15 minutes later this part of the state was under severe weather alert 🚨
• Rain, paper plate size rain drops and pea size hail. Sun is out now but alert goes til 10PM.
• Hatch window leaked. Just another reason to not go further west than Iowa. Got to get all this sorted out.

 

5/20/2022

Off and on rain through the night

• Didn’t awaken until about 4. Could hear the drizzle on the roof. Lulled me back for another hour.
• Still dark, I put a pack together so that I could go up and use the shower early.
• Got all the way to the shower and undressed and realized I had forgotten my sandals. Looked at the shower floor and got dressed walked back to the truck and then back to the bathhouse.
• Pleasantly surprised that the shower had warm water.
• Back to the truck to lie down until at least the sun came up.
• Slept until 7. It wasn't raining so I got up and out to make some coffee and breakfast and then pack up before it started again.
• I finished up just before it started to rain and began my journey to Sac City, IA where a cousin and her husband have a farm.
• It was about a 4 hour drive south and west. Went south on Route 35 and then west on route 20 through some of the most beautiful farm country I have ever seen. 
• Once in Iowa, it was farmland to the horizon, the view only broken by a farm house, water tower or wind turbine. It was like standing on the back shore of Peaks Island and looking out to sea only it wasn't water, it was freshly planted fields.
• Believe it or not as I went west the gas prices went down and at about 20 miles from my destination I was able to get gas at a "Flying J" rest area for $3.99/gallon. There doesn't seem to be any reason for gas pricing. 
• Sally's cousin talked me in the last mile because of local street closures till I could see her standing and talking on her phone. So wonderful to see people that I haven't seen in so long.
• After a nice lunch I got to see their Aronia orchard. Aronia is also known as chokeberry. The berry can be processed into wines and jams.
• I then got to see some of their 200 acres of corn and soy beans which had just been planted. They practice a form of farming called no till. The two crops are alternated between fields and planted amongst the stalks remains left from the previous season.
• Such a beautiful wide open expanse.
• Dinner was wonderful. A complete meal of meat meatloaf, potatoes, corn and broccoli. And I didn't have to make it, even better.

The rest of my stay in Iowa was filled with a warm bed, cold nights, wonderful meals, walks and conversations. A truly timeless place. Couldn't have asked for a nicer place to put a bookmark in this adventure to continue another time. Have started to head east again lured by the desire to see more family and familiar places. On to see the "little women".

Aronia Orchard

As far as the eye can see

Emerging crop

The "Largest" popcorn ball

Still bitter feelings...

30² ft Adventure 007

From my digital journal about my trip to Superior National Forest dispersed camping area at Janette Lake Campground and further north in Minnesota to Voyageurs National Park.

 

5/16/2022

Gone Primitive….And Way Off The Grid

• Had a quick breakfast and and was on the road to lake Janette campground in the superior forest.
• 4 hours of driving over roads that apparently lead to nowhere anyone ever lived. I might be the only person on the road going anywhere for an hour at a time.
  
• I was the only car for 2 hours and only see one gas station.
• Through vast areas of nothing with 4 bars of cell. And then drive right next to cell tower and have no signal at all.
• Miles into the northeastern MN.
• Got to the turn-off for the campground and then had to drive on 11 miles of dirt forest service roads to get to the campground.
• This is primitive. No cell service, and it was cold and windy and cloudy. The site is a pullout in the road on some ledge with stairs down to a campsite. More tenting than the RV type site I was hoping for when I made the reservation from the picture.
• But absolutely gorgeous at the edge of the lake.
• I set up the privacy tent as a cabana with chair and table and have been sitting out of the wind for the afternoon. Blowing steady at at least 20 mph. Cold off the lake but warm in my little shelter with its door facing the sun and lake.
  
• Tonight I will have Mac n cheese for dinner.
• Time to get my wool hat and gloves.
• The Mac n cheese for dinner wasn’t a complete disappointment. I actually turned out well.
• Rather than cook in the wind up at road level, I brought everything I would need down to the cabana where I could cook next to the lake in the cabana out of the wind.
• Good news I remembered everything that I needed to make the meal.
• I had already divided the noodles into two servings before I left on the trip, except for the cheese sauce. I divided that at the car and put the half I wasn’t going to use in the fridge.
• I put too much water in the pot so when I added the noodles it started to foam up and boil over. Removed it from the heat quickly and dumped some of the water out. Then lowered the heat and it cooked perfectly.
• Strained the noodles into the weeds and poured the noodles onto the plate that already had some pulled rotisserie chicken on it.
• Added the sauce and stirred it on the paper plate so I wouldn’t have any cleanup.
• Very tasty and hot. Just what I needed.
  
• Had some gorp for desert.
• Cleaned the pot of the noodle residue by boiling a little water in it and fed that to the weeds.
• I took everything back to the truck and tidied up. I will read in the cabana for a while before turning in.
• Got to remember to make the headlamp at the ready because there is no light in the bathroom. Which is just a pit toilet in a block shed.
• Still cloudy and the wind is harsh off the lake when it blows. Totally different this far north but it reminds me quite a bit of Northern Maine.

Ledge area for the truck

View from campsite

Shelter from the wind at lower campsite

Cooking dinner in my cabana

 5/17/2022

Written while my phone is charging (typed later)

• Cold still morning when I woke up. The wind has died down though.
• Now that I have been up for an hour and had some oatmeal and a little coffee it is not so bad.
• Watched the movie Gravity last night and fell right to sleep probably by 9.
• Slept warm- glad I got the 0 degree sleeping bag. Temps dipped down into the 30’s
• While finishing my breakfast met a guy who was up here w/ a bunch of his buddies fishing.

Conversation ensued:

• Me- good morning as he walked by
• Him- morning a nice one
• Me- yeah nice to not have the wind and the sun feels warm
• Him- Oh brutal hey, had 3 days of that wind
• Me- you up here fishing?
• Him- yup been coming here the same week for 34 years to fish.
• Me- any luck?
• Him- we’re doing ok
• Me- told him I didn’t realize the site was split level. Hard to tell things like that when making reservations on line.
• Him- you’d have been shit out of luck if’n the waters hadn’t gone down over the last couple of weeks. You here fishing?
• Me- no going to the National Park to do some hiking and to see about a boat tour they say they offer.
• Him- You’re in it- the National park. Didn’t know they did that sort of thing.
• Me- that’s what I read. If that doesn’t work out I’ll head up to International Falls to see what that’s about. Just touring the area.
• Me- again does this place stay open all year for you guys? Ice fishing?
• Him- Nah! used to. 2 years ago feds started to put gates up because of Covid. They must have figured out we were having too much fun. They do leave it open later in the fall so we can at least hunt.
• Me- well, very nice to meet you.
• Him- Yup , same you have a great day.

After a few minutes a friend of his came over and introduced himself.

• Said that his friend is from MN and that he was from Chicago. Retired.
• He has been coming here the same weeks also to fish and hunt.
• I told him I was from Maine.
• I know a guy from Maine. They had worked together for the same. Maybe I would know him? 😳🙄(Hard to know. He didn’t give me his name, and oh and big state. What I was thinking not what I said) and that he live in Mount Desert. Calls every Christmas asking him to come for a visit. Says he would like Maine.
• I told him that if he likes this place he would love Maine.
• Told me that some time ago he went up through International Falls into Canada and did the trans Canada highway all the way to Yukon and the arctic circle camping in the back of his truck.
• Also gave me a little history of the area the park and national forest. Long before they put borders and names on them all these lakes and rivers are what opened up this land to the original fur tappers.
• He headed off to fish.

My Day continued

• I packed up and left to hit a couple of NP info centers and perhaps purchase a Voyageur National Park sticker.
• One and a half hours later the Ash River center was closed still for the winter. Looked around a little took a few pictures and hike to a look out. Gorgeous country.
• Drove another 45 mins north to International Falls and then the NP Rainy Lake info center. Also closed stayed about a half hour doing the same. Beautiful.
• As the NP promotional materials state this is an area set aside that while beautiful is more for adventurers who want access camping by boat or fish.
• 1 hour and 45 mins later I am back at the camp.
• Looks like the weather will be rainy for the next 2 days.
• Don’t relish sitting in the truck through that. But I guess that is what I signed up for.
• Thinking about that as I ate dinner (second half of subway sandwich that I bought for lunch) I looked over at my cabana.
• I decided when I finished dinner that I would rather break that down now while it’s dry than in the pouring rain and put it away wet.
• I would have left it up if it was closer to the truck. This split level site really kind of f’d me.
• I can tell now as the afternoon draws to evening that the sky has kind of gone milk colored. I’m remembering too that there was no dew on the cabana this morning. Both signs do, if I remember correctly from the "Camper’s Bible" book of my youth that means rain is coming.

From Blue Highways “Moving without going anywhere, taking a trip instead of making one.” Has this what my trip turned into? Is going any farther west taking a trip or making one? I am wrestling with this now while family on the east coast tugs at my heart as does my familiar coast of Maine.

• The sun still has a ways to go before it sets.
• I think I will leave my picnic table by the lake and head up to the truck.
• The campground is dead quiet with the exception of someone pulling their canoe up on the shore across the bay from me.

Janette Lake late afternoon

 

Voyager National Park

Rainy Lake, Voyageur National Park

Ash River, Voyageur National Park

5/18/2022

2:52 AM 🙄💩😵‍💫

• Yup that about says it all.
• Campground is dark and the sound of frogs is deafening.
• When you gotta go you gotta go.
  
• Was able to get back to sleep until about 630 then back to the restroom to get rid of the rest of the Subway sandwich poison.
• Had a quick wipe shower and put on some fresh clothes.
• Thought that I heard some sprinkles on the roof during the night. From the dust trails on the truck I would say that we did.
• Was able to tidy up a little and had another talk with my campground neighbor.
• He is from Brainard, MN which is about 4 hours from here. He is spending the day tidying up also and winding down his vacation as he leaves on Saturday.

A conversation ensued

• Me- have you toured much
• Him- nah. I know what I like and this is it. I will come back in the fall to hunt grouse.
• Me- I saw a bunch of deer crossing the road as I came back into the site yesterday. And I was reading the notice on bulletin board that there are bears?
• Him- Yeah lots of both here. Just before I came here had a 500 pounder (bear)at my house swipe over a garbage can that I store cat food in spilled it out on my deck laid down and ate 35 lbs. of it. Laughing he continued I’ve got it on my game cam.
• Me- do you hunt deer?
• Him- yeah but not here. Got a hundred acres back home. Can pretty much hunt from my bedroom window.

Back to my day

• Listening to Minnesota PR. Rain showers this afternoon and more tomorrow. But a little warmer.
• 10 AM it has started raining! Have been sketching all morning. In the truck now for while.
• 76% charge left on the power station. These low air temps are great because the fridge isn’t cycling near as much using up power.
• Have contemplated making some changes to the camping set up. Less stuff and a complete aisle on the side opposite the bed. Fridge behind the passenger seat and do something more permanent with the power.
• It was a very nice quiet day.
• Weather was in and out of clouds and there were showers.
• Every now and again the wind would bluster and blow along the front of an oncoming shower.
• Then the sun would come out for an hour.
• This pattern would repeat itself. I spent the day reading in camper when it rained and out in a chair. I would sketch when the rain stopped for extended periods about sketching scenes of the campground using just a bic pen on paper. It was fun to keep it simple for a change.
• Lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwich and dinner which had to be made quickly between raindrops was a rotisserie chicken wrap and the last of the fruit salad I had bought while driving here on the road.
• Met the rest of the fisherman staying at this dispersed camping area. I was quite the novelty because I wasn’t here to fish but just here touring.
• I made the decision that I will end my adventure west after my stay at Nancy and Steve’s farm in Iowa.
• I will trend SE to Florida to spend time with Will, Ashley and the little women. Then as I head up the east coast back from whence this trip started I will see more family in PA.
• Having taken so much time to get this far in my journey I feel inadequate in my ability to sustain myself into a trip farther west.
• I want to regroup and make several future trips that are planned out like this part of my trip using what I have learn about camping and campgrounds.
• I just don’t think it would be enjoyable to wing it for the other places that I really want to see.
• That will give me something to do the rest of this year. Plan!

The moon on the way back from bathroom

Hike into a bog

Quick sketch at the bog

sketch of neighboring camper set up

Quick sketch of some birch undergrowth

My picnic table

Reading, waiting out a passing shower

5/19/2022

Cloudy day

• Fairly restful night.
• Finished “River Runs Through It” and then read until 930 before calling it a day.
• Was up once at 330 and then 530 for the day. Laid in my sleeping bag for another hour listening to the news.
• The news wasn’t very good so I stopped listening. Morning Edition on NPR was talking about the cost of things, particularly gas on the west coast. $6/gallon. Ugh 😣
• I think my choice to trend east next week is a good one. So I will put a book mark in this adventure after the upcoming chapter called Iowa.
• Off to the farmland!
  

 

 

30² ft Adventure 006

I have been journaling for years and more recently using a digital journal. Rather than retyping the text  into the blog, I just copied and pasted my raw thoughts from my bullet journal about the trip to the source of the Mississippi; Lake Itasca. To begin I was traveling from the Indian Dunes National Park.

5/12/20222

So F'ing Hot 🥵

• Up at 5 trip to the bathroom. Back in the truck and slept for another hour.
• Breakfast was a granola bar, applesauce and coffee.
• Dumped my grey water and took down and stored my privacy tent.
• Stowed everything away and was underway by 9. It was already 85 degrees.
• Stopped at noon at a Loves truck stop. Made a peanut butter sandwich and pressed on to the Cedar River Campground in Tipton, Iowa
• Crossed the Mississippi for the first time in my life.
• Passed by lots and lots of large farms. Some even had large wind turbines on them.
• Got to the campground at 1:30 and called the owner who wasn’t at the registration office
• She told me to go to my site, B2, and she would find me and register me later.
• Right next to the interstate.
  
• Took the opportunity because of the heat and the aspect of my site, to set up my idea of an awning.
• Should have done that once in the backyard at the island. Instead I had to put it all together in the heat and 30 mph winds. But figured it out. Good thing be cause it is keeping the setting sun off me.
• Had it up a couple of hours. The wind was something fierce. The awning did its job until the sun passed behind a huge maple tree on my site, so I took it down.
• Had a pita and some hummus for a snack and a salad with some chicken salad in pouch on top. Didn’t feel like eating all that much.
• Seems like a pretty nice place, but it has seen better days. Recent reviews I had read weren’t very kind and in my opinion not deserved.
• Three huge rigs showed up after I got set up.
• Been sitting here reading until just before sunset. Time to brush teeth and turn in. Much cooler now and the breeze has dropped off a little.
• Lulled to sleep by the sounds of high speed cars and trucks on the interstate.
  
• Tomorrow I start my trip up the Mississippi to Lake Itasca on my way to Voyageur National Park

My pitiful awning

My Yard Light

Trying to keep cool with fan and bug net

5/13/2022

What a day

• Cooler by about 15 degrees when I woke up.
• Cleaned up with a little wipe bath. Gross I know but I wasn’t about to walk the two hundred yards to shower. I would just need another by the time I got back to the truck.
• Breakfast was coffee and some oatmeal. While that was in the making, I started to organize a little getting ready for the next leg north to Perot State Park Campground in Wisconsin.
• Not much to break down so was on the road by 9 AM
• First stop Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa.
• Took about an hour and a half to get there. Over county roads through farmland just starting to be worked. Through so many towns whose name you only knew because the water tower had their name on it.
• What a great little place the field of dreams movie sit is. The suggested donation was $40 and with that I got a bumper sticker, to pins and a jar of infield dirt. Very cool. Only stayed a half hour or so and got a bat and a program from the gift shop.
• With all my swag I was on my way to the campground.
• Crossed the Mississippi into Wisconsin and had lunch at the information center which was locked because the attendant was at lunch. 🙄
• So I had my own lunch of PB & J at a picnic table there. My friend Jay called to catch up and we talked a little.
• I pressed on. North on Route 35 which runs along the Mississippi. Beautiful drive. Until… a road closure the sent me on a fifty mile detour. Google map’s didn’t know how to handle it. I was in this endless loop of the app trying to make me back-track to the closed road. I actually had to stop the car, take out the atlas to figure out where I was, reset maps and choose an alternate route I could live with. That believe it or not actually followed the detour signage.
• Added an hour on to the trip.
• Got to the Perot State Park Campground in Wisconsin and checked in.
• Their well samples showed that the park's potable water supply had high nitrate levels. So will have to use what I have in my tank sparingly and fill up at the next campground tomorrow.
• Set up my privacy tent and set up for the night in about 15 minutes and have been sitting in my new $7 camp chair that I got at a Walmart on my way out of Tipton this morning. Brilliant invention.
• Dinner will be scrambled hamburger on a couple of pitas and a small salad.

If you build it.......

The field and farm house

Had to buy some swag!

Perot State Park Campground, WI

5/14/2022

Long day… short uneventful drive

• Woke up at 3. The temperature had dropped. It was in the 50’s. That’s more like it but it felt cold because I was still clammy from the heat the day before.
• Rolled over until 5ish. Had to visit the restroom. But if I was going all that way I was going to take advantage of the shower.
• Packed for the hike to the head. Washed two days of 90 degree sweat and grime off in a very cold shower.
• Put on a fresh set of clothes unsure whether or not I should throw out the old ones or add them to the laundry bag. Chose the latter.
• Climbed back into the truck and fell back to sleep until about 6 when I got a call from sister dear checking up on me. She was out for an early morning walk. Jeff had a baseball game that she would be attending.
• It was a good talk. Nice to hear a familiar voice.
  
• I told her of my woes over being undecided about traveling on beyond what I had planned and made reservations for.
• Mostly that I would figure things out when I could get off the road for a few days at Sally’s cousin’s farm in western Iowa.
• Breakfast was coffee, water and oatmeal.
• I mulled my earlier call with sister dear. I had purposely only made an itinerary for a month telling myself I would go further if I was feeling it. But was I feeling it?
• Maybe I could go on. I was kind of getting into a rhythm. A shit ton of work to see such a few notable places that I have seen thus far.
• Gonna have to mull some more.
• I broke camp and was on the road to my next campground in Wild River State Park in Center City, MN by about 9AM.
• I always feel ashamed of myself for punching the destination into Google Maps after having been a surveyor in a past life. It is pure blind faith I put in the technology to get me where I am supposed to be going. The alternative is unthinkable because the atlas I have is so poor. Also, I have just become plain lazy.
• A four hour drive through Wisconsin farm country- through towns named Blair, Whitehall, Osseo, Eau Clair, Altoona, Chippewa Falls, and Turtle Lake.
• Passed a farm with a sobering sign painted on the side of a barn “Save America Arm Yourselves” under which was a Trump Pence poster 🙄
• I crossed the St. Croix River into Minnesota and a place called Taylor Falls and was 15 miles from the campground.
• Another nice place to stay. And in about 10-15 minutes I was all set up for the evening and it was only 2 PM.
• Spent the afternoon hi lighting my route I had taken, in my atlas. Total to date 2,278 miles
• Someone stopped at the edge of my site while riding by with his small children and asked about my solar panels. Very interested in what they were for. He was in the residential solar business but didn’t know anything about equipment available for cars and campers. We talked until he realized that in that short time his kids had ridden off down the camp road without him.
• Cooler as I go north. 60 degrees right now.
• Been reading “Blue Highways”, the only real book I have with me. I have lost my kindle in the back of the truck somewhere with a bunch of books I downloaded for the trip. Like a few other things I had set aside in places so I would be sure to know where to find them. Now among the missing.
• Tomorrow Lake Itasca.

Wild River Campground, Center City, MN

Solar Panels at work charging my power station

 

5/15/2022

Early Riser

• Awakened at 3 and rolled over and back to sleep at 5. Woke up after a bit of dream. Dreamed that I was lost trying to camp in NYC. Was sitting on the roof of my truck trying to think of the place I wanted to go to plug into Google maps but couldn’t remember anything.
• Natures urge got me out of the truck early to hike to the bathroom.
• Gonna head back and try to sleep for another hour.
• Beautiful and cool temps before sunrise. I think I am the only one up in the campground.
• “The wanderer’s danger is to find comfort… Memory is each man’s own last measure, and for some, the only achievement.” Blue Highways
• These quotes stand out as I read them to give my upcoming stay with family perspective and wondering if I should continue west.
• At about 8 AM folks started to awaken in the campground. For many it’s Sunday and the last day of a weekend camping trip.
• I have no use for weekends anymore. Weekend days are only recognizable to me from day label on my weekly pill dispenser.
• It was a long drive to Itasca State park. 4.5 hours.
• Gas stations were far and few between. But the good news was that both times I stopped gas was only$3.99/gallon.
• Got a crispy chicken sandwich at McDonald’s and did a little grocery shopping in a County Market grocery Store as well.
• Got to the campground an hour early so even though they said no one had the site last night, there was a tow behind in my spot so I have to wait till 4 PM until they vacate.
• So parked in an overflow parking lot and hiked to see Lake Itasca, headwaters of the Mississippi.
• It is so beautiful. Must be 35 mph winds and the lady at the registration desk said it would get down to 38 degrees tonight.
• On my walk back to the truck a older couple in a van with Oregon plates pulled up along side me and asked where I was from. I said Maine and said that must be why you have shorts on. I laughed. The remarked that it was going down to 38 degrees tonight and that they were cold. I said must be that global warming I've been hearing about. They laughed and drove on.
  
• Had a salad for dinner last night with the pulled rotisserie chicken I had gotten at the County Market on the way to the campsite.
• As I was eating, a chipmunk poked it’s head out of the rear passenger wheel well and stared at me. And all of a sudden I got anxious about what if it nests in the engine and the trucl conks out in the middle of nowhere.
• So I spent 15 minutes trying to chase it away from the truck when ever I saw it.
• Must have looked like an idiot to the few nearby campers.
• This is what the solitude has done to me. Turned me into an anxious knuckle head.
• The only way I could get passed it was by meditating using my meta mantra for someone I have a conflict with: “May you be safe, be happy, be healthy, live with ease.” After the chipmunk is a being.
• He never returned and I read a book while not thinking about him again.
• At 8 PM I packed it in, got changed and watched a movie “Charlie Wilson’s War”
• Fell asleeppromptly.
• It was toasty warm in the camper.

Locally owned vs National chain

Lake Itasca

Another view of the lake

 

5/16/2022

Gone Primitive….And Way Off The Grid

• I was up at 5 and rolled over and back to sleep until 6 with the help of some meditation.
• It was too early to leave yet, so was wondering what to do until I left. The sun was only thinking about coming up and it was cold. 48 but it felt much colder given the 90s from earlier in the week.
• Got myself dressed and headed out on an early morning hike in search of the source of the Mississippi.
• The outlet to lake Itasca was about 1.5 miles away by a paved trail starting in the campground.
• Beautiful morning for a hike and I was the only one doing it.
• When I got there I was astonished that it was only about 20 ft across. There was an explanatory monument and a log bridge you could use to walk across. Foot worn and smooth by countless others that wanted to say they stepped across the Mississippi.
• Grabbed a few pictures and headed back to to the truck.
• Decided to take a shower because there would be no other facilities for the next 4 days.
• Cold as all get out. But felt good to be clean again.
• Had a quick breakfast and was on the road to Lake Janette campground in the superior forest and Voyageur National Park by 9.

The info.

I stepped across the Mississippi

 

30² ft Adventure 005

The morning I was supposed to leave Willow Lake Park, I realized that there were two campgrounds with the same name Willow Park, in the same state and separated by about 2 hours of traveling. Because I had stayed at the campground closer to my next overnight (now only and hour away), it didn’t make sense to keep the next reservation so I pushed on to Chesterton, Indiana where the Indiana Dunes State Park (IDSP) is located. I would be staying in that state park campground for three nights. Because I would be a day early for my reservation there, I treated myself to a room at the Bird Water Motel, only about 7 miles away. Nice little hotel with WiFI, hot showers and close to food places. Coincidentally it was right next to a Walgreens, so I was able to get all my prescriptions refilled. What? Dinner was pizza and movie.

View from my hotel deck door

Next day I checked into the IDSP campground. Finally found my people. Not just an RV resort campground filled with seasonal residents, but a campground with all kinds of campers: tents, homemade tow-behinds, pods, RV’s, trucks and vans. If you could sleep in it, it was there. All this and 90 degree heat as well. What a difference a new time zone makes in the weather. I was all set up and checked in by about 11 AM with plenty of time left in the day for a hike in the state park. I decided on a 6 mile hike; trail 10 on their trail map. It was about a 3 mile hike through a lush oak savanna and along a marsh by way of the back side of the wooded dunes. Then 3 miles along the beautiful sandy beach of Lake Michigan. Both the trailhead and the trail end were right from the campground.

 

Indian Dunes State Park Trail Map

 

Camp Site

What a spectacularly special place this park and the National Park of the same name are and both sandwiched between the massive industrial complex. Such foresight to have preserved such places. My hike, once I got onto the beach gave new meaning to the word hot. It was cooling to walk barefoot in the lake. About 3 hours total hiking time. Note too self, bring more water on similar hikes. That night I slept with the hatch up and the bug net down (still in the 90's), lulled to sleep by the many neighboring camper's soft conversations around their camp fires.

 

 

The next day I traveled a short distance to the Indian Dunes National Park and did a 5 mile trail called the Cowles Bog Trail (North). Same landscape as the state park the day before, only with a shorter stretch, maybe a mile, along Lake Michigan. Amazing to stand on the beach and realize you are looking out at a lake and not the ocean. Made me homesick for Peaks. As the trail dumps out onto the beach, you can look West and see the gigantic ArcelorMittal USA Steel Plant in Burns Harbor. Only about 1/2 mile away. Freaky to see such a place right next to a national park. I guess there have been some large chemical spills that have closed the national beach as recently as a couple of years ago. This hike took about 2.5 hours.

 

As the trail approaches the beach

Signs of life

 

I have checked out of this campground with a number of one night campground stands to look forward to on my way to visit Lake Itasca (headwaters of the Mississippi). Then on to Voyegeur National Park in northern Minnesota at the Canadian border.