Back home in NY we are witnessing two industries growing very quickly. They are craft breweries and craft distilleries. A far cry from the times of prohibition we would say. The Minnesota culture seems to promote growth in both of these industries, especially the breweries. We are currently just north of Two Harbors and enjoying the fruits of Castle Danger Brewery’s labor.
The Castle Danger Brewery offered a great “Cream Ale”. No Genesee beer here!
Back in Duluth we found many breweries right near our campsite in Canal Park. Our favorite is Bent Paddle Brewery. The Canal Park Brewery comes in a close second.
The Bent Paddle “Black” is infused with espresso and actually combines the great tastes of beer and coffee to perfection. So good.
We stopped into the Vikre Distillery and sampled some of their whiskey and vodka. It was actually very smooth and had subtle hints of this and that.
We actually had a chance to stop at a neat little restaurant on the Lakewalk in Duluth right in the middle of our daily 8 mile hike. The SHT route takes you right downtown so a hungry and thirsty hiker can fill up. Fish and chips and a flight of local beer. Just enough energy to get us back up the hills to the ridge overlooking the lake with “Superior” views.
Our waiter was intrigued by the fact that we were actually in the middle of a long hike as we sat down for beer and fish and chips.Nice spot for a quick flight of beer while people watching and seeing the freighters make the lift bridge go up and down.
After a long day of hiking it is sheer luxury to hop on a motorized bike and cruise back to our truck.
In case any of you were wondering how we get back to our vehicle after a long hike…..The motor scooter is our vehicle of choice during this trip.
Tough to see but we purchased special straps that keep it very steady in the bed of the truck.
We have used our tandem bicycle on trips like the Appalachian Trail near the Skyline Drive as it is a straight, albeit hilly, shot from one trail head to the other. On the Finger Lakes Trail we usually choose our separate mountain bikes as there are many dirt DEC roads the tandem would not like. On the Appalachian Trail in the state of Maine we used two vehicles as the logistics and distance involved there prevented any sane person from biking 30 miles after hiking 15.
Transporting the scooter is not as difficult as we once imagined. It weighs almost 400 pounds soaking wet so lifting it is not an option. We initially had two 10 inch by 10 foot folding ramps but found them to be too skinny for safety sake. It would suck to slip off one and lose the scooter. We upgraded to two 18 inch by 10 foot ramps that strap to the ball of the hitch for safety. Below are some pics of the uploading and downloading of the scooter (are those real words in the scooter world?)
Occasionally we run a cable lock through the rear wheel. Most areas we leave the scooter we feel are safe but this was not a parking area and on a dirt road way in the middle of nowhere.
And back in the truck ready for another day of hiking!
After all our days of hiking on the Superior Hiking Trail we opted for something different today. We decided to rent kayaks and head out to mingle with the “big guys”. The freighter schedule called for one Laker (1000 foot ship that is so big it cannot leave the Great Lakes) leaving port at 8pm and a Salty (700 foot ship that can fit through the locks heading to the Saint Lawrence Seaway headed to the Atlantic) arriving after that.
We went to the beach at Burlington Bay at around 7pm. This beach can be used for swimming but only the strong (read…crazy) will go swimming in this chilly water. The water high temperature on the Northern Shore in August is 66 degrees F. Instead of swimming we met Christy, an “entrepreneur” who rents kayaks out of the back of her minivan. She took us up to Agate Bay about 2 miles away and launched us into the lake right between a lighthouse and the Laker.
Christy had what she called “The best job in the world….helping people enjoy kayaks”……for a price.Headed out toward the action.
The Laker belched out its steam and set off all sorts of alarms seeming to say “I am ready to depart” but it actually never left port.
Those two little specks are us getting as close to the laker as we dare.Not too close dear!Just heard the “warning alarm” that the laker was ready to go.
A close encounter with a lighthouse. Not a famous one but I am sure it has saved a few ships from wrecking.Can you guess who is pushing whose buttons here?
Edna G Museum in Two Harbors, Minnesota Edna G is a tugboat which worked the Great Lakes and is now preserved as a museum ship. Edna G was built by the Cleveland Shipbuilding Company in 1896 for the Duluth and Iron Range Railroad at a cost $35,397.50. Wikipedia Length: 92′ Depth: 7′ 5″ Beam: 23′ 0″ Year built: 1896 Owner: Duluth and Iron Range Railroad Installed power: coal-fired steam-engine Added to NRHP: June 5, 1975Time to head back? We love lake sunsets!
We stayed out paddling around until shortly after nine before coming in to watch two families of ducks “rumble” over which family had the rights to the kids bread crumbs.
Don’t let the picture fool you….Laurie would catch up in the end.Baby ducks are so cute. Kind of surprised that they don’t “run away” but I guess food was involved.
Now that we are hooked on the serene sense one gets on a calm night paddling in Lake Superior we will look into purchasing two kayaks to bring with us westward. It is not the money that will prevent us from buying but the logistics of carrying them throughout our journies. If we can find some way to load them onto our rig without getting in the way of our tandem bicycle and/or our motor scooter and ramps we will do it.
AND…the verdict is…….No kayak purchase on this trip. They are definitely in our near future though.
We have been hiking 7-10 miles per day on most days for the past few weeks and have completely fallen in love with this trail. After 135 miles we have run out of expletives to describe the beautiful views and sights to each other. Below are a number of our favorite pictures so far. Many of the pictures do not do the scene justice but you can get a feel for what we are looking at each day.
The happy couple on a drizzly and 58 degree day in Northern Minnesota. What happens when it rains and you are hiking?? You get wet!What a luxurious road crossing here near Duluth. No dodging cars/trucks here.This is the way the Superior Hiking Trail folks mark their trail heads. So clearly done we haven’t got lost once (yet).Hopefully there is some moss gathered on this stone because if it were rolling Laurie would be in trouble.One of MANY ponds the SHT provides a view of. Not very big compared to Lake Superior but sooooo beautiful.The St. Louis River seen from the trail has one of the largest fresh water deltas in the world.You can check out the history and background of this amazing river at the Wikipedia site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Louis_RiverOne reason we chose the SHT as a starting point for our retirement journey was the many promised lake views it affords while traversing the “hills” on the North Shore. That speck in the middle is a 1000 foot freighter called a laker.There have been countless waterfalls and deep gorges to walk through and have a wonderful trail lunch by.We would love to have been at places like this during the Spring runoff.
That Spring runoff plays havoc with trails such as the SHT: One day we walked by 3 bridges that had recently been swept away by a large rain storm. At least the designer of the bridges “tied” them up to nearby trees with cables to keep them from wandering too far.The picture does not do justice to the amount of erosion that recently happened here. Those who experienced the floods of 2006 and 2011 in the Binghamton area know what we are talking about.There are many nice spots to re-tie our shoes when necessary.
The SHT provides many nice puncheons to walk on through either muddy areas or areas that look nicer when the hiker stays on the trail.We have birch trees in the Northeast but Minnesota seems to have many more. They are our favorite trees to walk through.We noticed that in many locations the birch trees all seemed to be sheared off toward the top? Not sure why but very interesting to look at.Not sure about the engineering of this bridge but I trusted it enough to let Laurie cross first and take this picture. It is holding up nicely but it is very skewed to the left.
It took us a moment to realize it here but our ride home, our scooter, is waiting in the parking area across the road from this beautiful home. We find it amazing to be able to see where you have been recently on a hike and, sometimes, where you will soon be.
We always wondered what taking off and landing on the water would be like. Turns out it is much smoother than landing on a runway. This is when the lake is calm the pilot told us otherwise, all bets are off. We got hooked into this by taking a nice evening bike ride down the point on Minnesota Avenue. The “end of the road” was an airstrip that had an sign for seaplane rides. We were fairly easily talked into joining a family of 4 for the 7:00pm flight. The pilot told us that the more folks on board, the longer he can afford to fly. The conditions were also very calm and the skies were clear.
We took off and immediately the pilot gave us an interesting history lesson of the area that helped us see the sites at ground level in an entirely new way. After a very smooth ride we landed 45 minutes later without incident.
This is a “dry dock” as 1000 foot “lakers” can fit into them and then the gate closes, the water is pumped out and folks can work on the ship in dry conditions. They are called that as they are too big to make it to the ocean via the Saint Lawrence Seaway. A Salty is a ship that is around 700 feet and CAN make it to the “salty” sea via the St. Lawrence Seaway.A Comparison of bridges in the area. There is the Bong Bridge (yes that is it’s name) above that is high enough for all ships to fit through and the swing bridge for the railroad that only closes (no ships allowed) when a train crosses.This is one of many piles of road salt we saw. I guess the Minnesota winters need it? Check out the “small” bulldozer climbing the hill.
It truly was a thrill to fly this way. The pilot asked us if we wanted to stick around and watch them take the plane out of the water and “wheel” it into the hanger using his mid-sized John Deere lawn tractor.
Good use for a John Deere Lawn Tractor?
He also noted that a plane from Canada was landing and that the border patrol had been called to clear the plane and it’s passengers for entry into our great country. Why would anyone fly illegal things into the country and call border patrol on themselves?
Welcome to the good ole’ US of A…..Papers please
We were treated to some awesome views of the Lake Superior Shoreline and the City of Duluth, Minnesota.
The gift shop had a wonderful selection of flying memorabilia.
Nice Tee Sirt! This particular Dehavilland Beaver plane was built in 1966 and was originally used by the US Army at Fort Bragg for parachute training.
For old folks like us you probably remember the “potential craze” back near the turn of the century called simply “IT”. The ad gimmicks would basically just say “It is coming” and they never told you what it was. IT turns out to be called a Segway and is a total blast to ride. It took us about 10 minutes to learn how to balance on it and ride it without killing ourselves. About 5 of those minutes used to coerce us to actually get on IT.
One stop on the tour was the Rose Garden at the far reaches of Canal Park in the City of Duluth. When Interstate 35 was constructed through downtown in 1992 the fine folks on the planning board managed to get three separate tunnels created. On each tunnel they put 6 feet of dirt and created city parks One of them was the Rose Garden
Just picture an interstate highway running right underneath this beautiful place.
Canal Park was designated as an area for tourism to help Duluth recover from the loss of the city’s industrial base in the 1980s. We explored the 4.2 mile lakewalk/boardwald a number of times walking and bike riding as well as a bit on the Segway. This is one of the nicest city revitalization projects we have seen.
We stole this image from the Duluth tourism site but figure they will not mind.For much of the 4.2 miles there is a parallel boardwalk and paved walking/riding path. Storms have recently played havoc with the boardwalk section.
For all who have never heard about it, the Superior Hiking Trail (SHT) winds its way for 310 miles from Duluth, Minnesota all the way up the North Shore of Lake Superior to Canada. Twelve years ago while bicycling around the lake we noticed signage that made us aware of the trail’s existence. To kick off our retirement we decided to hike the entire SHT. This will allow us to experience a hiking trail that is different than the Finger Lakes Trail in NY (FLT) or the Appalachian Trail (AT) on the east coast. It will also allow me to shed some of those unwanted pounds that seem to creep onto my body during the academic year while teaching.
You can see that the SHT parallels the shores of Lake Superior rather closely. This affords the hiker awesome lake views from time to time.This is the book we use to get to and from one trail head to another. We purchased it at www.shta.org.
The folks that designed the SHT figured that it should start at the Minnesota-Wisconsin border and head north from there. To do this we had to hike “out and back” to the terminus 1.9 miles each way. This means you only get 1.9 miles of hiking credit but 3.8 miles of caloric burn credit. When we got to the border there was a bit of signage signifying the spot but the big deal was the sign that said “NO TRAIL BEYOND THIS POINT”. We supposed that at some point they would connect the SHT to a trail in Wisconsin? We also signed into the trail register there and have not found another single register box on the trail to date.
A trail that dead-ends in the woods?If you cannot read the chicken scratch in the trail register…..”Roy and Laurie Dando beginning our end to end hike of the SHT. 10 miles a day gets us to Canada in a month or so. Lots of bugs but what a beautiful trail.”A selfie of us at the official southern terminus of the SHT. Who needs a selfie stick?
We have planned on leaving our bullet at many trail-heads and possibly using those locations as a place to camp at night. Usually we can get a feel for whether the area is safe and welcoming. The last thing we want to do is get someone aggravated at us for parking our camper where it is not welcome.
Wild Valley Trail Head was home for a few days.
Spending an evening at a trail head can be a bit eerie when you hear those “bump in the nights”. Wonder if it could have been a bear leaving his/her calling card right outside our bullet camper?
For any animal scat aficianados: We figure this to be black bear scat. Either that or one heck of a big dog as I wear a size 11 shoe!
We have been in the Grand Marais area before when we took our tandem bike around Lake Superior in 2006. It was back then that we realized how beautiful the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is. For that reason we chose to motor up through lower Michigan to cross the Mackinaw Bridge and spend some time in the UP versus driving through Indiana and Illinois to reach Duluth, MN. What a great choice it was.
The Mackinaw Bridge closes one day a year so folks can hike across it. It is part of the official route of the North Country National Scenic Trail that winds from North Dakota to Vermont.
Some local residents claimed we must hike the Chapel Loop hike near Munising, Michigan. We concur that so far, this is the nicest 10 mile hike we have ever been on. After a nice 3 mile hike into the lakeshore with a few nice waterfalls we were treated to 4 miles of the North Country National Scenic Trail and its views of the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. That is an aweful lot of National stuff for one day but boy are we glad the government decided to keep this piece of property in the public domain.
Notice the poor tree clinging to the mainland by the “roots of its chinny chin chin”. How that occurred we will never know (unless someone out there knows these things and will tell us).
One of the many waterfalls we saw during the Chapel Loop hike.
The trail tread was very easy to walk but we didn’t have any interest in slipping a bit to the left as the lake was 100-200 feet below. As much as we like swimming, the fall might not allow a swim in the very cold waters of Gitche Gumme.
One step to the left and oops…..The noise the sea gulls made from inside the caves was amazing
This little guy (maybe gal?) was not afraid of human activity. I am sure many have fed him before but I get a bit guarded about the amount of food we have to eat when out for a long hike.
Any thoughts on naming the chipmunk?
We read a bit about the Michigan H58. It has an interesting, and somewhat recent history. Google it for more interesting info on it. It sounded interesting enough for us to take a bike ride from Munising to Grand Marais one day. We are either becoming wussier or wiser as we drove the bike to just outside Munising and bicycled back to Grand Marais before taking our scooter back the 40 miles to pick up the truck. In the “olden days” we would have cycled both ways. We stopped at a little pull out to eat our lunch and found this sign right on the lakeshore that read “No ATV activity beyond this point”. We thought the lake was a good enough indication regarding that.
The road to nowhere.
We would have loved to stay in the UP of Michigan but there is more to see in our great country. Off to Minnesota and the Superior Hiking Trail.
It is Brad’s birthday. He stopped up to bid us a fond adieux before we left at around 1:30 for our long journey. As it was 95 degrees as we were having the truck pull our loaded rig up all the hills of New England we were very happy to have leased the Chevy truck for the trip. Boy are we going to beat the crap out of it over the next few years.
Our rig at one of our first stops as we forgot to take its picture at home.
We got to the campground at a bit after 9pm so the sun was about gone but the area seemed deserted. We realized that this was our 20 year anniversary of sorts as it was 1998 when we met and the first place I took Laurie was to the Bretton Woods area in NH.
The Iron Ranger is where we deposit “$18 in the hole” for an evening stay.Our spot at Zealand Falls Campground. A no frills tradition. Priceless.
What a great sleep in the crisp and cool NH air. The temperature dropped from 95 into the mid 50s by morning time. We almost had to put the heat on! After breakfast we unloaded the scooter for a ride up to the WMNF (White Mountain National Forest) parking area and a nice hike up to the Gem Pool for our yearly picture. On the way up we came across a moose.
Any thoughts on what we should name her?
That little pine tree is now around 12 feet tall and some of its lower branches have been mutilated by folks resting on the rock next to it over the years but our photo looks very similar to the one we took there almost exactly 20 years ago.
2003
At the Gem Pool halfway up Mt. Washington
Today (2018)…..Have we aged?
Same spot at the Gem Pool
We noted that we had not done any hiking with elevation this year and that the boulders/tree roots etc were doing their job in keeping our core muscles in shape and our balance in check. We were going to scooter up Clinton Rd. to the Mt. Willard hiking trail but the road was closed. That is not the first time a seasonal road up here was closed in the middle of the summer. Poor folks with a GPS.
Saw this little critter on the side of the base road to the Cog Railway
We drove down to Upper Falls and watched the locals cliff dive etc. It was by far, the busiest I have ever seen the falls. No diving for us today though. A very weird site was a totally tattooed guy with a big swastika on his chest. He was swimming etc next to all sorts of folks. Wonder what they all thought of his careless advertising?
We are not giving the advertiser any credit but he was there.Upper Falls is our favorite place to cliff dive over the years
Next stop … Mt. Willard. We were going to scooter up Clinton Road to the Mt. Willard hiking trail but the road was closed. That is not the first time a seasonal road up here was closed in the middle of the summer. Poor folks with a GPS. There was almost no one at the summit and the views were incredible as usual. The bugs put a small damper on the mood but we are up north toward the end of black fly season so that is how it goes.
View from Mt. Willard. US Route 302 winding through Crawford Notch
After dinner we drove down to Lower falls for a game of cards and a bottle of champagne. Unfortunately the champagne bottle slipped and smashed on the rocks. We will call the rocks our “ship” that we are christening for lack of anything else to say about that. Another wonderful evening was had by all.
Lower Ammonoosuc Falls. We like to play gin rummy and drink a wee bit of gin here after a day of activity.
Thursday saw us getting on the bike for the first time in a while. We decided to cycle to lunch in Bethlehem, NH (not the middle east). We doubt the name of the town has anything to do with it but summertime seems to be the time when the Orthodox Jewish community likes to vacation here. We picked a good route for the first ride as there was only one real hill each way. We decided to try the Maplewood golf course/country club for our lunch. We have been driving through Bethlehem yearly and always wondered what the very expensive looking establishments were like.
Our tandem bike. Its trailer (BOB) is with us but has not been needed yet.
We did get to Lower Falls for some card playing and relaxing. Hard to believe that last time we were there we noted that the next time we see the falls we will be unemployed. It is the 40th anniversary of the first time I visited NH. Lots of memories with many more to come.
It still doesn’t seem like we are on the road but it was great to be back to our spiritual home in the White Mountains of NH.
We always wondered what taking off and landing on the water would be like. Turns out it is much smoother than landing on a runway. This is when the lake is calm the pilot told us otherwise, all bets are off. We got hooked into this by taking a nice evening bike ride down the point on Minnesota Avenue. The “end of the road” was an airstrip that had an sign for seaplane rides. We were fairly easily talked into joining a family of 4 for the 7:00pm flight. The pilot told us that the more folks on board, the longer he can afford to fly. The conditions were also very calm and the skies were clear.
