Travel Journal
After all the toadstool watching we figured there had to be more to Page, AZ than that so off to a short hike at “Horseshoe Bend” on the Colorado River.
We visited a resort on Lake Powell with the thoughts of returning someday and renting a houseboat for a good time.
After Three months on the road and what seems like a million miles of hiking done we arrived in Seattle. Seattle is the home of our son Ray and his family Julianna, and daughters Melanie and Brittney. We had a great time catching up with them and their goings on.
Great hiking trail along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.
These shots were taken on a different hike, further upstream on the Yellowstone River:
After hearing about the Tetons for years both of us were very excited to visit the park. After a relaxing drive across Wyoming we lucked into a nice campsite at Colter Bay Campground inside the park. From there we took 3 nice hikes and a short bike ride.
When in Rome…..The saying goes….Do as the Romans do. Well, when in Wind Cave National Park, you must actually tour the park’s namesake. We were thoroughly impressed with this cave tour. It was much different than Howe’s Caverns back home in New York.
Here are some cool pictures of the cave we took during our tour:
When we headed to the Mount Rushmore area we had never heard of Custer State Park. This State Park is one we will return to in the future. Not all places we’ve been have given us that feeling. There is much hiking and biking to be done here and the overall scenery and abundance of wildlife make it one of our favorites so far:
An encore of Roosevelt National Park! We drove about an hour north to visit what is called The North Unit. We found it to be very similar to the South Unit but with its own distinct personality. We found a nice 6 mile loop hike that exposed us to all the biodiversity of the area and then we took our trusty scooter up the 14 mile park road to the Oxbow Lookout.
On our way west from Lake Superior we felt a need to stop in Bemidji, Minnesota. As a teenager I rode my bicycle from Seattle to New York and spent the 4th of July there. I have fond memories of that day including this statue of Paul Bunyan and his trusty sidekick Blue Ox. The statues have been there since 1937 and look in marvelous shape.
At one of the waysides in the South Unit there was a free exhibit going on that let us look directly at the Sun through two different telescopes with powerful filters on them. We wish we had a screen shot of what we saw but, oh my was it amazing.
The South Unit or RNP has many bison but we only ran into a handful of them….not literally thank goodness!
Here are some good pictures of the scenery we had all afternoon while cycling.
Some other wildlife included about a billion prairie dogs and a number of wild turkey.
We are camping at the Grand Marais Municipal Marina for a week. We are very intrigued with an endeavor called North House Folk School. They hold classes for locals and tourists alike in many different cultural genres. The have a working blacksmith shop, a timber building (post and beam) exhibition and many others. Info can be found at www.northhouse.org. They also have a resident schooner that sails a few times every day for a small fee. We opted for the evening sail and had a superb and relaxing time with 4 other guests, 1 hired crew and one volunteer crew.
When not busy with sailing chores Captain Andrew told the story of the missing submersible that was launched from the Hjordis a few months ago. He explained the University of Minnesota at Duluth has a very large marine research vessel that is trying to find this rogue submersible. He pointed to the large research vessel off the port side of the schooner and tried to contact it.
We had an evening of calm but steady winds and we were grateful for that. Many nights we sit on the beach and wonder what would happen if we were sailing when the lake was really angry like on the fateful day of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
As we cycled in to Beaver Bay to do laundry Jon was sitting there taking care of e-business on his phone. As he travels, his mail service based in South Dakota, scans his mail so he can choose which to have them open and scan for him to read online….Very cool indeed. He noticed our tandem bike with all of our laundry in our trailer Bob. We struck up a conversation for a few minutes and found out simply that he was an Iraq war vet. We decided to thank him for his service by buying him an ice cream while our clothes were drying. His eyes watered a bit when we gave it to him and then we had a long conversation about, well, lots of things.
Jon served 8 tours in Iraq and on the last one was hit with an RPG and suffered a traumatic brain injury (along with other injuries). After “recovery”, as he says, “you never recover from something like that”, he stayed in the Army and managed to eke out 28 years of service before the PTSD took its toll. He said he has absolutely no regrets regarding his service and he has been traveling the country in his RV for the past year. He gave us all sorts of neat hints on how to live life on the open road. When leaving he gave us his cell phone number and mentioned he was settling down and buying a house in his home town of Beaver Bay, Minn. He now wants to return to a simple life of hunting, trapping and fishing. He also wants to volunteer driving vans for the DAV (Disabled American Veterans) that take veterans to their medical appointments He said that if we were in the area again to give him a call and we would have a place to stay.