The day started cold and wet. Our campsite in Marble Beach State Recreation Area was grass. All the sites there were. After 24 hours of intermittent heavy rain the sites were clearly more beach than marble. We were warm and cozy in our aluminum home. There was electricity, coffee, pancakes and internet. What more could we need?
We hit the road about 11:00 and let Waze tell us how to get to our next destination... Interstate State Park, Wisconsin (there is another Interstate State Park just across the river... it's important to enter the proper state). Today's drive was showing about 4 hours. There were alternatives, but the fastest route was mostly on interstate highways. We headed east across I-90 for about 90 minutes then north on I-35 for another 90. The Interstate system serves as a crude measure of progress. The major east/west routes carry two digit designations ending in a zero. We started heading west on the southernmost of those -- I-10 -- and we are working our way east on the northernmost -- I-90. The most significant north/south routes are also two digits and end in a 5. We crossed I-95 on day 1 of the trip and got as far west as I-25 in Denver and Colorado Springs. The weather was cold and damp all day long... temps in the mid 50's. In Florida we call a day that doesn't reach 60 "record breaking cold". Here in the nations thorax it's called mid-May.
You may have been watching the news and weather today wherever you are in the country. The intense storms that we were in, then drove under then got hit by yesterday evening have affected tens of millions of people. If you think back to the stories and pics from where we were in Colorado less than a week ago you'll be surprised to know that Estes Park received 21" of snow today. We had a plan in case we faced some snow while there (we didn't see any falling). The plan was "stay put until it melts". We had no plan for 21". Lucky we missed that!
Within 5 minutes of leaving the campsite we were in Minnesota. That's state # 31 for the Airstream. Our drive stayed in Minnesota until 5 minutes before we reached our campsite. Despite the overcast and occasional rain, most of what we saw in Minnesota was peaceful and showed signs awakening from winter. The ground in farm country was gorgeous. The soil here is the color of a chocolate bar. Not that medium brown of the milk chocolate favored for s'mores. The dark brown of the semi-sweet chocolate that you occasionally got in a Halloween bag and later felt cheated when you bit into it and realized that the thing you like best about chocolate is the sugar. Despite being farther north than any time in the trip so far, many of the farms here showed signs of crops emerging that were well ahead of farms in Iowa, Nebraska or Colorado.
Uncharacteristically, we didn't stop for lunch. We drove continuously with only a stop for gas. Given the inhospitable climate for Floridians, Mrs. C' and Romeo didn't even get out of the truck. After passing through St. Paul, Minnesota (the state capital and home until last year of Garrison Keillor's program "A Prairie Home Companion"). With absolutely no fanfare we crossed the Mississippi River. That waterway deserves its nickname "Old Man River" in the mid- and deep-South, it's a child up here so close to its source in Lake Itasca, Minnesota.
We crossed out of Minnesota and into Wisconsin (state # 32) about 3:15. It was 50 degrees, overcast and threatening rain. We were miserable, but got the trailer settled, hooked up the power and headed in to the heat and late lunch. Somewhere around 7:00 PM the clouds parted and I felt inspired to take a walk to the river for some pics. Arguably, the prime time for river pics had passed 30 minutes earlier when the sun left the water, but when you are a travel blogger you take what you get. Here are pics of the St. Croix River looking upstream/north (Minnesota on the left and Wisconsin on the right) then looking downstream/south (Wisconsin on the left and Minnesota on the right):
Our campsite is almost visible in the upper picture on the far right in the grove of trees above the river.
This was the first interstate park in the country (with two states operating contiguous parklands in a coordinated way) and it was Wisconsin's first state park. The primary features are visible in the pictures above... volcanic rock exposed and worn by water. Evidence of ice age erosion is also on display here with "the ice age trail" running through the park.
So, tomorrow we face a challenge. The "plan of record" says we head to the Porcupine Mountains near Houghton, Michigan (state #33). Houghton sits on the Keweenaw Peninsula which juts into Lake Superior near its western end. We have a campsite reserved directly on the Lake for two nights before moving east to another site on the Lake for Sunday night then camping tight at the Mackinac Straits for Monday and Tuesday. The problem with that plan is that we are now on the back side of that nasty cold front and the weather in the UP of Michigan is forecast to be lows in the 30's, highs in the 40's and rainy on an off for the next 4 or 5 days.. I'm considering alternatives, but good weather is far away.
Stay tuned to see where we land tomorrow night!
Later...
SC'
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