Fun, Misadventures and Cowboy Fast Draw
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| Sunset on the St. Louis River |
Last weekend was the Wisconsin State Championship held at Superior, Wisconsin, which is a vvveeeerrrryyyyy long drive! We have been through the Duluth, Minnesota/Superior, Wisconsin area on a couple of other trips, but I don't think we had ever put our feet on the ground there. But Mike wanted to attend this shoot since it was one we hadn't done before. And it just happened to work out this time.
So Friday morning at "O dark thirty" we finished loading the last of the items in the camper and struck out for the North Country. It was raining but didn't cause us any issues. It actually eliminated the sun in our eyes while driving east. We had "Googled" our trip on Google Maps and planned to take the shortest route, which was supposedly 9 hours and 15 minutes down I-90 and up through the Minneapolis/St. Paul area on I-35. We knew it would take us longer pulling the camper and taking the more frequent breaks that we seem to require these days, but we certainly didn't anticipate 13 hours!
All went well, even driving through St. Paul, until we ran upon construction during the last leg of the trip through St. Paul. By this time it was getting late in the afternoon, and a Friday afternoon to boot, and rush-hour traffic was picking up. Traffic was bottle-necking to the point that we were only moving 10 miles per hour when we were moving at all. And it was still raining! And we were pulling a camper making us a lot less agile in traffic. At one point I finally just settled down for a nap and left Mike to steam to himself. 30 minutes later I woke up at the same location as I fell asleep!
Long story short, we finally took an exit off I-35, which turned out to be a wonderful idea. We drove down a quiet highway through beautiful stands of evergreen trees, which took us directly to our campground!
We had just found this campground on the internet and they just happened to have a vacancy for us, so there wasn't a choice made with a lot of thought, but it turned out to be an awesome campground. It was situated along the St. Louis River which is positively beautiful! The campground was clean and quiet and beautiful, just perfect.
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| View from the campground |
We discovered many of the campers were there for the season. You could pick them out by the flowers surrounding their campers and the portable patios with their lawn chairs on them. What a wonderful place to spend the summer!
We had taken plenty of coats because we knew it would be cooler there than here and didn't want to be chilly. Turns out that the two days we were at the shoot they were having an uncharacteristic heat wave! The coats never left the pickup but we were looking around for supplies to keep us cool....flip-flops, ponytail holders, neck coolers. And we were looking for some cooler weather!!
The shoot went well. I didn't get pictures of the shoot because if you have one picture of a shoot that's pretty much all you need. Mike was disappointed in his performance since he missed quite a bit, but he still finished 16th out of 46 men shooters, which is nothing to be ashamed of. As always we met up with old friends we've met at other shoots plus met some shooters we didn't know from before. While Mike is shooting I tend to sit and knit or crochet, and for once I wasn't alone. We compared projects and tips and got acquainted.
As we traveled between the campground and the fairground we had to cross an old bridge. It was old and quaint and had an awesome view of the river. A couple evenings when we went over it, the sunset was reflecting on the river creating a beautiful picture. On Sunday night I grabbed my camera hoping to capture that view. In order to get the picture it was going to require a short stop on the bridge. As we approached the bridge we were followed by a car. Mike slowed down and the lady went around us. A ways behind her were two motorcycles. When Mike slowed down for them to pass, they slowed down also and stayed behind us. We were nearly at a standstill and they stayed right behind us. Mike began to get kind of an uneasy feeling, and I have learned to respect his intuition. Finally we just crossed the bridge and didn't stop. He assured me that we would head right back so I agreed.
After we got off the bridge both the riders stayed right behind us, like they were stalking us. We drove to the campground and they followed us to the entrance of the campground where they stopped but didn't leave. We drove around to our camper, which was out of their sight, and we finally heard them drive away after about 5 minutes. At that point Mike refused to take me back to the bridge, so that picture was lost! We are unsure why they felt the need to stalk us, but have to wonder if it didn't have something to do with our out-of-state license plates.
Our original plan was to leave bright and early in the morning and get headed back to Nebraska. But the campground was so quiet and peaceful, and it seemed that everyone was sleeping. Prepping a camper for travel is anything but quiet, especially with the cackle of a diesel engine running, so we slept in a bit, leisurely packed up the camper, and finally did the noisy work about 8:00. And we were off and headed toward home.
After the debacle of the traffic and construction, we were willing to take advice about alternate routes, which turned out to be Highway 23 through the center of Minnesota. According to Google it was a slower route, but everyone assured us it didn't have construction to contend with. It turned out to be a beautiful drive which slowly turned from forest to croplands to prairie as we made our way across the state. Yes, it was a longer route, but we were able to make it home in 12 hours rather than 13. We were pretty happy to see home when we got there late Monday evening!
Mike and I find that traveling together gives us a chance to talk and plan. We are not distracted by work or television, and we try to curb the cell phone usage when we travel to give each other our undivided attention. We do things that probably only he and I would enjoy doing, and can share a lighter moment now and then. We are still laughing about him mispeaking while we were looking for 61st street and calling it "sixty-oneth" street!
We hope this will not be a once-in-a-lifetime trip. We would so enjoy going back, but next time we will plan to spend a few more days and take in the scenery and history of the area. On our first trip through there we saw Lake Superior, the first time I had ever seen a body of water I couldn't see the other side of. We missed that view this time, but will not miss it again. Fellow shooters told us of some of the sites they had seen and places they had gone, and we want to take in some of that next time. The area has a rich history of commerce very far removed from our story in the Sandhills and we want to learn about it. I am still amazed when I remember our first trip through the area and the size of everything....bridges, ships, barges, bodies of water. I commented that I would like to live there, but everyone assures me that I would not like to winter there! And I'm sure they're right.
So, if you are looking for a fun place to visit, and want to enjoy a trip with diversity, I would highly recommend a trip to Duluth/Superior. Just don't drive through Minneapolis/St. Paul!!!
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| Canadian Geese enjoying an evening on the river |
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