Day Two: Lake Superior

I think I like especially the names of towns up here. You have Ironwood, and there is a town called Land O' Lakes. Really there is. That was where we entered Michigan and followed Rt 2 for a while. Very wooded, and a nice smooth road with hardly anyone on it. We followed a logging truck, and once it got up speed, it was well ahead of us. You never want a logging truck behind you. Never!

Now, in my last entry, I told you about the snowmobile signs for those crazy snowmobilers in the winter. People up here also have boats in their drive. And the closer you get to the lake, it's not a fishing boat, but a sail boat.

One of the smaller towns we ventured to--and I can't remember the name of it--had a bay where dozens and dozens of sail boats were docked. There were these cute little shops you can blow money on junk you don't need. I love trinkets and junk I don't need, I just don't have money to buy them. We took pictures, but our camera was acting up, plus we lost sun under the clouds. But we wanted to get a little further, which we would soon be upon, thus got back in and followed our road until we came to a little town called Cornucopia. What this place had was character. Obviously it wasn't as huge a draw as the previous town with a lot of shops. This was older. The old boats which had been sitting on shore a while were on display. We had to pull in and go take a look. Here, there weren't that many people. You can't get nice pictures with lots of people in your way. We were able to walk up a sandy hill, and there was the lake. It looked like an ocean to me. The waves were making those little white caps. And while we stood there taking it in--no one around us--two bald eagles swooped down and went into hunting mode.

The wind was whipping and chilly. Why we thought we would not need our jeans--well, it had been hot up until the day we left. We should have brought the jeans. At least we had jackets.

We stopped inside a little shop. These places--maybe a half dozen--had once been little shacks for people to live in. And I suspect that some lived upstairs. The first one we stopped in was a shop filled with various stuff including antiques. An old, rickety-looking stairs went up to the loft. And a calico cat sauntered down and seemed to take a liking to my husband, who is not really a cat person. But it acted very un-cat like. It sat on its haunches and meowed, trying to get his attention. He later told me that he thought that the owner had changed herself into a cat. Like in Harry Potter, Mrs. McGonnagal's being able to do this inspired this thought.

We went to the last shop--as it was open. Then the rain started, and we were stuck, but the shop owner was very friendly and we spoke with her. She recommended a place to stay close by, but we wanted to get to Superior and Duluth.

We ate at Ashland, a larger town, and it still was cloudy. And very windy! We saw large ships now, in a distance. Then the closer we got to the bridge that spanned the river, we now had a very up-close look at these ships that apparently haul grain.

Duluth was a busy, congested town. We escaped it--thus was not soaked by exorbitant prices both in food and motel. We went on into Minnesota, and stayed in Cloquet. The drive was nice. We had wanted to drive up the Lake Shore Drive the whole way, but we simply ran out of time.

We had a nice room with a large-screen plasma and it had Satellite radio, and we found a New Age station and just relaxed. I took a full-blown nap. God, the day wore me out.

The rest of our trip was nothing to talk about. We should have not come through Iowa, though, just too much happening--that was something I posted when I got back.

I return to the work grind tomorrow--boohoo. It's been great having time to work on my books, and read a few, too. When I get a chance I'm going to talk about one, Dance On Fire by James Garcia Jr.
Have a great week!