As I have mentioned something around 28 times—we get to
where we are going to be sleeping late, and the night we slept in northern
Wisconsin was no different. We drove into Chequamegon National Forest to find a
place to camp. The campsite that we had left earlier that day had been our
favorite up until that point and I know that I was at least hoping that
Chequamegon National Forest would be just as pretty as Superior National Forest
in Minnesota. It wasn’t. There was a lot of logging going on in the area so we
would drive through a section of pretty decent looking woods just to come out
of it a couple minutes later into desolate fields. Not to mention the roads were a bit
difficult to manage, at least for Eric in his little Civic. Unfortunately for
him I was the one leading at the time and I did not even think about the road
conditions because my car just rolls over everything. What I found to be a pain
was the fact that we couldn’t find any decent woods that would be nice to camp
in, and when we did we would follow the road back just to find that it was a
logging headquarters with several cords of wood stacked up everywhere. Eventually
we managed to find a little pull off road that had a tree fall across it so
clearly no loggers were using it. We set up the tent just beyond the fallen
tree and then pulled out another tree back behind Eric’s car since we were
still fairly close to the main road and we were hoping to get a little more
privacy that way. Sleep crept on easily enough as late night turned to early
morning.
Since we had gotten to bed late I was expecting to get
the chance to sleep in late, but that was a foolish assumption. I had
forgotten the level of paranoia that Eric and Tweedy still had in regards to
sleeping by the side of a dirt road in a national forest that none of us had ever been in before. (I guess I should feel trepidation over it as well, but
for some reason I don’t, and since that time all of us feel much to comfortable
setting up a tent and sleeping just about anywhere—stay tuned for some of our
more ridiculous campsites) Their paranoia caused them to wake me up at 6:00 in
the morning because a white truck had driven by us twice, and at one
point the driver may or may not have stopped and looked at our little camping
site more intently. Whatever the case it freaked Eric and Tweedy out so we had
to break camp and roll out as soon as possible in order to calm them down.
As we drove out of the forest we passed the white pickup,
along with a few other trucks and a lot of other guys. Turned out it was just a
hunting party trying to find each other. The good thing about waking up early
is we had time to go and goof around somewhere for a while.
Honestly we were just looking for the first park we found by the side of the
highway that had picnic tables so I could fix us some morning oatmeal. Luckily
we happened to stumble across the City of Ashland Maslowski Beach. It had
rained on us the past couple of nights while we were sleeping, so while I got
breakfast ready Eric and Tweedy set up the tent on the beach right next to Lake
Superior (We’ve seen four of the five Great Lakes now and I have to say Lake Superior
has been my favorite in every location that we’ve seen it) so that the tent
could dry out.
After breakfast we changed into our swimsuits and took a
dip in the lake.
It was cold, but thankfully the sun was out and the air
was warm, so a bit of cold water was no big deal (it was still warmer than most
of the mountain lakes I’ve been in back in Colorado). After the swim we
continued to just hang out there on the beach. Our activities included playing
on the nearby playground equipment, chatting with a couple ladies that were
from the main body of Michigan visiting Northern Wisconsin, and burying Tweedy
in sand.
After we had finished with our antics we broke the tent
down and continued into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (from now on I will
solely just use the abbreviation UP, and no this will not be in reference to
the movie Up!). Shortly after we passed over the border into Michigan we had to
stop for gas—I know, super exciting information, but I promise I will only
mention fueling up if it leads to something. At this gas station we were
introduced to the friendly and talkative nature of many Michigan natives. It
was one of those gas stations where you have to pay inside, and when we went in
to pay there was a lady by the counter who immediately started talking with us.
Once she figured out why we were in Michigan and our quest to road trip all 48
contiguous states the talking just became more profuse, because she had lived
the gypsy lifestyle since she was seventeen. I’m still torn as to whether I
want to have a transitory lifestyle for that long or not; it was nice to hear
it was possible though.
Back outside (about fifteen or twenty minutes later) I
started getting chatted up by a biker dude. He was somewhere between the ages
of sixty-two and seventy-eight. When a person has that much hair on his face it
makes it rather difficult to pinpoint the age. Anyway, Eric and I chatted with
him for another twenty minutes or so. He lived there in the UP, but he rode his
Harley across the country at least once a year. In fact, he rode so much that
he had put over a million miles on Harleys and on the particular bike we saw
him on he had put over 660,000 miles. After chatting for a while we got back on
the road. We thought that we would never see either of those two unique
individuals ever again, and then the biker dude whipped up and around us. He
pulled over on the shoulder and motioned for me to roll the window down. I did
so and he shouted in that if we needed a place to stay we could crash at his
place. After the past several nights of sleeping in a tent with rain pounding
down on us, having a roof to sleep under sounded perfect, so we followed him down
a winding road to his property.
This little bearded biker dude, Allyn (I figure it’s
about time I get his name in here), built every building on his property with
the help of his wife. Not only that but he built it with the trees that were on
his property. There are five distinct structures on the property, and most of
them are two stories tall. I was blown away! He and his wife also grow and
raise their own food. This includes having a giant garden and raising a few
head of cattle along with several chickens. They are almost completely off the
grid aside from a small amount of electricity they use. Allyn is a retired mine
worker and he says that with the way they live just his social security check
provides him with more income than he can even use, and most of it just goes
into paying for gas for his bike. We chatted with him late into the night,
getting to try the fresh cuisine from the garden and even getting to try the
wood burning sauna he had built (Allyn is one hundred percent Finnish, and
apparently the Fins are all about their saunas).
Unfortunately we couldn’t hang out there forever and the
next morning we said goodbye to Al and headed on up the UP. First stop along
the way was the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We saw two water falls there
at the park—including Chapel Falls.
Next was a stop at the Stable Sand Dunes. We have a thing
for sand dunes (especially Eric), a few months back we all went to the Great
Sand Dunes together with Justin as well—who we were on our way to see. This
means we would be returning to those same sand dunes in order to share that
experience between all four of us again, though when we returned we would be
doing a lot more, so I took pictures to remember those dunes during this first
visit. And goodness gracious were they beautiful, especially as we crested the
final dune and looked down and out to the apparently infinite Lake Superior.
After a couple hours of exploring the dunes we drove the
last leg to our first extended reprieve of the road trip at Justin’s home (that
is where I was when I posted two or three blog posts in quick succession). That
first night there was no working though, just chilling out with Justin and two
of his roommates—the two Matts. We also got a tour of Lake Superior State
University the university they all attend up there in Sault Ste Marie
(pronounce S-oo Saint Marie). That town is possible the only town that crosses
the border with Canada—literally it is the same place on both sides of the
border, but you still have to have a passport to see the Canadian side and we
did not bring ours, so we had to remain on the U.S. side, which is no big deal
because we spent most of our time on our laptops anyway, at least Tweedy and I
did.
From September 20th to 23rd we just
chilled. Our non-indoor activities included disc golf, going to the sauna at
the school (not near as good as Al’s), shopping, and we went shooting and I
shot a gun for the first time.
It was definitely a unique experience, though not one
that changes my mind about needing more strict gun laws. Sorry for all those
out there that love their guns—I definitely believe in the right of the people
to have guns, but after all the shootings of innocent people I think it is
about time that everyone stops whining and allows for a whole lot more
restrictions to be set in the hope that we can at least decrease the number of
mass shootings (all of the guns used in mass shootings in the past five years
in the U.S. have been attained legally). I mean it did work for Australia after
all. If you disagree that’s perfectly fine, Eric definitely disagrees with my
views on gun control, and we are still great friends.
Finally Saturday rolled around—September the 24th—when
Justin was finally free of school responsibilities so we could return to the
Sable Sand Dunes. We ended up spending the entire day there. Sometimes wading
in the lake, other times scaling the most difficult parts of the dunes, walking
along the beach, eating marshmallows and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,
building a small fire. All in all it was a fantastic day. That night back at
the abode we had a little party since we would be departing the next day, and I
fell asleep with a contented smile on my face.
That will do it for the stories from Upper Wisconsin and
Upper Michigan, next up is Detroit. Hopefully I’ll get that post up tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment