Category: Minnesota

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Backpacking Michigan Minnesota National Parks State Parks Wisconsin

Best Summer Road Trips: Lake Superior Circle Tour

Loading up the kids in a minivan and hitting the road over summer break is a rite of passage. I figure if you can all survive being crammed together for days or weeks on end, you can do anything, right? Traveling in the Airstream is a bit different, since we mix in school & work year round but occasionally we hit upon just the right schedule to create an epic road trip.

We visited my brother and his family in Minnesota one summer, and after taking a look at our schedule and the time available we decided drive around Lake Superior. Turns out its a thing. There are patches, stickers, maps, and even a website for that, something we didn’t realize until we started seeing the street signs pop up. The aptly named Lake Superior Circle Tour is a 1,300-mile drive that completely circumnavigates the lake, including the North East shore in Canada.

You can start the tour anywhere and travel in either direction. Most people take about a week, we just happened to stretch it out into 42 days. Our tour started at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan and traveled clockwise. While our adventures on the shores of this great lake could fill a book, we’ve picked out a few of our favorite destinations to get you started.

Stop 1: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

We spent 10 days exploring the “UP” as the locals call it. We started in Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, ate a lot of pasties, learned about mining on the Keewinaw Peninsula, and hiked  in the Porcupine Mountains. There’s definitely something for everyone!

Stop 2: The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

The Apostles are a beautiful cluster of islands that sit just off the coast of Wisconsin’s section of Lake Superior. You can learn about the islands from visitors centers on the shore, but a rich experience awaits those willing to board a ferry. We opted for a two-night backpacking trip on Stockton Island. A ferry trip from Bayfield let us off onto the docks. We explored, hiked, and even celebrated Andrew’s birthday there! Other popular activities include kayaking to the sea caves, and lighthouse tours.

Stop 3: The City of Duluth

Duluth has a rich history in shipping activities, and you can watch huge cargo ships navigate in and out of port. Check the schedule before you arrive, and you can get an up close look as they come and go. There’s also some great mountain biking in the hills, a decent children’s museum, and a cute downtown with great food.

Stop 4: The North Shore

There are numerous spots along Minnesota’s North Shore worth stopping for, but Gooseberry Falls State Park was a favorite. We enjoyed our time on the shore here, appreciating the magnitude of this lake we were driving around. Split Rock Lighthouse is just a short drive away and don’t miss Betty’s Pies located to the south. We ordered the Pig Trough to share, complete with three slices of pie, four scoops of ice cream, a banana, and whipped cream and toppings. We liked it so much we returned a few days later and had the same thing again!

 

Other stops along the shore included Tettegouche State Park, Grand Marais, and Grand Portage. Check out our post here for more details.

Stop 5: Sleeping Giant Provincial Park

We had heard amazing things about Sleeping Giant Provincial Park and knew we wanted to spend at least one night there. It was mid-September so fairly off season for this part of Canada and the campground was not busy. The park hosts amazing hikes and beautiful views. We also enjoyed our lakeside campsite on the smaller Marie Louise Lake.

Stop 6: Sault Ste Marie

Our visit to Sault Ste Marie was punctuated by two things: Poutine (on the Canada side) and the boat locks (on the US side). Watching the huge lake boats move through the locks was enthralling, and everybody’s bellies were fat and happy after we ordered (and ate) far too much from Smoke’s Poutinerie.

Even having driven around it, I still don’t think I full appreciate the vastness of Lake Superior. It literally looks and feels like you are standing on the edge of the ocean, but there’s no salt smell. Something about it just drew us in and we were smitten from day 1. It was hard to narrow it down to just a few places on our journey! Maybe we will write that book….

What to Wear:

The weather around the lake is constantly changing. There’s sunshine and warmth, then there’s fog & rain. We had crazy wind and were wearing all our layers on the Apostles, and then up along the north shore it was t-shirts and shorts.  Its best to plan on layering your wardrobe and taking pieces that are versatile! Check out some of my favorites from Aventura’s spring line:

 

 

 

Other Road Trips:

Check out these other favorite road trips from fellow Aventura Ambassadors:

Trans-Canada Highway & Icefields Parkway from Alyssa from Kidproject.org

 

Grand Teton National Park & Colter Bay from Kathy from GoAdventureMom

 

Hit 5 National Parks in Southern Utah by Alyssa from Kidproject.org

 

Glamping at Westgate River Ranch Resort/Central Florida by 365 Atlanta Family

 

Categories
Backpacking Featured Destination Minnesota State Parks

The Camping Spot We Almost Didn’t Find – George H. Crosby Manitou State Park, Minnesota

Backpacking George H Crosby Manitou State Park with Kids

I’m pretty sure we are the only people that leave our Airstream travel trailer in one state park to back country camp in a completely different one. I suppose that doubles up on fees for the night, but if you think about the fact that when a “normal’ person goes camping they are also paying a mortgage (or rent) on a house, our situation sounds a bit more reasonable. Right? Right.

When I spent a few hours planning our trip up Minnesota’s North Shore, I knew we wanted to do some more serious hiking. Inland from the lake are some pretty serious hills (not quite sure this Utah girl can use the term “mountains” out here) with great views and at least some elevation. I picked out a couple of possibilities, but mostly we just left this option open as we weren’t sure when or where we’d have the opportunity.

After leaving Gooseberry Falls State Park, we headed north to Tettegouche, the next park on our list. True to form, the first thing we did was take a trip to the visitor center to check out our options. I talked to the ranger and when I mentioned we were thinking of a serious hike or possibly backpacking in the area, he highly recommended George H. Crosby Manitou State Park. There is no front-country campground, so the park is quiet, peaceful, and relatively unknown.

Just the way we like it.

When We Visited: September 8, 2015

Ages of Kids: 9, 8, 5

Total Mileage: 3.2 miles in, 3.5 miles out, 1 night.

Packing for this one was quick. Sam worked and the kids did school in the morning, and then around 1pm we started pulling out all the gear. Rachel and I threw together some quick Freezer Bag meals, and by 3pm we were headed out. It was only a 30 minute drive to the trail head and we were all feeling pretty good getting started along the trail.

Backpacking trip #2!
Backpacking George H Crosby Manitou State Park with Kids

Within the first 1/2 mile or so we found one of the markers for Minnesota’s Wildflower geocaching program. So, we took a short detour to find it.

Backpacking George H Crosby Manitou State Park with Kids

This hike was a little longer than our first on the Apostle Islands, and there was definitely more elevation involved. We started around 3:30pm and hiked in about 2.3 miles. We started passing campsites and were counting up to #6 when suddenly, at the top of a small hill we were there! Or so we thought. The campsite marker was along the trail, and we could see where previous campers had a fire ring and stacked logs around it to sit on. Upon further inspection of the area, there wasn’t really a flat spot sans roots for the tent, and no where was the pit toilet or bear pole that had been promised in the site description.

Backpacking George H Crosby Manitou State Park with Kids

I seriously almost cried. There had been some frustration all around getting going on this trip and to have a completely non-epic site was not helping. We collectively took a deep breath, dropped our packs, and set out to explore a bit more and see what we could find. Sam continued on the trail to possibly see if sites 7 or 8 were available, and the kids and I climbed the hill to the “overlook” to see if there was anything up there.

We found a large, flat rock with the remains of more than one campfire (and one amazing view!) and then just back into the trees a bit we found it! An official, metal fire ring. We kept exploring and found a flat spot for the tent, and even the toilet! Hooray! We wouldn’t be sleeping on roots or digging holes.

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We never found the bear pole, but we easily found a decent tree to bear bag our food. The kids thought it was fun and we figured it was a good teaching moment anyway. Not every site we camp at will have a bear box.

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Our evening was pretty chill. After setting up the tent, we brought our food down to the “dining room” and the kids played cards while Sam and I cooked up some dinner. We tried two new meals on this trip and both were great! We had mashed potato, stuffing, chicken with cranberries (tasted like Thanksgiving dinner!), and then for breakfast we did chocolate banana oatmeal.

Backpacking George H Crosby Manitou State Park with Kids

The weather was a bit chilly in the morning, but dressing in layers makes the temperature manageable. From the dining room we could see Lake Superior off in the distance which reminded us we were still along the “coast”.
Backpacking George H Crosby Manitou State Park with Kids

After breakfast and packing up, we opted to hike the “long” way out and add in the loop around Bensen Lake. It was flat with boardwalk the entire way around the lake and a super fun way to end the hike! We stopped at the picnic area and ate lunch before hiking the short distance out to the car and back to the Airstream at Tettegouche State Park.

Backpacking George H Crosby Manitou State Park with Kids

This park is definitely doable with young kids! We checked out some of the sites around Bensen Lake (Sites 20, 21, & 22) and they were beautiful and not that far from the parking lot. As parents, you could even take a couple of trips lugging gear if you didn’t have packs.

Highlighted in green below is the route we took. We started on Middle Trail, turned off onto West Manitou River Trail, and camped one night at site #6. On the way out we followed Misquah to Yellow Birch, cut through next to campsite 20, around the lake, and then back to the parking lot.

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While a bit logistically strange, we really enjoyed the peace and solitude at this park! The kids now had another solid over nighter under their belts, while Sam and I were gaining confidence spontaneously camping in the back country with kids. Definitely a win-win situation!

Categories
Biking Minnesota

Sometimes You Just Gotta Mountain Bike Solo – Ironton, Minnesota

Mountain Biking in Ironton Minnesota

While we were mountain biking at Lebanon Hills Regional Park in Minneapolis, we started chatting with a woman who was there with her niece and nephew. She is an avid mountain biker and gave us a few other places in the state that had good trails. On our trek north, we ended up doing some service for natural disaster clean up near Brainerd, which put us darn close to the Cuyuna County State Recreation Area she had mentioned.

We took a chance that the campground was decent (and had an open spot) and drove over in the late afternoon. While the campground wasn’t much to look at (and Sam warned me to definitely NOT look in the bathrooms) it was smack dab in the middle of a trail system. This is great because we have become extremely lazy and prefer to ride right from camp rather than driving someplace and then unloading the bikes.

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We tested out a small section of trail with the kids our first evening, and even though they whined a bit, Rachel actually rode it again with Sam after we switched bikes (it was a much better ride on the 29er over the cyclo cross). The following day they weren’t interested in riding at all, so I snuck away in the afternoon to test out ALL the rest of the trails. Okay, I didn’t expect to ride them ALL but I was sure going to try.

11355114_1616909808598781_1271556149_nThe trails were awesome. The system consists of a series of networked trails that create quite a few loops. Some with pretty significant climbs, rollings hills or speedy downhill runs. I rode about 12 miles in just over two hours and when I texted Sam and asked how things were going and if I could do one more loop, he immediately responded with, “Go get ’em!”

I seriously love my husband.

While riding solo is definitely not ideal in case something drastic happens, its better than not riding at all. While at our sticks and bricks house, I would often not do an activity because I had no one to go with. It just didn’t seem fun or feasible. Now, however, I’ve learned that some alone time on the trails is not necessarily a bad thing jump at the chance to get out. Traveling has created more opportunities to get out and enjoy the sports I love!

Categories
Minnesota National Parks State Parks WanderLog

Minnesota’s North Shore – Duluth to Grand Portgage

Minnesota North Shore Split Rock Lighthouse State Park

Travel Dates: August 27 – Sept 11, 2015

The “North Shore” is the section of Minnesota from Duluth to Grand Portage along the Lake Superior coastline. I had heard amazing things about this section of Minnesota and had been ready to visit it since we first set foot in the state. After some plan changes and a few detours we finally made it. The landscape, state parks, and adventures did not disappoint!

Ages of Kids: 9, 8, 5
Places We Visited: Duluth, Gooseberry Falls State Park, Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, Tettegouche State Park, George H. Crosby Manitou State Park, Grand Marais, Grand Portage, Grand Portage State Park

There were a couple of logistical complications with staying along the north shore. The first was that I knew it there was plenty to see with 8 state parks, plenty of small towns, and more waterfalls than we could probably count. I also knew we couldn’t see all the things, but wanted to spend more than a week exploring this section of Minnesota.

Complicating things even further, there was a church in Duluth and then another one across the border in Thunder Bay, Ontario. That means we had only a week if we wanted to make it to church both weeks. So, we improvised.

Instead of driving up the north shore a good distance, we stopped at Gooseberry Falls (the first state park north of Duluth) and grabbed a walk-up site for 6 days which would get us through Labor Day and was only an hour drive back to church in Duluth. There was plenty to see and do at Gooseberry and we could take a short day trip up to Split Rock Lighthouse State Park somewhere in the middle.

Our plan worked amazingly well! While there was still plenty we didn’t see, I felt like we were able to immerse ourselves in a beautiful section of Minnesota and really enjoy it!

Read on for a play by play of what we did along the way:

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First stop along our route was the city of Duluth. We were having problems with our trailer brakes, so we dropped the trailer off at a local shop and spent the morning at the children’s museum. Sam had headphones and his laptop to get some work done and the kids had a great time playing.

After grabbing some lunch downtown at the Northern Waters Smokehaus, we wandered around Canal Park for a bit, and then spent a good hour at the public library waiting for the call that the trailer was finished.

Once we picked the trailer back up, we headed for our camping spot at Indian Point City Campground. After trying to level the trailer in one spot and failing, we went back to the office to see if they had anything else available and ended up in the perfect corner spot. Lots of green space to stretch out in.

We also visited the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center which was free, totally interesting for Sam and I, and completely bored the kids. We enjoyed watching the Aerial Lift Bridge rise for incoming sailboats, ate ice cream, road the trolley, climbed the tower at Enger Park, and I even got in a short mountain bike ride.

It was a packed, but thoroughly enjoyable 4 days!

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Tuesday morning we started our trek north along the shore. We found an epic pull off for lunch, and spent some time admiring the rugged coastline and the amazingly clear, blue water of the lake.

11429695_1061083393909506_822896934_nThe ranger at Gooseberry Falls State Park was surprised we wanted to stay for 6 days. I think most people pull in for a day, two at most and then move on. We loved hanging out at this park. There’s plenty to see & do and we had great site with a tree the kids turned into a fort.

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Sam and I separately rode the Gitchi-Gami bike trail from Gooseberry Falls to Split Rock Lighthouse. The trail is paved the whole way but has some pretty good climbs and I’m glad we didn’t take the kids. See my review of this ride on The Outbound Collective here.

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My favorite thing, by far, about this section of our trip was the pie at Betty’s Pies. Oh. My. Goodness. It was so good we want back for round two and were even tempted to squeeze in a third visit but decided we didn’t want to appear greedy. If you go, get the Pig Trough. It has three slices of pie (different kids), 4 scoops of ice cream, whipped cream, and chocolate syrup. We downed it in less than 5 minutes. Twice. You can also order online and have a pie shipped to you which is awesome.

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Evening trip Split Rock Lighthouse with beautiful light and rock scrambling. Perfection.

Related blog post:
Not Going Back to School And Happy About It

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Our next stop was Tettegouche State Park. While we were backing into our site and unhitching we blew one of our truck airbags. Oops.

The rangers were fantastic and let us Prime ship a replacement from Amazon to the visitor center. We just couldn’t pull the Airstream out of our site until we had fixed it.

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While we were waiting for the replacement to come in, we decided to do an overnight trip into George H. Manitou-Crosby State Park. The ranger had recommended it as one of his favorite places to hike, so we thought we ought to check it out. It was absolutely beautiful! I think we are probably the only people that leave their trailer in a state park so they can backpack in another nearby one.

Related blog posts:
 Trip Report on the Outbound Collective
The Camping Spot We Almost Didn’t Find

11910396_1626700350902824_1554754539_nWe were able to vacate our site on Thursday at 4:10pm (only 10 minutes past check out!) and headed north once again. This is where things got a little rough. We were planning to stay at  Cascade River State Park, but there wasn’t a site left we could fit in so we kept moving to the city of Grand Marais instead. We stayed at the Grand Marais City RV Park with our goal being to eat fish & chips which we did at Dockside Fish Market.

Sam and I also snuck out for dessert at Sydney’s Frozen Custard (amazing roof seating!), and we picked up some World’s Best Donuts (they really ARE that good) for breakfast the following morning. For a small, tourist town Grand Marais has some great food!
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Next stop was Grand Portage. We stayed at the RV park near the Casino as it was really our only option. It wasn’t bad as we had a great view, but the internet was pretty spotty since we were so close to the Canadian Border.

“We parked the Airstream at a wonky angle to maximize our view in a move I will lovingly call The Zimmerman™ due to the conformity busting example of @advodna_dave and @advodna_ann. Today was actually full of noncooperative internet and other difficulties, but hey, Rainbows!” -@telegramsam

 

“This one is for @herboldadventure. Stuff pulled out from under the beds to make forts, and chaos in the back. I’m trying to make dinner and @telegramsam is trying to motivate himself to work despite less than reliable campground WiFi. #reallife#wanderingconfessions -@jesscurren

Our favorite stop (and main reason for being here) was to visit Grand Portage National Monument and continue our education of the beaver fur trade and the voyageurs. We participated in a guided tour of the fort, hiked to the top of Mount Rose, and earned our Jr. Ranger Badges.

“Our obsession with the Voyageurs continues with a visit to Grand Portage. Here is where the Voyageurs from the North West Company in Montreal and the hivernauts from the north country met, partied, traded goods and then went their separate ways. Last night we climbed the short, but steep hike to the top of Mt. Rose and were rewarded with a beautiful view and a rainbow.” -@jesscurren

“Grand Portage National Monument celebrates the history of the fur trade in the early 19th century. Voyageurs from Montreal and hivernauts from the north met here in the summer to trade goods for furs. There was also the local population of Ojibwe people which created quite the blend of culture.” – @currentlywandering

“After the American Revolution, the British based Northwest Company had to move their outpost from Grand Portage across the border to Thunder Bay.
I’m not sure why we have found this piece of history so fascinating, but it has been fun to track the Voyageurs and learn from multiple sites about their rich history.
During the second weekend in August, the National Monument holds the Rendezvous with hundreds of actors in period dress, games for the kids, and food. We definitely want to try and return at some point and participate!” – @currentlywandering

“Inside the warehouse at Grand Portage there are examples of the different types of canoes the Voyageurs used, as well as their cargo. The Montreal Canoe could carry 4 tons of cargo, or everything pictured here in addition to the 16 or so men that rowed it and their personal gear. The canoes were made of Birch Bark and Cedar wood and light enough for just a few men to portage around the rougher sections of river.” – @currentlywandering

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“@jesscurren wasn’t feeling very well, but we snuck out for a short wander after dinner anyway. The sky was in excellent form as we pondered the life of a Voyager for the North West Company.” – @telegramsam

After changing some cash from American to Canadian, it was time to cross the border into Canada! We had one last stop at Grand Portage State Park to see Minnesota’s highest waterfall and the reason the voyageurs had to portage their canoes around this section of the Pigeon River. The kids also turned in their Pinelands Minnesota State Parks Jr. Ranger Naturalist books and received their patches.

“These falls and other obstacles in the first handful of miles of the Pigeon River are why Grand Portage exists. The high canyon walls made shorter portages, where voyagers would carry their canoes and cargo around an impassable section of river, quite difficult. For scale, look for the Canadians sitting to the top right of the falls. The Pigeon River is also the US/Canada international border.
The easiest portage around this otherwise very important river is a 12 mile overland trail known as Grand Portage. Why is it so Grand? From Lake Superior you can travel by water to the Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico with portages no longer than 11.5 miles. Grand Portage is the longest portage along dominant water routes in all of North America.” -@telegramsam

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Next up, Canada!

Categories
Minnesota

The 2nd Annual Midwest Corn Alps Paragliding Competition – Cosmos, MN

SDI Paragliding_15

We recently had the opportunity to attend the 2nd Annual Midwest Corn Alps Paragliding Competition out in Cosmos, MN. Last time we rolled through Minnesota Anna from SDI Paragliding reached out and said she’d love to meet up if we ever came through again. She’s a total travel lover and someday would love to set out with her family so naturally she follows many full time families on Instagram. This time around we spent a good 2-3 weeks trying to coordinate a time to get in some flying lessons or a tandem flight. Something always came up, but I swore we would make it work!

Well, we took long enough that eventually Anna tentatively invited us out to the competition they were having the following week and it lined up perfectly with our exodus from Minneapolis. Sold. They even had a base camp set up on one of the flier’s farms and we could bring the Airstream and camp next to a barn. Awesome.

The evening we got there, some of the pilots went out for an evening flight and we were able to tag along and watch them go up.

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Because there are no hills or mountains in Minnesota, the pilots are attached to a winch on a truck and then pulled up into the air. Its pretty fascinating! Anna’s father, Steve, has also designed a pretty spectacular winch and sells them as part of their business.

The group of participants – a good looking bunch!

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Anna and her family (she’s in orange):

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Each morning around 10-11am they would have a pilots meeting and discuss the challenge for the day. There was a whole lot of talk about wind speeds, distances and a lot of numbers on a white board that I didn’t understand but everyone else nodded and put the correct info into their flight computers.

After that we all caravanned out to the long, empty farm roads and one by one, the pilots were pulled into the air. Once the pilots had released the cable (or pinned out) the truck would swing around and come back for another pilot.

The day we watched was super hot and humid, but the kids were troopers! Sam even got to tag along in the truck with Steve as he pulled a pilot up into the air.
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After a quick trip into Hutchinson after lunch for some frozen yogurt and air conditioning at the local library, we headed back to base camp and got set up for a tandem flight for Sam and I. One of the groups participating in the event was ChicagoParagliding and they offered to help get us up into the air.

On a tandem flight we were strapped to an experienced pilot who did all the work of flying, all we had to do was run until we achieved lift off. I wasn’t so good at running and actually had to try twice to get up – eating dirt the first time as we crashed landed back to the ground.

It was pretty amazing (and slightly terrifying) to be up that high! Soaring up above all the farmlands was fairly surreal and since my pilot, Emmanuel, did all the work, I could just sit back and enjoy. The best way I can describe the view is its like looking out an airplane window on take off, but no airplane.

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I loved watching the passion these guys have for paragliding. Talking to Anna was so much fun because I could tell she really loves what her family does and enjoys sharing that passion with others. It was also amazing to watch this community of para-gliders interact with each other. There was so much camaraderie and fun even in the midst of a competition. Reminded me a bit of our traveling community and how much I love it.

We definitely had a great time, and loved making some new friends in the process. If you are ever near Minneapolis and are looking for something awesome – hit up SDI paragliding for some lessons. You seriously won’t be disappointed!

2nd Annual Midwest Corn Alps XC Competition in Cosmos MN. Sam and I even got up for a tandem flight!