Category: WanderLog

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WanderLog Wisconsin

Ashland Wisconsin, the Apostle Islands, and Cheese

Travel Dates: August 18-26, 2015

After we explored Michigan’s Upper Peninsula along Lake Superior for 8 days, we made it back into northern Wisconsin and landed in Ashland. We gambled on a first come, first served waterfront city park and totally scored. Kreher City Park has a beach, a couple dozen sites, and is right on the water with a bike path running through it.

We stayed here for 5 days and it was perfect. We caught up on work and school, ate at Buddie’s Burgers (twice), road the 10 mile paved Ashland loop, went to the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center where the kids earned their 75th Jr. Ranger Badge, and prepped for our upcoming backpack trip to the Apostle Islands.

Related blog posts:
Our Kids Earn Their 75th Jr. Ranger Badge
Sometimes We Just Need a Break

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We were up bright and early on a Sunday morning headed for the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and our backpacking trip. It was amazing and so worth the time to get out to the islands. As a bonus, we even got to visit the Michigan Island Lighthouse on our way back!

Related blog posts:
Andrew’s 8th Birthday on the Apostle Islands
How We Backpacked on the Apostle Islands with Kids
Backpacking With Kids: 3 Day Meal Plan & Freezer Bag Cooking

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We had decided awhile ago that visiting Wisconsin didn’t count unless we bought local cheese, so before we left the Bayfield area we made that a priority.

Tetzner’s Dairy is a self-serve dairy farm that sells milk, cheese, and most importantly, ice cream. You walk into the shed, pick out your products, pay with cash or check and then walk out. The ice cream was delicious and we made some amazing grilled cheese with the Bacon Cheese.

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To finish out the Apostle Islands, we went up to Little Sand Bay hoping to visit the Sea Caves. Unfortunately, we underestimated how tired we would be, and no one wanted to hike the 5 mile round trip it required. So, we hung out at the campground and realized we would have been better off staying closer to Bayfield instead of driving all the way out there. Oops.

We did go into the Visitor Center and watch a movie about a modern Ojibwa making a North Canoe. The movie was fairly dated, but the girls & I were fascinated since we are obsessed with anything Voyageur related. Andrew was mostly just restless.

SAM_4291 Leaving the peninsula we headed towards Duluth, but were planning on overnighting at Walmart in Cloquet, MN to put us close to the mechanic for an appointment to check our trailer brakes.

Not wanting to arrive at Wal-Mart before dark, we hung out at Little Sand Bay until 2pm and then stopped by both Amnicon Falls State Park & Pattison State Park ($10 for a day pass gets you into all the state parks) to see the waterfalls. They are both small parks about 30 minutes apart and easily seen on the same day.

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We had dinner in the parking lot, and then we drove to the Wal-Mart in Cloquet, MN ready to begin traveling up the North Shore!

Categories
Michigan WanderLog

Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (aka The UP)

Our Travel Log for Michigan

Travel Dates: August 7-17, 2015

We left the Dells, and arrived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula unceremoniously on Friday afternoon, August 14, 2015 after driving up from Walmart down near Green Bay, Wisconsin. Totally ignored the time zone change to Eastern Time as we searched along the west shore of Lake Michigan for a place to stay for the weekend.

We finally ended up in Pioneer Trail County Park in Gladstone and snagged a rustic camping spot for the weekend. Played some disc golf, got laundry done, went grocery shopping, and made it to church.

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Bright and early Monday morning we headed farther to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. We stopped at Muldoon’s Pasties & Gifts in Munising on the way up for lunch and thoroughly enjoyed our first pasty. Delicious, especially the dessert pies.

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Found a beautiful boondocking spot south of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and spent a few, slightly frustrating days exploring the park with all the tourists on vacation.

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Headed back west, we spent two nights at Marquette Tourist County Park. The town is super cute & Sam and I managed to squeeze in a bike date to get ice cream at Frosty Treats. We also rode out to Presque Isle with the kids and hiked a bit around the peninsula/island. Super pretty. On our way out we ate at Jean -Kay’s pasties & subs and enjoyed our first vegetarian pasty.

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Drove to the Keweenaw Peninsula where we had reservations at Linden County Park so we could send packages ahead of us. The park isn’t amazing, but the kids enjoyed the swim beach.

11261374_860672233968730_479493537_nWe day tripped up to Calumet and the Keweenaw National Historic Site Visitor Center to earn our 74th Jr. Ranger Badge and enjoyed learning about the history of the area.

Our third and final pasty taste test was at Roy’s where their chicken & broccoli pastie totally took the gold medal. We also ventured into Hungarian Falls and were disappointed the reports of swimming in the waterfalls proved to be false, but had fun throwing rocks into the pool and hunting for frogs.

Moving farther west, our next stop was the Porcupine Mountains. We woke up super early to try and get to the Union Bay Campground for a first come, first served spot. Unfortunately, there was no Verizon signal anywhere and we weren’t very impressed with the campground anyway.

Instead, we decided to have Sam take the day off and we went hiking! After a quick lunch in the Visitor Center parking lot, we drove up to Summit Peak and hiked the loop ending with the lookout tower.  It was beautiful and only about 5.5 miles of pretty gentle grade. We loved it.

11326513_1517456441878056_1670842139_nIt was still only about 3:30pm so we drove over to the Lake of the Clouds overlook to check that out. Super pretty views, but all I could think about was the hike along the ridge that would be EPIC. So many back country trails and campsites at this park.

Lastly, we grabbed this pull out spot next to the side of the road and the kids played on the beach while Sam and I cooked up a grilled sausage and pasta dinner. Afterwards we had our weekly Family Night on the beach, followed by treats and then about an hour to Walmart in Ironwood, MI for the night.

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That wraps up (for now) our tour of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It really is a different place than “the mitten” with absolutely gorgeous views of Lake Superior, and more back country hiking than I expected (not that my expectations were high to begin with!).

Next up we went back to Wisconsin to backpack on the Apostle Islands!

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WanderLog Wisconsin

Our First Taste of Wisconsin – The Dells

Travel Dates: August 4-6

We left Minneapolis, MN (again) and drove the long 4.5 hours east to the Wisconsin Dells in one day. We decided it was worth the push to get there in one day – and get in late as we knew the RV Park at Mt. Olympus would not be very scenic. The kids had been looking forward to a water park here for at least a year, and since we could add it to the itinerary, we decided we should.

The next two days were spent at Mt. Olympus Water and Theme Park. We had a blast.  The first day we spent the morning at the Waterpark, ate lunch at a cafe, swam some more and made it back to the Airstream for an early dinner. After dinner we went back in until about 8pm and rode the rides.

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The following day we did in reverse. We hitched up the Airstream and drove early over to the Mt. Olympus Parking. We got in first thing and rode the Hades 360 roller-coaster (the lines were at least an hour the day before), and then more Go Karts and our other favorite rides. We went back to the Airstream for lunch, changed into our swimming suits, and Sam stayed to work while I took the kids back in to swim. We stayed at the park until about 5pm, then whipped up a quick dinner in the parking lot and drove a few hours to a Walmart outside of Green Bay, WI for the night.

The next morning, after a frustrating attempt to find someplace to stay in Door County, we abandoned those plans and decided to head north towards the Upper Peninsula of Michigan instead. We feel like Wisconsin totally got the shaft, but we had plans to come back after some time in Michigan.

Next: Michigan’s Upper Peninsula Wrap Up

Categories
Minnesota National Parks State Parks WanderLog

Cosmos, St. Cloud, Itasca & The Voyageurs – Northern Minnesota

Travel Dates: July 16 -30, 2015

After 4 weeks in Minneapolis, it was time to leave! We headed out bright and early heading west for Cosmos and a paragliding competition. We had been invited by the hosts to come check it out and even get in a tandem flight! It felt so good to finally be leaving the Twin Cities area and headed out to explore more of the state.

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We met up with Anna and her family who were hosting the Midwest Corn Alps Paragliding Competition, and even though it was crazy hot and humid we had a fantastic time!

Check out the full details here: 2nd Annual Midwest Corn Alps Paragliding Competition

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Leaving the competition we headed for an all Airstream RV Park in Clear Lake Minnesota. We had heard on Instagram that it was a favorite of another traveling family and decided to check it out. We went swimming in the pool and then joined in on the Mexican pot luck and pinata party for the kids. Everyone was extremely welcoming and super nice!

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Conveniently it also put us close to St. Cloud and some college friends of ours. They took us to a local swimming hole called Quarry Park & Nature Preserve where we spent the afternoon.

Minnesota is Warmer Than I Thought It Would Be

On Sunday at church, the leaders announced the nearby town of Brainerd, MN needed volunteers for some disaster cleanup. A tornado had touched down in the town and leveled a lot of trees and generally made a mess of things.

Since we don’t do enough service as it is, we decided to take the day off and drive up and help. We cleared brush and logs from a driveway and the kids were fantastic little helpers!

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That evening we drove to the Cuyuna Country State Recreation area and found a spot in the nearly empty Portsmouth Campground. This was a total shot in the dark, but I had heard from a girl in Minneapolis that the mountain biking here was superb. It didn’t disappoint. I still dream about those trails….

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Next up we went to Itasca State Park where the headwaters of the Mississippi River are located. We found a great spot in the campground and headed out to enjoy the park. Since we were unable to get great cell signal, we decided to make the most of our time there.

We swam in the lake, attending a ranger fishing program, and rock hopped across the Mississippi River. Much easier to do here than down in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We planned a great hike this morning, and failed during execution. The first two miles along the lakeshore turned out to be a breakfast buffet, with insects doing the feasting and us as the selection of food.
Our repellent was insufficient.

The best way to escape the bugs was to move faster, and we cleared that section of trail in record time.

Our plans to hike to the observation tower were scrapped, and we returned home via a longer but decidedly less buggy route. We still hiked 7.5 miles today, so even in our failure we won.” – Sam

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“After dinner, @jesscurrenand I snuck away for a short bike date. 8 miles of paved bike path with some ridiculously good chocolate in the middle. And when you find a random patch of cell service for the first time in days, it is worth checking your voicemail.” – Sam

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We spent the weekend at Lake Bemidji State Park, mostly just taking it easy and sticking out as some of the only “non-weekenders” in the campground. Lots of work, some laundry, and church on Sunday.

“Our afternoon wander yesterday took us into a nearby bog. Andrew and Rachel surprised us with their knowledge of carnivorous plants. We saw two types on our wander. Shown here is the Pitcher Plant, which attracts insects with a sweet smell, uses tiny hairs to prevent them from leaving, and drowns them in liquid. The plant captures bugs to gain minerals not found in the soil.” -Sam 

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Monday morning we drove north to Voyageurs National Park and Wooden Frog Campground. This turned out to be one of our favorite stops so far on our journey. The National Park is amazing, full of history and great ranger programs.

We also rented a canoe for a few hours one morning and paddled on Lake Kabetogama.

Check out our blog post for more details: 5 Interesting & Fun Things to Do with Kids at Voyageurs National Park

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Categories
Minnesota WanderLog

Minnesota: Pipestone National Monument & 4 Weeks in Minneapolis

Travel Dates: June 19 – July 15, 2015

Heading east from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, we reached the Minnesota border early in the morning and went straight for Pipestone National Monument.

The Native Americans have quarried red pipestone here for generations to carve into pipes used for prayer. We enjoyed exploring the visitor center and going a short nature walk to the waterfall.

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Next we headed into Plymouth, MN on the outskirts of Minneapolis to hang out with Jess’ family for a week.

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Part of that week was spent at a rental  lake house up near McGregor, Minnesota. This area is quite beautiful and known for its many lakes and outdoor recreation opportunities.

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Back in Minneapolis we spent an evening at the Mall of America. The kids LOVED all the rides and we were there until they closed at 10pm. Super late night, but worth it.

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Monday morning we moved over to Baker Creek Park Reserve for another week to still be nearby family but we could all have our own space. My mom hung out for an extra week while the rest of my family flew back to Utah.

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We spent the week hanging out with cousins, sailing, and swimming both at a neighbor’s pool and in the lake, and celebrating the 4th of July. I also managed to find time for family portraits for my brother.

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Blog posts:

4th of July Watermelon Bike Ride
Madsen Family Lifestyle Photo Shoot
The Great Bike Fiasco

After we dropped Jess’ mom off at the airport, we drove an hour an half down to Myre-Big Island State Park near Albert Lea, MN to meet up with Mike & JorDanee who were coming through on their way west.

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We got chased off by mosquitoes after only one night, and headed back north to Lebanon Hills Regional Campground on the south side of Minneapolis. We hung out with the Dykstra Family and our kids got along well, and all played super hard. We also managed to squeeze in some mountain biking in our free time.

Blog Posts:

Traveling Meetups in Minneapolis
Off Road Mountain Biking in Minneapolis

We took a day trip up to the Mississippi River National Recreation site to earn a Jr. Ranger Badge with friends and then play at the science center in St. Paul.

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The following morning we went to The Works Children’s Museum with cousins and enjoyed hanging out there for the afternoon.

10643851_943451382363756_636629465_nSaturday we moved back to courtesy park with my brother, got a babysitter and had an EPIC date night with dinner at Brasa and then disarmed a bomb at Escape MSP.

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Sunday afternoon we criss-crossed the Twin Cities yet AGAIN, and towed over to the east side and Lake Elmo Regional Park. This put us close to the LDS Temple for a visit, as well as provided a great setting for two other Instagram meetups with traveling friends.

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Overall we spent close to 4 weeks around Minneapolis. We loved being with family, but it was definitely time to move on and see something new!