VACATION – Wednesday Wanderings, Weavings, Windshields and Wanoka Lake

Ahhhh things cooled off nicely overnight, and we woke to a windy day and some waves on Lake Superior.  NOW that looked like the Great Lake I knew as a kid… with choppy white caps, cool breezes and no bugs in the air.  Sure hate to leave this campsite, but the next folks are on another site back on the woods side of the campground and would like to move on to it. 

We were getting road worthy about 7 am and Steveio was washing the windshield of the rig… and saw not ONE but TWO stone chips!  One of which had starred out about 1/2 an inch in 2 directions!!!   By 8 am we were calling our insurance company to set us up for a repair before either one spread further.  Being an older rig, it might take a week or two to locate a new windshield, or for that matter two, as we had a chip on each window of the front divided windshield.  By 830 am, our agent called us back and had us all set up with a place in Ironwood by 2pm on the same day.

We were headed into Hurley anyhow to explore the Weaving Room at the Iron County Museum.  Hurley WI and Ironwood MI are neighboring towns, which both towns butt up to each other, one in Michigan and one in Wisconsin.

We got to the glass place by 10 am, hoping to convince someone to work on our rig early if possible, but nobody was around. They were all out on service calls with their Little Red Trucks!   LOL  

 

So instead, we unhooked the Tracker and headed over to the museum, stopping first at Budget Dollar store to nab up 12 more skeins of some great sock yarn I know they carry.   Once we hit the museum, I was immersed in the Weaving Room with the gals there and Steveio wandered the other exhibits of logging, mining and history of the town of Hurley.

 

I won’t bore you non-weavers with all the pics and tales of my visit to the Weaving Room, I will put that in a separate post for my weaving friends to read. 

Once we got outta there, we went back to the rig, made a late lunch and there was our Little Red Truck guy a half hour early to work on our windshields! Wheeeeeeeee 

He did a great job on both chips.  Steve also got him to work on an old chip on the Tracker, which unfortunately did spread, a risk you take sometimes on chip repairs.  But at least we are ready to roll and there is glue in the spread sections on the Tracker.  Our insurance covers our chips at no charge, instead of having to replace a full windshield which is a $500 deductible.  Ouch!

 

Before we left town, we dashed over to Kmart and nabbed up a cute little 7 inch netbook for Steveio that was on sale…. $99 bucks ---  and now he don’t have to keep taking my laptop (since he burned his out by setting it on the blanket on the ottoman at home)   It’s called an Android by Augen.   We also bought a laptop cooling pad for 4.99 on sale too.   I already had an extra cordless mouse for him to hook up to it too.

We hit the road.. heading west.   Went through Ashland and heading on towards Superior and Duluth, but we decided to check out a little national forest campground along the way called Wanoka Lake in the Chequamenon National Forest.  It was just a short distance off US 2, so we checked it out.  Only 20 sites, of which there were 2 campers, and a tent.  2 other campers were parked here, but left just to hold a spot for the upcoming holiday weekend.   We could probably fit on about 3/4 of the sites here, but some corners are tight and some erosion on the gravel roads is not for the faint of heart…..   we crawled throught some pretty deep ruts but made it into a nice site, number 4.

 

 

It was already 4 pm, so we started some supper on the grill.  Ummmmm grilled salmon!  Did up a pan of scalloped potatoes (from a box)  whipped up two nice salads and voila, supper was ready!   

We sipped some wine while relaxing in our chairs, looking out over the small lake and just enjoying the evening.

Things were a comfy 70 some degrees, and as the evening started to fall, we pulled on sweats and shoes and decided to wear off some supper.

We walked around a bit…. there are some huge white pines and red pines, with tremendous trunks and tall tall tall up to the top of the forest canopy.  This is a site of a CCC camp of long ago, and I am thinking the trees closest to the camp were not cut down in the era of logging days, to make shade around the camp buildings.  So they survived when so much of Wisconsin was cut down for logging timber.  We chatted with the two sets of other campers as we strolled through the park. 

  

The water was so calm and reflective, you almost can not tell which side is up and which side is down on these photos!

 

Ahhhh time to hit the rack and start of a new day tomorrow… will travel past Superior and Duluth before *rush hour* at noon… and head on west to some other national forest places for the holiday weekend.

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Here are some links to the last few days of places we have been.  Didn’t have internet connection to search them out while creating those blogs:

 List of Campgrounds in the Chequamenon National forest

http://www.gogebic.org/forestryandparks_littlegirlspoint.htm

http://ironcountywi.com/camping.aspx

 

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And some answers to some questions in the past few blog posts:

 

Sam&Donna Weibel said...   Another great day and great pictures, was trying to figure out how you got the one of you guys smoochin, it doesn't look like you set the camera on something with the self timer, so unless someone came along, you have me puzzeled.

Heh heh doncha know we take along our own photographer to snap pics of us and when we don’t need him, we stuff him in a basement compartment with a pack of cold hot dogs and a jug of water?   LOL … actually my Steveio has such LONG arms he was able to snap the one of us on the blanket on the beach, and the other shots of us was using the self timer and finding places to set the camera.  We also have a tripod in the rig, but I don’t carry it along with us on hikes…

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Judy and Emma said...

Thankfully it turned out to be a great beginning to your adventure. Bacon and pancakes cooked over the open fire..YUM! Couldn't you two drive out to Oregon to feed me? I've got a free campsite for you!

Judy--- you just HAVE to come this way and camp next to us.  I would even bake you muffins and Steveio is great on the grill

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Sam&Donna Weibel said...

Looks like we weren't the only worried ones, glad to see you are off to a great start for a vacation, Hope Fuzz is doing okay. Did you bring the pooches, looked in all the pictures and didn't see them laying around. This is the last chance for warm weather up in your neck of the wood's. We can usually swim till the end of Sept here, but Donna won't, the water is starting to cool down just a little, and she needs it to be as warm as a tub.That doesn't stop Adam, Rigg's and Grandpa.Have a cold one for us while your sitting around the campfire. Be safe out there. Sam & Donna.

 

Oh yes, the doggers are along.  We are NOT ALLOWED to move the motorhome from our driveway unless they are inside.  The rig belongs to them, and we are only along to drive it for them, feed them, and let them find new places to sniff.

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Sorry about the foible of the post on Sunday about  post of just the blog title of “VACATION- Didn’t get too far” …It seemed to just post that much and jammed up.  I could not get back on line to finish posting the blog till Tuesday!