VACATION - Looping Around Lake Superior - Day 1 Burnet Island SP WIS

Day One is in the box. This is our vacation looping around Lake Superior up through Canada.

A lot of well-meaning people on here and Facebook keep suggesting places to see in the UP of Michigan. I love their suggestions, but please realize that that I grew up in the UP and have been to all of those places many times. That is why I posted a map of our route so we are looking for good boondocking suggestions along the North Shore of Minnesota and into Canada and around into the west side of the Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

We left the house at 9 a.m., right after I mailed out a bunch of packages when the post office opened. Rosie: your reeds are on the way along with your map. Pops Pfundtner: your digital amp meter is on it's way. Also I sent out a customer's DVD order and a rebate to Menards. Now I could concentrate on vacation!

We headed on North through the road construction around Appleton, and made our way West on boring Wisconsin highways that we are already familiar with. Nothing much to see. We stopped at noon in Stevens Point at the local Fleet Farm Store. For those who don't know, Fleet Farm is like a Man's Mall, as it is fondly referred to. It's a chain of hunting fishing farm equipment sports etcetera. Steve said he was taking me on a "lunch date"!

We went inside and bought tortilla chips for his salsa, that we had forgotten at home, and also a roll of summer sausage to make sandwiches for lunch. He even held my hand walking through the parking lot. What a romantic date.

From there we headed north and further west until reaching the small community of Cornell (hwy 29 and 27 then north). This is the location of one of the most beautiful state parks in Wisconsin, in my humble opinion. Its called Brunet Island State Park and yes, it is located on an island. After you cross the little bridge, it is a wonderful maze of loopy paved roads interspersed with lagoons and ponds that are all inter-connected.

Link to the park inormation:

http://dnr.wi.gov/topic/parks/name/brunetisland/

This time of year all of the campsites are "first come first serve", there are no reservations accepted. I was really hoping that our most favorite site number 43 would be open. Imagine our surprise as we get closer to the park to see the Chippewa River was drained about 3 feet down! The local power company has drawn the water down to this level to do some work on the nearby hydro-dam. This is the river that also feeds all of the little lagoons and ponds within the park. There is still water but it is very low. It I still pretty!

We were very happy to see our favorite spot vacant! Even though there are many beautiful sites around and almost every single one is on the water. We really wanted to get this one because it's where we have stayed before. There is water right up almost to the side of the rig, and then just on the other side of the rig is the road and there is water to look at from that direction.

When parked here, you can watch the sun coming up from the East over the water and watch it setting down in the West on the other side. Here is our sunset view from our bedroom window.

We got settled into our camp site easily and then back tracked with the Tracker to find a registration station that was still being serviced by the park at this time of year. I am sure due to budget cuts, the two registration posts in our loop are no longer being used for the fee envelope collections. Both of them in our loop were marked "out of order". We thought perhaps we would have to drive all of the way back to the main office, but went into the lower loop which is more populated and found an open registration post for fee collections there. The lower southern loop in this campground has electricity, whereas the northern loop where we are does not.

FEES- $18 for our non electric sites and $28 for the sites with electric for WI Residents. Non Resident are slightly higher and vehicle stickers are required.

Steve took care of the bug splatter on the windshield so I can take good pictures the next day. Best to get it done before they get too hard and dried on the glass.

The dogs enjoyed getting out to sniff and look around. We bought them new harnesses this week that I think are more comfortable on their bodies then the original strap type ones we had before. These are like a little vest that they step into and come up around both legs and snug tight to their chest. The top ends clip tight above their shoulders with a secure snap clip.  Then two D rings adjoin together as you hook the leash onto them. They seem pretty secure and I think they are more comfortable for the dogs. With so much fur, it's hard to see the vests!

 

They will be wearing them 24/7 for 3 weeks straight. We leave their harnesses on at night because that way we can get them out quick in the morning for potty time. Of course their collars are always on with ID tags. Good pet hint here: when you travel with a dog, it's a good idea to have an ID tag with your mobile phone on it, not your home phone landline if you have one. That way if your dog is missing, you would have much easier communication from someone who found it. Not that we would ever want our dogs to get lost!

We popped two frozen pot pies from Hilde's Deli of Chilton into the oven. She makes the most wonderful chicken pot pies, and sells them to me as unbaked frozen chicken pot pies. We pop them into the oven on a cookie sheet for about 45 minutes. Thank goodness for my handy propane oven that Steve installed in the motorhome last month. It's exactly perfect for situations like this.

 

We are camping without electrical hookups and would not want to run the microwave convection combo for 45 minutes from the generator. Nor would we want to drain down our batteries on inverter for running it that long. Having this propane oven now within the rig keeps the warmth and heat inside while baking -- which saves us on heating propane too.

We relaxed along the waters edge and observed this solitaire Canadian Goose wandering around by itself. He didn't seem to bothered by us or the dogs.  I think this is My Favorite Pic of the Day.

The colors in this area are just starting to turn on the trees. After our scrumptious dinner we took a nice long walk around the campground with the dogs. They thoroughly enjoyed sniffing new sniff spots and seeing new sights. So did we!

It's very quiet here, with only one other camper in our entire section of the campground. They are down quite a ways and we can't even see them from our camp site. In the electrical loop there were about 5 or 6 other campers, but not too many.

The sun was setting and the light was right----

This is our Second Honeymoon

We went around Lake Superior on our honeymoon 20 years ago.

Toast!

We settled in our lawn chairs until the sun went down and then retired indoors to have a piece of the apple pie that I had baked on Sunday.

We tuned into an old movie on TV and enjoyed watching Dustin Hoffman, Seann Connery and James(?) Broderick in "Family Business".

After a peaceful night's sleep in the quiet woods, we awoke this morning to thick heavy fog. According to the local news station to should be burned off by about 10 a.m. and we will have great sunshine and up to 80 degrees today!!

Our goal today is to reach Duluth, Minnesota which is only 150 miles away. We are going to meet up with my great aunt Nancy. Actually she's my mom's cousin which would be my second cousin, but I just like calling her Great Aunt Nancy because it fits! 

231 Miles traveled today

PS: hurricane update from my Mom and Lyle in Florida near Gainesville. The church they were sheltering in had some damage to the back annex area and cafeteria but the main hall where they were was fine and everyone was safe. They were able to travel the three short miles back to their house later in the day after moving lots of big tree branches to get through. Of course the power is out but they are happy to say that their home is still standing! It is her double wide manufactured home they just recently moved to Lyle's land in the country and they had just spent a lot of money having it moved and put into place. Of course the building codes require permanent attachment to the ground with hurricane tie down cables excetera. The only damage their place suffered was part of a roof on one of the storage sheds. Easily repairable. I am so glad that they are safe and sound. Thank you everyone for your concern and prayers. I just wish everybody could have made it through the storm with no damage at all. Things on the National news on TV look pretty grim for both Texas and Florida. 

When I was buying my bottles of water at the store in Chilton I told people that I was evacuating too. I said I was leaving Wisconsin and heading north in case the hurricane came!!!