VACATION - Looping Around Lake Superior - Day 8 Rossport Rainbow Falls and our first MOOSE

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IN THE TINY TOWN OF ROSSPORT

WHO KNOWS WHO OWNS THE SIGNAL?? 

As much as we didn't want to leave our little boondocking site on Lake Helen, it was time to move on.

The mist was rising up off of the lake and was absolutely amazing. Here are a couple photos

And here is a youtube clip I shot as we were driving down highway 11 heading towards Queens highway 17.

Oh my! We saw our first moose!

Well he wasn't alive anymore but we did see him...

We drove back down towards Nipigon we're there was some road construction taking place. The so far is the only road construction we have really run into. We did remark yesterday how amazingly smooth and wonderful all the roads of been up here compared to what we have back in Wisconsin. Its been very easy gliding down these roads, settled back in our comfortable chairs, with the big huge windshield showing the world moving by. Its almost like sitting in a movie theater! Seriously, the traveling has been very pleasant and smooth.

We turned left once we reached back to the Queens Highway 11, and headed east. We meandered through some beautiful countryside and the day was absolutely gorgeous.

We made our way to Rainbow Falls Provincial Park. There wasn't anybody at the gate house but there were self registration posts and envelopes. We unhooked the tracker and drove around through the campground noting any sites that we really liked. We noticed only one other camper in the entire campground. We did drive by a worker who was cleaning out fire pits. As we made our way back to the gate house and started filling out the envelope, the worker drove up to us in a pickup truck. He stated that he thinks the park is closing today, but he want sure. He will go call his boss to check, so we better not register yet. I was just minutes away from sliding the envelope with our cash into the paypost at the registration station. $41.25 to be exact!

The worker came back a few minutes later in said yes indeed the park was closing at 2 p.m. that day. But he did say the other section of the park which is a few miles back up the road and close to the water is open yet. Its called Rainbow Falls Rossport Campground. So we only had to backtrack a couple miles and found some other beautiful campsites.

Within minutes after our registering for our new site, the people that were in that other campsite at the closing campground also pulled in. They said they had paid for the night and the worker told them to come here and their envelope would still be good, even though was in the post at the other campground.

We chose a very nice site, but again the electrical posts are up by the road. Kevin had asked me on a previous blog why don't people just pull in nose first so their electrical cord can reach the post from the back of their rig? Well... most of all your picnic table and fire ring would be on the wrong side of  the camper.  And pulling straight in doesn't always work for people, especially in travel trailers and 5th wheels. Because then their truck is blocked in for the duration of their stay. I suppose they could try to unhook and drive across the grass to get out in a circumstance where there's open area. But most of the campsite sweet see her heavily wooded and there will be no way to get back out if you on hooked from your trailer.

We in our motorhome are backed in, but we are using our extension cord, and it has to cross underneath our rig and next to our camp fire pit over to the post. Actually, the people right next to us have to use two more extension cords (one which is a smaller gauge) to reach the post. This can cause a pretty dramatic voltage drop over the length needed.

Oh well, we will make due and not complain because it's nice having electric on these very cold nights. We have been running a little electric heater when we are in a campground,  saving on our own propane. It's also very nice to have our electric mattress pad heaters on to warm up the bed.

We walked around the campground, which is pretty small with only about 30 camp sites. Maybe 15 of them have electric. It is pleasantly situated right on the water of Schreiber Channel that leads out into Lake Superior. Some of the campsites right along the water are so picturesque.... but taken. We walked down among the tenting non electric sites and the very last one is absolutely perfect with a remote beach area in a very private setting.

We made a nice lunch and relaxed in our lounge chairs out in the sunshine. It was so nice to have a normal day without rain. Trailers started pulling in, selecting sites, and setting up in the afternoon. We met a couple from Manitoba, another couple from Duluth, and a couple from Rhinelander Wisconsin.

It was so comfortable and peacefully quiet, that we decided to lay down for awhile and take a little afternoon Siesta. There was a slight breeze and warming sunshine and everything was very relaxing. We are really getting into this "vacation mode thing".

After our nap, we decided we would drive into this little tiny burg of Rossport and see if we could find some free Wi-Fi. I had not yet enacted my Verizon travel pass option, and was hoping to find some free Wi-Fi because I had three blogs written up, saved, and ready to post along with uploading the photos.

We loaded the laptop and my cell phone into the Tracker and off we went. This little town is so tiny there are no stores or gas stations or hotels. Just one bed and breakfast and one little restaurant and a tiny Museum that is in a railroad caboose (which sadly was closed).

We drove slowly up in down the two streets in that make up the entire little town. Yes, at the top of a hill next to a boat, in a gravel parking lot I found a open Wi-Fi signal! I was able to load up all three of my blogs and arrange the photos on each one. It was a very slow signal and tedious going... but at least it was working. By the time I reached the third blog I ran out of time to arrange the photos because my laptop battery was dying. Please excuse me if the blog before this just has a pile of pictures in one spot. That is how they get loaded up before I move them around within the text.

Steve patiently waited for me in the driver seat while I frantically worked in the passenger seat. The black flies kept coming in our open windows and biting us. They were very pesty. Back at the campground we noticed them too, but we said up our Thermocell mosquito repellent unit. It also chases away the black flies, especially those little gnats too.

We headed back to the campground to get some supper going. Since we have electricity tonight I decided to make some barbecue ribs in my GoWise electric pressure cooker. We popped some baked white potatoes in the oven and had a dish of tiny grape tomatoes and mini cucumbers as our vegetable. My oh my we sure eat good when we camp.

This campground also has a shower building that is still open for the season. The showers are each in individual rooms with a locking door. No accidental intrusion of people pulling back your stall curtain to see if the shower is occupied... like in some of the large shower buildings.

 Additionally, there is a room with a washer and dryer that are coin operated. A dollar fifty to wash in a dollar fifty to dry. Since we've been on the road for 8 days some of our favorite clothes are already dirty, as well as some towels and we may run short on underwear! So while I was cooking supper, I went over with my basket full of laundry and started a load in the washing machine. I set my timer on my phone so I knew when it was done and could go back to retrieve the wet clothes. Nobody likes to walk up to a single wash machine laundry facility and find someone else's clothes just laying in there at the end of a cycle.

 

Yes, we do have a washer/dryer unit on board of our own rig but we have not used it at all the summer... so it still has winterizing fluid in the lines and the pump. I really did not want to undo winterizing just for one load of laundry. Washing it over in the laundry building was quick and cheap. The dryer portion on our unit functions fine, even if the water is winterized on our Splendide combo unit. I dried the load in 3 smaller batches here in the rig over the course of the evening.

We decided to have a campfire for the evening, even though the winds have picked up a bit off of the lake. We invited a few of the other people we had met to come over and enjoy the campfire. Steve started up his pellet campfire called Flame Genie. It burns compressed hardwood pellets and we avoid having to haul bug infested firewood from province to province or state to state or county to county. Steve wanted one of these for a long time and I found it for him on Amazon. It was drop shipped from the company but was cheaper to buy it on Amazon than it was on the website from the company itself. Plus, I got free shipping!

 Here is a You Tube link I made for the evening:

The Flame Genie starts up fast with a dollop of tiki torch fluid and burns with a beautiful flame and gives off a lot of warmth as we huddled around the campfire. The evening grew cooler as the darkness came on and we enjoyed visiting with the people camped next to us: Kelly and Heather from Manitoba. They are heading east all of the way out to the New England States to tour around for the color over the next few weeks.

As the fire died down it was time to head into bed. The Flame Genie cools off quickly and all you have to do is knock out a little bit of ashes from the bottom and it is ready to be stored back in it's compartment underneath the motorhome.

The temperatures only got down into the low 50's overnight, not as low as we thought it was going to get.

Waking up now to beautiful sunshiny morning with blue sky, I am going to go back into town to post this quick blog and then we will go out and see what adventures we can find today. here is a hint:

Stay tuned for the next blog, wherever it maybe, and whenever I might be able to get it posted!