2024 Voyageurs Trip
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Campground at a Winery-Yes, Please
We are headed to northern Minnesota to see the sights and have some cool nights to sleep with the windows open. Voyageur National Park and the North Shore are our destinations. Our first stop is at the Wild Vines Campground at the Wild Mountain Winery north of the Twin Cities. They have several shady places…
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Hoodoo Valley Farm
Our second night was also off-grid in the front lawn of a Boondockers Welcome home just outside of Tower, Minnesota. Our hostess greeted us, showed us where to park and reassured us the barking dog was harmless. Sure enough, he was all bark and no bite, ignoring us once we were parked. On RADAR we…
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Ash River Visitor Center, Voyageurs National Park
We have arrived at our first destination, Voyageurs National Park on the Minnesota border with Canada. This is a unique national park in that all campsites in the park are on islands in the large lakes, and water transportation is needed. The visitor centers all offer boat excursions with park rangers to tour the lakes…
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A Rainy Day on Rainy Lake
The first of our two boat tours from the park service in Voyageurs National Park left the dock from the Rainy Lake Visitor Center. The Grand Tour travels out to Little American Island to do a short walking tour of the gold mining operation during the 1890s. Our ranger, Beverly told us of the harsh…
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A buggy hike
It poured rain this morning, then was cool and muggy for the rest of the day. We decided to try a couple of additional trails near Ash River—the Beaver Pond Overlook and the Sullivan Bay Trail. We watched two groups head down the Kab-Ash trail at the parking lot for the Beaver trail, and quickly…
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Bogs, Beavers and a Bald
The weather was perfect today so we spent it all outdoors. We did a bog walk, a hike and a kayak trip. Tilson Bay on Rainy Lake has a large parking lot across from it with access to the boardwalk for exploring the bog, and an unnamed (?) trail near the dock that we had…
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Bemidji State Park
This was a travel day and laundry day. We did take a hike after arriving to Bemidji State Park, and I found a very scaly mushroom. We also saw a “blonde” cottontail that Lauren correctly diagnosed as being leucistic. Its eyes were dark, so it is not an albino, but the fur color was very…
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Bemidji Bog has Pitcher Plants!
Please humor me as I post some more plant photos. One just has to appreciate the plants that grow in wet, nutrient-deficient bogs, and I saw pitcher plants putting up blooms in the wild today! We raised them in the botany class, but they rarely survived the lack of care they got over the summer.…
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Paul Bunyan’s Birthplace
First stop on the tourist route is Paul Bunyon Park where the second-most photographed statues in the US reside. Bemidji’s other claim to fame is to be the first city on the Mississippi. The visitor center has a collection of big items in honor of Paul Bunyon, and it reminded me of Dad’s “big” present…
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Savanna Portage State Park
We spent a very rainy afternoon and night in Savanna Portage State Park. Our campsite was really nice and set in the trees – did I get a picture? No…. We parked at the boat launch and dock to get better Dishy reception—did I get a picture? No…. I hiked the Bog Trail to the…