July 11th Wisconsin!

We spent a night in Wisconsin deep in the Nicolet National Forest. Our plan was to first drive through the park and find a campsite, but it was getting late and Josh kept seeing signs pointing down roads that read "Campgrounds 1 mile" or something of the like. So we pulled off the road into a relatively large collection of campsites that was empty save the camp host. It was a nice little spot on a lake, so we settled in a site that had water access, so to speak. (we could walk down to the beach) It was windy as; it was difficult to hear anything outside of a five foot radius around you. The wind was a bit of a blessing, without it mosquitoes would've been bad. Josh set off to gather firewood and I began to pitch the tent. Halfway through putting it up I caught movement in the corner of my eye. It was a black bear, meandering through the other side of our campsite, about 20 ft away . It didn't seem to have noticed me, or just didn't care to acknowledge my presence. I did a rendition of calmly freaking out, ran up the steps to the road and yelled for Josh. It was futile really, seeing as the wind kept my voice from carrying very far. I stood on the road yelling for Josh anyhow and a few minutes later he came walking up. We visited the camp host to ask him about the bear. He said a bear came through the sites every week or so to drink from the lake and that the bear was usually more interested in the dumpsters closer to the road than us. Since it was quite a bit later we walked down to the beach to see if the bear was by the water and, sure enough, about a quarter mile down the beach there he was. It was a very nice site, so we remained there. Food was all packed away in the car. After all was said and done, seeing as I didn't get mauled, it was really neat to see an animal like that up close.

Pictures!

So it begins.

Here we are nearly six days into the trip. Sorry for the delay in posting but we have been a bit out of touch to the internet. We started out last Friday July 6th by driving 525 miles in one lump sum to the Kewenah Peninsula. Here we kicked off our trip at a friend's cabin. We ended up staying there until the following Monday. Here are some highlights from the four days we spent there.
Another group that was staying the night commented on how many ticks they had pulled off each other. I believe the total number was six. Kathy adverted all tick attempts for the entire time. Josh, however was not as fortunate, and was blessed with a tick on his shoulder. Since the most effective way to remove a tick is to create leverage directly underneath it's head, Josh proved his pocket knife's worth and removed the tick. I, Kathy, have the feeling the pocket knife's worth is going to be proven time and time again.
Saturday we headed to Chassel to watch the Strawberry Festival Parade. Who can resist a small town parade, complete with Strawberry Festival Queen? It was quite possibly one of the longest parades we have ever watched, in total, forty minutes. It was the best a parade could hope to be. After the parade we headed to Calumet. Formerly one of the richest cities in Michigan, and at one time contender for state capital, it retains a bit of it's turn of the century displays of wealth. For example, Shutes, a bar built in 1890 has remained relatively unchanged since then. The rumor is the glass dome above the bar is all Tiffany's stained glass. But it remains a rumor. The bar keep didn't seem terribly interested in talking to us than just to give us a beer. (A PBR, ice cold, delicious at that) We toured the Opera House, which is one of the longest running theatres in the US. Not really toured as much as let roam around. It was great. Nothing like roaming around in an old beautiful theatre.
On the Brockway Mountain Drive, where we saw our first (yes, first) black bear! Josh attributes it to his rounding a corner at a roaring speed and startling a bear crossing the street. It darted into the woods but paused about ten feet in, giving us the eye. Josh gave him the eye back, and he disappeared into the woods.
Overnight Saturday we were rocked by an enormous thunderstorm. The thunder echoed for miles around us. Being in a tent made it that much more intense. We stayed dry.
Sunday was spent relaxing. We slept in until the sun allowed us (which was about 8-9ish) And spent much of the afternoon at Misery Bay on Lake Superior. Misery Bay stays relatively warm compared to the rest of Lake Superior which doesn't say much considering Superior tops out somewhere in fifty degree range. It started to rain shortly after our watery jaunt and despite the little warm fires made by our friends, we headed back to camp for a glorious nap.
Monday we said goodbyes to our wonderful hosts at the cabin and headed off towards Pictured Rocks. Staying true to our "off the beaten path" tradition we took mainly back roads. One of which was thirty miles of dirt road through Pictured Rocks State Park. We spent the night in Grand Marais and one of the first (of many, I'm sure) beautiful sunsets this trip will bring. We also got our first showers of the trip. It was a good night.
Tuesday we hit our first 1000 miles about midway through the day. In the morning we went and visited Miner's Falls, Miner's Castle (which has fallen into the lake) Sable Falls and Munising Falls. After the falls (and more falls) we headed down to Escanaba. We ended up driving through one of the worst rain storms I've (Kathy) driven through in years. We were planning on camping in Escanaba. Upon arriving there we realized there was no camping there and overall, were not impressed with it. There was the long string of gas stations, chain restaurants and big box stores leading into the city which may have ruined our vision of Escanaba from the movie "Escanaba in the Moonlight." We did, however, stop at a great used CD/Movie store and purchased an Ernest movie and a Bruce Lee film. In our bag there was some tootsie rolls and a pog.

We left Michigan and headed over to Wisconsin. So starts the journey West!