I’ll confess that the carsick child mentioned here was me, always, and I didn’t grow out of it until I was a teenager! NOTE: I have included minor edits (punctuation, mainly), but the text mostly remains as it appears in Mom’s original. The boldfaced subheadings/intros are mine.
Northward Bound
We reluctantly left Chequamegon National Forest to continue northward. We followed the Lake Superior shoreline into Minnesota and promptly got lost outside of Duluth, finally finding ourselves again and continuing up the shoreline. One of our rest stops was at Gooseberry Falls, Minnesota, where we spent quite a while hiking and admiring the falls. I was leery of the adventuresome Al leapfrogging from rock to rock to get pictures of the falls from various angles but must admit the pictures are impressive. We had planned to camp in Superior National Forest near Ely but weren’t sure if we’d be able to as there had been forest fires before we left home.
Leaving the Lake Superior shoreline and traveling into the state toward Ely left me questioning whether we really wanted all that much privacy. We briefly stopped in Ely to do some grocery restocking. Our experience with “camp” foods was quite limited, and we were like little kids come to the big city going up and down the aisles examining the foods especially packaged for those doing wilderness-type camping. The northern part of Minnesota and the corresponding southern area of Canada has been designated as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. There are many outfitters in Ely and other stores also cater to those embarking on a trip into the BWCA. The emphasis on wilderness food is due to the fact that everything you pack into the BWCA must be packed out.
The narrow forest service road was scary in that we were a meek little Volkswagen competing with big log trucks. We did see a deer bounding along, which delighted us. Our original choice of campgrounds was closed, so we tried another and camped at Fall Lake in an attractive campsite overlooking the lake and near the bathroom—flush toilets are a welcome change—and water. But somehow our stay just didn’t click. We shouldn’t have had the “bridal suite” the previous nights. We did find a large land turtle, which Al picked up to show the children. Turtles can secrete a skin-irritating, urine-like substance as one of their defense mechanisms, and this one did—all over Al!
We set a new record for breaking camp the next morning. Al had arisen very early and watched the day become grumpier by the minute. He woke the rest of us, and we frantically tore around assembling ourselves. We pulled out of the campground in a record twenty minutes in a driving rain. We’d only gone a couple of miles down the road when we realized we’d forgotten our sign. Back we went.
Most people we’d encountered camping had a sign identifying them by name and frequently by home location. Some were very sophisticated, others as simple as a paper plate. Ours was an outline map of Wisconsin with our home city, Ripon, marked and our names. It was held in place by a spring in the kitchen door for storage and on metal pins for displaying at our site. Signs are a neat way to get acquainted with people. I wish more people used them, and I wish we’d get ours updated as we’ve moved twice and added another child to the family.
We rescued our sign and retraced our way. As we’d left without breakfast, I gave the children cookies to munch until we could get to a town. There’s quite a distance between towns in that area. The hurry? The windy, narrow road in the rain? Too many cookies? Who knows why a child gets carsick?
Up Next: Oh, Canada
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