Whew, Isle Royale National Park was beautiful and fun all at once. But now we needed to head to Colorado Springs for our pet-sitting date with Kim and Mochi.

Along the way, we swung by to see what’s left of the Old Globe Grain Elevator in Superior, Wisconsin. Why? Todd. He read it used to be one of the largest fully wooden grain elevators ever built and after 130 years and several fires, it finally succumbed to one. Hopefully, what’s left will continue to be recycled into flooring and all other things wood.

Speaking of wood, also along the road, Todd found a wooden boat he declared to be a viable “fixer upper.” 🙂

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Just around the corner from this historic area, we stopped for the night at The Inn on Lake Superior, tag lined, “If you were any closer to the lake, you’d be in it.” From our third-floor balcony, we watched the downtown carriages return to the barn before a storm came in across the lake. In the morning, we had a great view of cruisers getting underway at sunrise.

Duluth/Superior is the westernmost point of the biggest Great Lake that was the central point of moving zillions of tons of stuff (highly technical stat there) from the MidWest to the rest of the country and the world! And we could only stay one night, bummer.

In the morning, we visited the interesting Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum for a quick look around before making the 500-mile drive from Duluth to Minot, North Dakota. Say what? But, on the way…

We did have a planned stop at Itasca State Park in Minnesota to see the actual headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River! On the way, Susie kept trying to get a good shot of one of the Great River Road signs through the bug-splattered windshield. In one instance, she checked the tiny screen afterwards to see she’d captured… teeth?

Time for a U-turn

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Established in 1891, Itasca State Park is Minnesota’s oldest state park and, more importantly to us, features the headwaters of the Mississippi River. You know we had to check that out.

We, however, side tripped to Itasca not for the scenic drive through the park but to wet our feet in the actual start of the Mississippi! Here 1475 feet above the ocean, the mighty Mississippi begins to flow north on its winding way to the Gulf of Mexico. Wait. North? Yes, north; not a misprint. The small (at this point) river first flows north from Lake Itasca, makes a bend to the east, and then begins flowing south, essentially making a U-turn, gaining size all the way along its 2552 miles to the Gulf.

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After splashing in the Mississippi, it was back on the road, rolling, rolling, rolling through the rest of northern Minnesota on to North Dakota for a quick stop for the night on the edge of ND in Grand Forks.

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But why Minot (pronounced mynot)?

Apparently, there’s a joke among Air Force members about Minot, which isn’t generally high on the list of dream assignments. The joke goes, “Why not Minot?” “Freezin’s the reason.”

Established in 1988, the park celebrates and preserves Nordic architecture and represents the five Scandinavian and Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland. The first three are important to Todd’s heritage.

Along with the gorgeous Gol Stave Church, our other favorite areas proved to be larger than life.

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After our afternoon in the park, it was time to find the hotel we’d booked for the night, an hour due south in Garrison, which turned out to be a bust when they played a bit of shuck and jive with the rate during check-in, doubling it from what we’d reserved months before. We firmly but politely declined… with no Plan B. Lesson learned – if you walk away, you have to be very flexible when searching for alternative lodging in the middle of farm country!

We ended up 35 miles south in Washburn, where we found a small but clean mom and pop motel just a block off the main road. No free breakfast like the chain hotels, but there was a fairly priced diner conveniently located across the parking lot. Score for the weary travelers!

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Now for our flashback to the present and taking care of the precious Mochi, here you go, Kim. Mochi says hello.

A few days ago, we hinted at a flashback tale. We couldn’t possibly go any other way. Since learning about Hodags on our return to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to catch a seaplane, we’ve traveled nearly 2,000 miles, through eight states, in seven days. Needless to say, there’s a great deal to catch up on, a-n-n-d we won’t be able to do so in one post, so bear with us. Here goes.

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Now let’s get to that seaplane adventure, shall we? Seemingly ages ago, on the morning of August 28, we boarded a seaplane with four other passengers for a 45-minute flight from Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula to Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior.

Our cabin wouldn’t be ready until mid-afternoon, so after leaving the small overnight tote bags with the lodge staff and consulting with the park rangers, we made our selection of doable trails and struck out to find…

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After joyfully taking selfies among the mosquitoes at what we thought was the cave entrance, we continued on, following the trail around the rocks, only to discover we’d celebrated the backdoor exit. Ha!

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The longer hike after the cave was more challenging, with changes in terrain, a bit of rock scrambling, and gorgeous views of Lake Superior.

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After a well-earned bite of lunch, we enjoyed the view of the harbor while waiting for check-in. Once informed the cabin was ready, we happily walked the 0.6 miles UPHILL to the cabin and opened the door to find…someone else’s luggage. Uh-oh. Is this the wrong cabin or just the wrong stuff?

Matters not, since there’s no phone service on the island. No choice but to walk the 0.6 miles back to the lodge office to report the situation, which they offered to rectify straightaway. And they did. They jetted off on their golfcart. Ah, thanks? Oh well, we trekked back up the 0.6-mile path to the cabin.

With the luggage bit straightened out, we were finally able to remove our boots and rest before dinner. Good thing, because the restaurant is located 0.6 miles back down the hill. To their credit, with a captive audience of ravenous hikers, dinner was delicious. After which, we trudged the 0.6 miles back UP the hill for the night.

If you’ve been keeping track, that’s 0.6 x5, which added up to an additional THREE miles on top of the five-mile hike. Our watches were tossing virtual confetti at our accomplishing more than 20,000 steps!

“Royal treatment?” Honey, I’ve got blisters on my calluses. Ouch.

Yes, but listen. What do you hear? That’s right. Nothing but the gentle, soul-restoring sounds of nature. Ahhh.

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After a good night’s sleep, we awoke to another beautiful day for the seaplane transport back to the mainland.

And with that, we returned to Hubbell, Mi, changed out of our hiking boots and hit the road. 270 miles to Duluth, Minnesota!

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And because no flashback movie or book worth its salt would miss the opportunity to confuse the audience with the occasional brief return to the present, h-e-e-r-e’s Mochi!

At approximately zero dark thirty on Friday, September 6, we checked Todd into the ER in the small town of Sidney, Nebraska. (How we got to Nebraska we will cover later.)

After many hours of diagnostic testing, it was determined that his system was totally out of whack due to a nasty gallbladder that needed to be removed ASAP. Determining the problem was the good news. The bad news was there’s no surgeon in Sidney, Nebraska, so they needed to transport him two and a half hours west to Fort Collins, Colorado.

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Susie packed up the rental, topped off Pearl with gas, and followed her man into the sunset.

It wasn’t long until…

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Todd was checked into the Surgical Unit at UC Health Poudre (pronounced “pooter” – Todd giggled every time they said it [could have been the drugs]) Valley Hospital in Fort Collins and dosed up with even more medications and antibiotics to prep for surgery in the a.m.

And for the best news? Surgery went well; the nastiness is gone; and Todd feels “a thousand times better.” (No, you don’t need photos for this part, although we do have some, thanks to the surgeon. Eeeuuuu.)

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After an additional night in the hospital for observation, Todd was discharged and we headed to Colorado Springs, where we will be house/pet sitting for a few weeks for Kim, the cousin of our dear friend and fellow-cruiser, Lynn.

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The surgical speedbump in our path delayed our arrival to the point that we missed meeting Kim before she headed to the airport Sunday. As a Plan B, she left Mochi with a kind-hearted friend, who delivered her to us after we could make it to the house.

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Now that we’re staying in one place for a few weeks, the patient can finish healing, Mochi can get used to us, and our photographer can get through the backlog of 300+ photos to prepare our catch-up posts. Consider this like a Flashback style show. Wonder how they ended up here…

That’s life. Gotta watch out for the curveballs, especially when Todd is pitching! Enough is enough! 🙂

Realizing what dairy country was doing to our waistlines, we had to get moving. Literally. There’s just too much yumminess amongst all those cows.

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Our destination for the first few nights was the Milkhouse Cottage and Gardens near Maiden Rock, where we were joined by a dragon keeping a watchful eye on the patio.

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Next up, the historic Dam Keepers Cottage on Elk Creek Lake in Eau Claire, where we were lulled to sleep by the sound of the water rushing over the dam…umm, and thankfully NOT joined by a ghost. (Didn’t learn until we got there that the cottage was featured in Haunted Wisconsin.)

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Heading from Eau Claire to northeastern Wisconsin, the terrain slowly went from longish hills and lots of beautiful farmland to trees and lakes.

Our “guide” of course found a fun place to check out on the way and in fact about smack dab in the middle of all of Wisconsin. Marshfield, home to the world’s largest Round Barn! Nah. Ain’t lying – it’s there, but there was actually a state fair going crazy there. So, we grooved over to Jurustic Park, buried down a nothing road and well, it’s hard to explain. Just an amazing myriad of incredible thoughtful creative stunning goofiness!

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After chuckling our way through Jurustic Park, we checked into a rental on Loon Lake in Pearson, where Pearl spent a week parked right there by the cabin.

The car may have been parked; we, however, in an endeavor to shed some of those dairy-product pounds, walked several miles daily on the wooded roads surrounding the lake – Susie doused in deet and both of us flailing away at gnats. Didn’t realize your arms could get sore taking a walk!

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It is difficult to briefly introduce the Hodag. Tales of these prehistoric, black or green, fur-bearing, lizard-like creatures that inhabit pine forests, primarily in the Rhinelander area, began with Native American people across the Great Lakes region. The Hodag was then “discovered” by Gene Shepard in 1893 – a long story that began as a practical joke. Now, for more than 130 years, Rhinelander has totally embraced the legend of the Hodag.

When we say the Hodag is everywhere in Rhinelander, we mean everywhere, from high school mascot to:

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Tonight, we are back in Michigan on a peninsula on Lake Superior. In the morning, we’ll briefly be going off-grid, i.e. no Wi-Fi or cell service until Thursday afternoon.

For now, gotta scoot. Need to pack the appropriate survival gear for our visit to Isle Royale National Park and set the alarm for O dark thirty to catch a plane. A seaplane!

Oh, should you not hear from us later in the week, please check the Locate Us link to see if we made it back to the mainland or if someone should send out the troops lest we need to be rescued from stowaway creatures…

After looking around upon arrival, however, we declared it all good and settled in to watch the world go by.

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While watching the world, we also frequently trotted to the front door to watch the buggies clip-clop by.

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And as always, we did a bit of exploring.

The Norskedalen Nature & Heritage Center – Coon Valley, Wisconsin

Here’s a test:

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The Discovery Cranberries Museum – Warrens, Wisconsin

Susie tried harvesting “in the bog” but in the end decided it was the waders that were fun.

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One of the most interesting things for Todd was learning about farming.

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With farms, there are of course animals.

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Finally, after a month of watching corn grow, literally…

…it was time to leave our peaceful spot in Cashton.

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