Day in the Life of an Idiot

 I didn't write much while we were at Bearskin for reasons of poor internet.  The Lodge at Bearskin _has_ wifi, but they encourage you to only be on briefly as it does not have a huge amount of bandwidth and, even if it did, you're up on the Gunflint Trail, for gods sake, why are you on-line!!??

Instead, we spent many days doing this: 



We did go on a couple of new-to-us hikes, while up at Bearskin, however. One day, Mason and I decided to drive to the end of one of the roads and hike up to Ruby Lake.  From where we parked it was only about a mile to the lake, so that was just about the perfect distance for our "indoorsy" family. There was a rowboat there with a sign that suggested we could take it out for a fee, but there was no place to pay and no oars. Possibly, we were supposed to get such at some lodge or other? Our Bearskin front desk person had made it sound like if we brought money along, getting the row boat out would be self-evident.  Alas, no. But, we enjoyed the scenery at any rate.



You can see what kind of weather we've been having from both these shots, which is to say: SUNNY.  This was possibly the most ideal weather we have ever had up at Bearskin (this is our fourth year going to Cabin 1.)  

The second hike that we did involved a LOOOOOOONG drive to the end of the Gunflint Trail.  The drive itself was both beautiful and... unexpected. We were up early-ish, around 8 or 9 am, and the roads were packed with tourists.  I like to meander on the Gunflint Trail, not going more than 50 and always obeying signs that suggest that hairpin turns should be taken at 25 mph, etc., so that meant that several times I had to pull over into a cutout to let faster traffic get around me.  

Plus, we drove through a huge swath of countryside that had been devastated by the 2007 Ham Lake Fire. Shawn always has a very visceral reaction to burned landscape, even when it has had years of regrowth. She did not like the sections of Yellowstone that had been burned, either. I don't have the same reaction, but I can understand it. The forrest looks 'wrong.' 

We stopped at the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center and did a bit of hiking on their "trails." I put trails in quotes because honestly? Some of them looked like we had taken off down deer trails until we hit signage that marked the names of the various trails.  A couple of the trails took us to nice vista where you can see how the fire affected the area.



Mason is in his hoodie because the weather was also very mild. Today, here in Grand Rapids, I overheard one of the servers at our hotel say that the high was going to be 67 F / 19 C.

After six full days at Bearskin, we packed up and headed off for the second leg of our grand summer vacation: the slow meander home/north woods road trip.  

Last year, after our monumental road trip to Yellowstone National Park and back again, my family discovered that we LOVE road trips. Plus, leaving Bearskin is really hard, so for the last few years we've always extended our vacation with mini trips to somewhere vaguely civilized, but new to us.  A few years ago, we tried out Thunder Bay (which led to the experience of being several hundred miles into the trip and Shawn realizing we forgot our passports.)  The last time we stayed a few extra days in Duluth.  This time, we are exploring some classic Minnesota spots like Ely and Bemidji, with a special trip to visit the headwaters of the Mississippi.  Because Shawn is from Grand Rapids, MN, we are staying here a few days to check out some of her old haunts and to use this hotel as a launching off point for other adventures.

Yesterday we drove from Bearskin back down the Gunflint trail to Grand Marais and Highway 61.  From 61, we veered back north for Highway 1 and Ely.  Highway 1 should have been idyllic, but there was a LOT of construction and somewhere just before Ely we hit our first batch of bad weather since leaving for Bearskin.  Plus, there always seems to have to be "that one town" where we all arrive hangry and grouchy. This trip it was Ely. I was made especially mad by the fact that my family was starving and so wanted to JUST STOP AT A SUBWAY.  I wanted a nice sit-down meal at a cute place in Ely.  My family won out, because even I was too famished to really enjoy driving around trying to guess which place would be good to stop at.  And, of course, literally the moment we stepped into the Subway an ENTIRE TROOP OF BOY SCOUTS got in line in front of me. I kid you not, and I could have screamed.  But, food helped and soon enough we were stopping at Ely's International Wolf Center for a close-up at the Ambassador wolves.
 
The wolves were nice and, for once, Shawn enjoyed a museum.  Shawn isn't exactly a museum connoisseur, but she is the State Archivist of Minnesota and, thus, has a few standards. Let me tell you, the museum at Chik-Wauk did NOT meet them.  The wolf center? Yes. Though we all agreed that the entry fee ($13 a person) was a little steep considering what you got out of it. Though we did not stay for any of the demonstrations, which might have made it worthwhile.

The wolves were hanging out near the observation window, though, to snooze out of the rain. The white wolf, Greyson, got up and shifted to a new position and I got this picture of a very sleepy doggo.



It was funny because as Mason and I were returning the canoe to Bearskin Lodge, someone's husky came bounding around the corner at speeds and my honest first reaction was to grab Mason's arm because I thought we were being rushed by a wolf. Though it only took a second to sense the happy-puppy vibe off the husky AND to notice that it wore a harness.  But, yeah, for a brief moment I thought, "HOLY SH*T, WOLF" and, yeah, looking at this fellow, you can see the resemblance.

The rain stopped by the time we were leaving the wolf center and so we made our way down to Grand Rapids with only a few roadside attraction stops. This is the other thing about my family. We are all about the roadside attractions. Last year, our go-to phrase was "might be worth a detour!" and we still live by that. (That, and "the destination *is* the journey.") So, we stopped to see the world's largest floating loon in Virginia, MN as well as the "Iron Man" (but not Tony Stark) statue in Chisholm, MN.





After that we collapsed in our hotel room. 

This morning we got up moderately early and attempted to drive the "Edge of the Wilderness" Scenic Byway (aka Highway 38). But, we discovered less than halfway up the byway that it was CLOSED. It's very rare that the entire highway is closed, but this was both lanes blocked, giant signs reading DETOUR, ROAD CLOSED.  Undeterred, my family followed the detour through Leech Lake Indian Reservation and reconnected with the scenic byway in Marcell, MN.

Our favorite was a stop to hike the Trout Lake and Joyce Estate site. There were nicely maintained (wide and "easy," aka no steep grades) trails that took us into the woods. If we had known we were going to hit the closed highway, we might have lingered longer here and explored more. On the other hand, my family is rarely up for hikes of more than a mile or two roundtrip, so we probably did just enough.  



We did eventually get reconnected with Highway 35 and we went to the trail's end at Effie, MN.  Effie apparently sports Minnesota's largest open air rodeo and a metal sculpture of a mosquito, jokingly known as Minnesota's state bird.  Mason really wanted to pose by the mosquito giving it the finger (mosquitos consider our son an all-you-can-eat buffet and always have, when he was little we some times called him 'Skeet Rounds, because he was covered from head to toe in mosquito bites), but Shawn managed to keep him from doing it.



We are still on the road for two more full days. Tomorrow, we head to Bemidji where we'll spend a night. Then, it's off to the headwaters and home.  If the wifi is good in Bemidji, I will try to do another write-up.

Adventure!

 Originally, we'd planned to spend three days here in South Dakota, using Rapid City as our "home base." We decided today to cut it short. Our family is just plain tired of the road.  There's a ton to see here, but today proved that we're pretty close to saturated with "scenery."  Tomorrow will be our last full day here, then we will do the huge drive home.

This morning we let ourselves sleep in. With the time zone difference (we're in Mountain Time)  that really only meant until about 7:30 or so. Then, after fueling up on the hotel breakfast, we headed down 79 for Hot Springs and the Mammoth Site.  79 is not the most scenic, but Shawn snapped a picture.  You can't tell from this picture, but it really looked like it was going to rain on us.  A huge dark cloud loomed in the west.  



However, when we got to the Mammoth Site, we had a great time.  The site itself is interesting because it's a working paleontology dig.  When we were there, in fact, we saw people excavating.  At first, we thought it was going to be a bust because we had to buy a ticket for a tour that didn't start right away and they told us to "enjoy the gift shop." By the time the tour started, Mason was muttering about capitalism.  But, we had an amazing tour guide. He could not have been more than 12? Maybe 13?  He looked younger than Mason, but he did a phenomenal job. He was incredibly knowledgable.  

Plus, we got to see mammoth bones!



I learned that there are actually mammoths other than woolly mammoths.  Apparently, the majority of those found at this site are of a kind known as Columbian mammoths.  Also, we aren't supposed to call these fossils because they have not turned to stone.  They're actually just dried bone.

There were also a ton of other animals that were discovered in this sinkhole, including another extinct mega-fauna, the short-faced bear.



I have to admit that since Mason was very much focused on the Cambrian Period, I never learned that much about the age of mammals. I didn't know that llama used to roam here, as well as some kind of now extinct camel, something called a camelop. That's pretty cool stuff. 

We left the museum pretty enthused for the rest of our day.  I have to say, too, though we didn't get any pictures of it, Hot Springs seemed like a  neat town. I sort of regret not exploring it a bit more. There was a Pioneer Museum that we could have checked out, and a very cute downtown made mostly out of red sandstone.

Instead we drove up 385 toward Wind Cave National Park.  We didn't have any intention of actually going into Wind Cave.  What I wanted from the park was prairie dogs!  I love prairie dogs.  If I had a fursona, I think it would be a prairie dog. I mean, look at them. They fat, sort of cute, a bit territorial, social, and enthusiastic.



I literally could have spent the rest of the day watching the prairie dogs popping around, zipping from hole to hole, and chirping at things that annoy them.

SO ADORABLE.

As we were cruising through the park at low-speed and my family was getting really tired of me happily chirping, "Oh! More prairie dogs! Let's stop!!" we spotted a group of pronghorns on the side of the road.  Perhaps you already know this, but I was able to wow my family by telling the that the "antelope" of the song, "Home on the Range" with the line "where the deer and the antelope play" is actually referring to the pronghorn.



I really did not expect to see pronghorns in the wild on this trip.  Just as I did not expect bears.  We also saw what we figure was a marmot sitting on a fence post in Wyoming. 

From this park, we'd hoped to cross over into Pringle and head up towards Custer, but... we were caught in a time loop and could not escape the buffalo.  Seriously, we must have circled the interpretive center three times trying to find our way out.  However, we did see this lovely buffalo a lot:



Thanks to the compass that is built into our car and a very helpful park ranger in the interpretative center we managed to escape the gravity well of Wind Cave.

Custer, of course, is a tourist trap of a town.  We got out there, though, because we were all getting really kind of hangry and I needed to pee. Shawn was really, really, REALLY done with crowds, though, so finding a place to eat that wasn't wall-to-wall tourists was hard.  We managed to find a sit-down place that had decent food and we were all in a much better mood after chatting with our server, Joseph, who was from Tennessee originally and sort of found himself stuck in Custer, having been brought here as an army brat.

Besides getting food into our stomachs, the smartest thing we did was peel off 385 and head down Sheridan Lake Road toward Rapid City. Hardly anyone was on that road and it was GORGEOUS.



Having seen pronghorn, however, we started to really hope for elk.  At one point, our entire family spontaneously attempted an elk call, which was sort of a terrifying bellowing groan in our estimation.  :-)

As we were driving along here, we spotted a pullout and decided that what this burnt out family really needed was an hour in the woods just sitting and reading and exploring.  There was a small pat that led us to a stream that had a ton of small fish and crawdads.  




I managed to drop my phone in the water.  Ironically, I'd been very careful and taken it out of my pocket and set it in my shoes, but when I sat down to put my shoes back on... bam! It tumbled into the water.

Classic.

However, I managed to turn it off right away and it's apart, drying right now. I have faith it will recover. Otherwise, Tracfones are cheap. This is why no one buys me a smartphone. :-)

Tomorrow, we're going to hop up early to see Mount Rushmore before the crowds and then do the wildlife circle in Custer State Park.  Then, finally, we shall head for the home fires!

 ....I finished Closed and Common Orbit last night!  

Yesterday was a busy day.  I got up early and took our car to Dave's to make sure it is road worthy for our big trip West (starts tomorrow!)  I always feel so "urban" whenever i take the bus/train combo to get there and back again.  The car was done around 10 am, and by the time I got up Mason was sniffing around for lunch ideas. One of the other trip tasks was vacuuming the car, so I talked him into helping me with a promise of Subway.  While we were sitting at Subway, Mason looked up from the manga we were reading (we're both reading Haikyu!!) and said, "Do you want to go on an adventure?"

Adventure in our family can mean anything from a hike in the woods to a road trip to Crystal Cave.  We opted to head over to Minnehaha Falls and take a walk along the paths by the creek.  The falls were AMAZiNG. Of course, because this was spontaneous, I didn't have my camera. (For those of you who don't know me well, no, this does not mean I left my phone at home. It means I don't have a smart phone. My flip phone technically has a camera, but yeah, no.)  The falls were super huge thanks to all the rain we've been getting. The creek had even washed away a lot of the usual paths. Everything was walkable yesterday, but we could clearly see water lines where the water had crested the trail in places. The whole creek was very fast, too. It's very rocky and rushes like a rapids.  We stopped in that first little wide spot where a lot of people go swimming and Mason and I watched one kid on an inner tube have the time of his life letting the current whip him downstream. He'd hop out, splash back up, and do it again.  I took off my socks and shoes to dangle my toes. The water is still very cold. It felt good on an 80 F / 26.7 C day.  

We hiked all the way to the river, reliving a lot of memories of the bog walk, the cliff section, etc., along the way. Near the river we found a good spot to sit and Mason read while I watched the mighty Mississippi flow.  We were visited by at least one Great Blue Heron, who flew overhead, and several coots (which I first thought were loons, but they had no spots).  I waded in the water and watched the super-tiny baby fish as they inspected my toes.  There were a lot of them, but they were needle-small, and none of them were brave enough yet to take a little taste of me, like the bigger ones will do.   

I always think it's fun to take the flatter route back, but it never is, though a chipmunk dashed across our path at one point.  Then, we stopped at Se Salt for ice-cream in the park and OMG I wanted fish fry (all the plates passing us looked SO, SO tasty.)  Mason got "salted caramel," which I had a couple of bites of.

A nice day.  As Mason said with a big grin on his face on the drive home, "THIS is summer vacation."

Indeed it is. 

I'm sorry I'm not up on my blogging, but Mason is home and I've had a lot of little things what need doing around the house. The only breaking news is that my short story "The VanBulyen Effect" (known to most as "the couch story") is finally going to press over at TOTU (Tales of the Unanticipated,) with a publication date of late October. Whoot! This story is... well, really old. It's a time travel story inspired by Entertainment Weekly's coverage of "Michael Collins." They ran a picture of the real Easter Uprising (1916, Ireland,) and both Shawn and I secretly lusted over a couch that was part of a barricade of rubbish that the British had built. When I confessed to Shawn that I loved the couch, she and I started talking about how we'd use time travel to get cool furniture.

Previously, this story held the distinction of being the most "near misses" of all my shorts. It was the story that ALMOST sold to Amazing (back when Amazing was still publishing), and also almost sold to a bunch of different places... now it has a home at TOTU. Hooray.

Well, speaking of summer, my child is terrorizing the coffee shop and since I don't want to be angrily blogged about by others, I must reign him in and go shopping for cat food.