Where’s the Cool?

Odanah, WI - June 29, 2012 Our current location.

We are now further north than our intended destination in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and it’s still not cool.  Although we shouldn’t complain too much as the predicted high for today is 85 degrees. 

Wednesday we left Wabasah, MN and continued up the Mississippi River through Lake City and Redwing.  We explored Lake City and found a bar and grille claiming to have the best hamburgers west of the Mississippi.  I asked the bartender if that meant the best between here and the Pacific Ocean or here and maybe 2 or 3 blocks west of the Mississippi?  The bartender answered with “Why don’t we just say they’re the best burgers in Lake City.”  With such honesty, how could we not order a burger?  It turns out the meat is butchered and prepared in a local meat market and the beers were ice cold and only 75 cents for a 12 ounce draft.  While that was the only place we ate in Lake City, any other burger would have a ways to go to beat this one.

We just drove through Red Wing as we had gotten a late start out of Wabasha and we were trying to get to Turtle Lake, WI which was about 104 miles away.  Turtle Lake City campground had electric hookups which was a necessity since it the temperatures were on the rise again.  We had enjoyed sleeping with the windows open for the last few nights, but that’s over for now with this new heat wave rolling through.

The Turtle Lake City campground has 6 paved rv pads nestled under a canopy of trees and is part of a larger park. There were 3 other rvs there when we arrived.

For a city of only 1065 people, the park is certainly well used.  While we were there we saw staff meetings, cheerleader practice, what appeared to be a children’s exercise class, and lots of folks taking lunch breaks.

Since we had put in an “exhausting” 104 mile day yesterday we decided we needed a down day to relax and get caught up on some chores.  EJ immersed herself in paperwork and I started installing some of Big Guys replacement parts that we had purchased in Forest City at the Winnebago factory.  So Big Guy now has a new passenger side wiper arm assembly, new seals around the entry door and a new receiver for the windshield lower trim piece.  The wiper arm assembly on EJs side decided to self destruct back in Georgia on the way to Blue Ridge and was being held together with zip ties.  The rubber seals around the door had been chewed up by the door being out of adjustment and the rubber trim at the bottom of the windshield was loose and flopping up and down as we went down the road.

There is always something to repair if you own and use an rv. Someone once said it’s like owning a house that’s in a constant earthquake.  Eventually something is going to break or shake loose.

After hanging around camp all day, we needed to get some exercise so EJ suggested we walk over to the St. Croix Casino we had passed on our way into town.  I’m not much for gambling, but EJ always seems to come out ahead. The casino will send out a bus to pick you up, but considering our bout of inactivity we needed the walk.  After about an hour at the casino, EJ finally talked me into putting some money into the slot machines and it didn’t turn out too bad.  We each walked away with a couple of extra bucks in our pockets and the smell of cigarette smoke in our clothes.

On Friday, we took another walk to The New Frontier Restaurant for breakfast.  We got there just in time too, because they stop making pancakes at 11am.  After lunch we wandered next door to a gift/trinket shop that just happened to have a wine tasting that started at noon.  Naturally we had to hang around for that. And believe it or not, one of the featured wines was a Moscato.  For a wine that no one had heard of 2 or 3 years ago, that stuff is everywhere now.  Once we had sampled all of the wines we went next door to indulge ourselves in our first Wisconsin cheese experience.

Are you beginning to see why traveling 100 to 150 miles in one day is not easy?  We finally broke camp to begin todays journey, but after about 30 minutes we stopped at the cheese factory in Comstock, WI for some more varieties of cheese.

Then, about 30 minutes further, it was time to stop at a McDonalds for coffee to fight off the afternoon drowsiness.  In town we saw this creative use of a small propane tank.

Next there was another stop to see the “World’s largest collection of wood carvings by one man”.  It was not what we expected, but we were impressed as the carver, Joseph Barta, had devoted much of his career to creating the story of Jesus in life size renderings. The Last Supper was amazing.

That was finally our last diversion and we now had our sights on finding a night camp. Using MS Streets and Trips and our Days End guide we decided to zero in on a free camp spot at the Bad River Lodge and Casino.  The important thing was it had electric hookups because it’s still hot.

Upon arrival, we saw that the electric and water connections had locks on them. Turns out back in April they started charging to hook-up. Now we had to register and pay to stay here.  So they had us, at least for one night.

Our route to date…