Day 22 - Duluth MN to Ashland WI

Greetings friends and fans,  What fun we are having.  Had a good start this morning from Duluth.  The guys left our B&B, I finished packing the car and met them about a half hour away.  Loaded bikes on the car and drove across a very cool bridge - crossing over Lake Superior into Wisconsin.  Rolling hills, country roads were the fare for today.  A cooler lunch at 10:45 in a great little wayside park, which included some Wisconsin Swiss cheese in the sandwiches - then off to our motel along the lake.
What a surprise it was - standing in the lake and finding out that the water is really pretty warm.  Well, when the air temperature is around 95, the wind is blowing 25 mph, and the water is 18 inches deep - the water is warm.

Tomorrow we are off to Michigan. 
Patty in the Lake


Notes from Tom:  It seems not so long ago that we hadn't seen a tree for 10 days, but when we started into Minnesota a couple of days ago, we left behind the flat and treeless plains of Montana and North Dakota.  Even in Western Minnesota there was still a lot of wheat, corn, soy beans, cattle and hay being raised.  Today we entered Wisconsin and finally got into what I really was expecting in the north woods--lots of trees and not much agriculture.  We did see one beautiful layout of a farm house, silos, and baled hay.

The timber here is very different than what we saw in the west--a mix of coniferous and deciduous trees.  We also started seeing logging trucks again--the first time since western Montana--but these trucks are different.  The logs are cut into about 8' sections, and carried crossways in the trucks.

We had a great plan yesterday for how we were going to enter Wisconsin from Minnesota, but the major floods in the Duluth area several weeks ago caused us to change our plan.  There were some bridges washed out, and one was the one we were going to cross.  Instead of using that bridge, we did a 10 mile ride along the shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota, near our B and B.  After that, we made a portage of the bikes to Superior, Wisconsin.  From there we rode some 68 more miles to Ashland.  Our perception of distances and time is a little skewed, because a 78 mile ride seemed like it was half of a rest day.  We rejoined our old friend US Hwy 2, which we left in Wolf Point, Montana.  We'll spend more time on US 2 as we head to the U.P. of Michigan and ultimately to lower Michigan.

We enjoyed watching the sun set over the lake from the Adirondack chairs behind our hotel, and enjoyed chatting with a teacher from Wausau WI who was attending a seminar at the visitors center Jerry mentions below.

Notes from Jerry:  After sending out our blog yesterday we enjoyed a great evening dining out with our B&B hosts Geri and Sheldon at a local restaurant right down the road from their house, dining al fresco on a big deck overlooking Lake Superior.  The pan fried walleye was good, and we enjoyed lots of fun stories about summering in Duluth on the lake from our hosts who hail from Iowa in the winter.

Our destination today was Ashland WI, which is the first town that we came to on our route of US Hwy 2 that is actually on the lake.  We visited an amazing visitor center for the northern lakes done by the US National Parks Service and learned all about the area, its history, the local indians the development of the iron industry and mining, lumber productions etc.  What was amazing was to look out over the lake from the visitor center which was built to resemble a giant lighthouse and compare what is there today with what was there at the turn of the century when the area was busting with action, mainly the iron ore shipping and lumber activities.  There used to be very long piers and quays jutting out from shore every block or so and now there are only a few and the major rail ore loading pier still stands but is coming down soon we have been told.  Lots and lots of old historic buildings, many using the distinctive brownstone that was quarried here and shipped out.