Today was a travel day.
These start out in a normal way in the morning with breakfast and a hot shower.
Then it is time to get everything ready for travel – this includes packing up the camp chairs, putting away the Starlink Receiver, setting up Auroras pen on the couch for travel, draining the gray and black tanks, disconnecting the power, and bringing in the slide (this is an abbreviated list).
How do we remember what to do?
We have a checklist – that we use each time. One of us will read from the checklist each item out loud – and the other will visually check that the item has been taken care of.
It is easy to think we will remember everything. There are many stories by RVers about the times they “forgot” something and had costly repair bills to fix a broken jack or other item.
If you don’t remember everything and the refrigerator door opens going around a curve – it is going to be a mess. If you don’t lock down the sliding door going into the bathroom – it will slam into the opposite wall. Let’s just say these are not hypothetical.
You get the picture.
Today was a three state day – we stared in Duluth, Minnesota, drove through northern Wisconsin, and finished up in Copper Harbor, Michigan. If you are not familiar with Copper Harbor – it is at the very tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula which juts out into Lake Superior.
This trip was a little bit like going home.
We lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for 6 winters – and have camped in this area before. Noel and I both were on the faculty at Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech for short) from 1995 – 2001. Granted – that was a few years ago so things have changed a bit.
One of our first camping trips with Tim and Andrew was to Copper Harbor. It was my bright idea to let Andrew sleep in a cot instead of portable crib. He moved from cot to cot all night. None of us got any sleep at all – and sunrise was really early. I think we got up, ate breakfast and were back home in Hancock, Michigan by 9:00 a.m.
It is amazing what you remember 25+ years later!
This area of the nation was once dominated by mining – in Minnesota and Wisconsin – it was Iron Mining. The rest stop in Wisconsin had a historical marker which discussed the mining which occurred in this area.
In the U.P. – Copper was king and this area produced an amazing amount of copper for the nation in the early 1900’s. All of the money that was made in the area was by Mining Barons living in the East – and when the mines were no longer making any money – they just walked away leaving abandoned mining equipment to rust away. These ruins are now part of Keweenaw National Historical Park.
We also stopped on the way at Twin Lakes State Park in Michigan for a quick walk with Aurora. My “out-of-state” Michigan Parks pass worked great – and we enjoyed walking around the picnic area and seeing the small lake.
We are relaxing in Copper Harbor for the 4th of July – more on that tomorrow!
Kirk’s Travelogue 