Part 7 – Belgrade, Minnesota to Thessalon, Ontario

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario

Dates: Tuesday, July 10 to Saturday, July 14

Miles driven: 975 (4500 total to date)

Summary: We left Dale and Gladys’s on Tuesday and truly had no plan on where we were heading next other than generally east. We discussed different options as we drove east towards Minneapolis, and ultimately we decided to head up to the northern most part of Wisconsin and go to Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on Lake Superior. We didn’t leave the farm until about noon, so we only made it to Menomonie, Wisconsin that night. The next morning I got the oil in the truck changed and we headed north to Ashland, which is on the shore of Lake Superior. We spent Wednesday and Thursday night in Ashland, camped in a nice city campground right on the water. On the way to Ashland on Wednesday we went through several hard thunderstorms, with strong winds, thunder and lightening, and hard downpours. Fortunately when we got to Ashland it had cleared up and we had a nice campfire and roasted marshmallows. On Thursday we drove north to Bayfield, went through the visitor center, and took a 2 hour cruise through the Apostle Islands. We had nice weather for the cruise.

On Friday we resumed our trek east again. We made it ~2/3 the way across the upper peninsula of Michigan (the UP), and spent the night in Munising on the shores of Lake Superior. It started raining right after we arrived and rained most of the night. On Saturday we packed up again and headed east to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. We visited the locks, learned some of the history of the locks between Lakes Superior and Huron, and saw several large ships go through. We then said goodbye to the US for the next couple of weeks and crossed the bridge into Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It was getting late so we only drove another hour or so after we got into Canada. We spent Saturday night at a campground on the shores of Lake Huron just outside the town of Thessalon, Ontario.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part7BelgradeToThessalon

Other notes: We had the first self created problem of note with the trailer on this segment. While leaving the campground at Menomonie I hit a water pipe with the trailer. The site that we were in was a pull trough site and had a large tree on the right hand side as you exited the site and an embankment immediately past the road in front of the site. To insure I cleared the tree on the right I initially went slightly to the left to get around the tree and then turned as sharp as I could to the right since the embankment prevented me from going too far forward. As I turned the corner I heard a small thump, but knew I had cleared the tree fine as I could see down the right side of the trailer. Then in my rear view mirror I saw a small geyser of water behind the trailer. The left rear stabilizer jack on the trailer had hit the water faucet. Bummer. I went down to the campground office so they could get the water turned off and then returned to survey the damages. The pipe sticking out of the ground was 1” galvanized steel, and I had bent it over at a 45 degree angle, plus sheered off the faucet. On the trailer I sheered off one of the two bolts securing the stabilizer jack and bent the brackets that connect the jack to the trailer frame. The campground owner told me I owed them $20.07 for damages (including tax). Not sure how they came up with this value, but I gladly paid it as I was expecting something significantly more. At a minimum they would have to dig up the pipe, replace the riser and the faucet. That assumed that just the riser was bent and that it didn’t cause any damage to the tee or main water pipe underground. I removed the stabilizer jack from the trailer and headed off down the road before they changed their mind. I stopped at the next RV dealership that I could find to see if I could get replacement brackets for the jack. They weren’t terribly helpful but ultimately said they could not find and replacement brackets in their part catalogs, much less havining something in stock. I surveyed the damaged parts again and concluded that I could probably fix it myself, at least good enough for now. I stopped at the local hardware store in Stanley and bought some new bolts and nuts as well as an assortment of washers to use as shims to compensate for the bent brackets. After we arrived at the campground in Ashland I was able to partially straighten the brackets and then get everything put back together with the parts that I bought. The jack is a couple of degrees off square, but works fine. Total cost for this mishap - $21.37 + ~ 2 hours (30-40 minutes dealing with the initial problem, 1 hour looking for brackets & parts, plus 15 minutes to get everything put back together. I am getting more use out of the tools that I brought along than I would like!

Next up: Ottawa (Canada’s capital)