Month: September 2020

Black River Harbor to Wausau

Went to bed last night as soon as it got dark. Soon asleep, woke at 6.30am, but it was still dark. Sat in the annex chair and read my book then climbed upstairs at 8.00am and continued reading.  No point in making breakfast and starting the coffee until the wind died down and the sun started to warm things up.

Bang! Around 8.45 a large 10 ft. branch 2 inch across hit the car. Good news; firewood. Bad news; small dent. Later we went for a walk around the campground and looked north across Lake Superior. It’s more like the sea than a lake, especially when the wind is up. Gathered more firewood.

We set a fire in the early afternoon and dozed.  It rained later and after a couple of hours we discovered water in the bottom of the annex and that our clothes bags were starting to get wet.  This was the straw that broke the camel’s back and so we made the sudden decision to leave and find a hotel.  We aren’t really geared up for unseasonable weather!

On the way out we stopped for a short walk and a look at the Potawatomi Falls and were astonished by the volume of water pouring over the rocks.

Once we got within cell phone range we booked a Country Inn & Suites hotel in Schofield near Wausau.  After a quick fast food meal, we headed south on 51 and 47 and got to the hotel at 9.30pm.  Listened to Terry Jones on Desert Island Discs and Paul Simon’s Still Crazy.  Nice big room; suite with fridge and microwave.  After sorting out our wet clothes, took a bath and went to bed.  Bliss.

Bank on Saturday…

Alpena to Black River Harbor

Early start, got up at 6.00am and after breakfast had the car loaded quickly for an 8.10am departure.  Drove north on 23 and crossed the (very long) Mackinac bridge.  As soon as we got into the upper peninsula (‘UP’), spotted a pasty shop by the side of the road.  Bought three beef and onion pasties (the only variety available) and shared one for second breakfast.

The road was great – it was beautiful along the shores of Lake Michigan with the sun shining. 70-degree weather. Then the road turned north and inland.

We got a text from Chase saying that a suspicious check had been presented. We confirmed it was not ours, but Chase then asked us to call them.  Turns out Chase closed our account.  On the phone, they told Jeri that all we needed to do is visit a local Chase branch to sort out and bring two forms of photo ID.  Easy.  We were 150 miles and one state away from a branch which was not in the direction of our route and who carries a passport with them on a road trip?  We had lunch in a car park near the marina in Marquette; Jeri waited on the phone to the fraud people while we ate our pasties. We decided to carry on to the Ottawa National forest, but we would need to go to Antigo, WI to visit the nearest Chase branch, which was in the completely wrong direction.  We booked an appointment for Saturday morning at 10.30am and carried on towards Ironwood. A lot of trees.  50 miles east of Ironwood landscape changed from continuous trees to more open space.  We got to the Black River Harbor campsite late in the afternoon.  Our reserved spot, #27, looked fine but was only booked through Friday morning so we chose another site, #12 which we could have until Saturday morning.  With the RTT and annex set up we settled in and I sat in the annex reading my book under the string lights.  Dinner was tortellini with mushrooms and white sauce.  We built a small fire.

A rest day.  Reading, coffee, reading, blog updating, egg frittata, washing up, reading.  At noon, we headed out for a walk, Tim slowed somewhat by the Jakes Rocks bruise.  Walked down to Blair St park to find the lake water sloshing over the beach and the walkway on the pier almost flush with the water.  The beach did not furnish any public access at this point so we returned to State Ave and walked along to Bay View park and continued onto the breakwater. No one else was doing this for the simple reason being that waves were crashing upon the breakwater and soaking the path.  We dodged the splashes, only partially successfully, and walked to the end to see the lighthouses.  An apartment neighbor told us that the lake water is very high right now, the highest it has been in a very long while.

Alpena is a nice town with some stunning older houses, but it is odd that the marina area close to the lake has no bars or restaurants or even a concession stand. The center of town was similarly quite dead, only part of which could I think be explained by the pandemic.

Dinner was spaghetti with shrimp in tomato and basil sauce served with a nice Malbec.