Minnesota Lake Country

Roger here....  No I am not getting ready for a fencing match, and the red object in my right hand is not an epee'.  More about that later.


First a disclaimer -- It is obvious that we visited the lake district of Minnesota in the worst weather on the wrong year.  Under different circumstances I think it would be beautiful.  But quite honestly, we did not see much of it.  


Our first clue of a few less-than-idyllic days came from our route along Minnesota 34.  The first part of the route was smooth.  Then the road construction sign indicating sixteen miles of renovation.  Then this...

Sixteen miles of washboard dirt roads!  Fortunately, the dirt portion was only about five miles.  Unfortunately, the other eleven miles were as bad as the dirt.  Poor Chaplin -- lots of nervous panting.  


We arrived at the Corps of Engineers Campground at Leech Lake and initially enjoyed the green  --very green -- but damp scenery from our campsite. 


View from the front... 

View from the left side...

          View from the back side....

                              View from the right side....

Very green (my favorite color), very peaceful, very wet, very nice --- except that all we were able to do for four nights and three full days was to look out our windows!  (Notice the top of the screen house in the last picture?  What does a screen house do? Protect you from MOSQUITOS!).

Back to the opening photo.  I am not going to a fencing match.  I am getting ready to walk the dogs.

Dianne and I agree that we have never encountered so many mosquitos.  I counted 28 of the buggers trying to get blood from Bandido when he stopped to take a pee.  We abandoned a trip to Itasca State Park to walk across the source of the Mississippi River.  We did not contact friends that we knew in the area.  We did hover inside the motor home like specimens in a zoo while the mosquitos stared at us from outside.  Remember the movie, The Day of the Conder?  I WAS STIR CRAZY before we escaped from Four Days of the Mosquitos.  

We met one of the campground hosts at the dump station.  He said that he had been here for eleven years and had never seen the mosquitos so bad.  We were just in the right place, at the wrong time.  

Fortunately, things have gotten much, much better. Right now we are enjoying a sparkling night-time  view of the Duluth (DaLoot - local dialect) lights from our front windshield.  We can see the iconic lift-bridge from our campsite at the Lakehead Boat Basin.  Our new Retama (Texas) friends, Jim and Sue, just took us to dinner at Fitzgers, a local brew pub (very impressive, by the way).

The pet picture of the day shows Bandido on the Lake Superior beach, his first trip to a beach, (He loved it, so did Chaplin), just a couple of blocks from our campsite here at the Duluth harbor.