2017 - Blog #7 - Montana to Michigan's Upper Peninsula

It’s unreal how much has happened in the 5 weeks since we left Glacier National Park.   First of all, we want to say how glad we are to know that all of our friends, family, and properties are all okay after the ravages of Hurricane Irma.   However, after sighing in relief, we know that there are so very many people that are still having to deal with life-altering effects from Irma and our hearts and thoughts continue to go out to them.

We headed east from Glacier across the top of Montana on US 2, which is the furthest north of the east-west highways before crossing into Canada.   The northeastern part of Montana is a drastic contrast to the lush green landscape, scattered huge boulders, and beautiful lakes that we drove through to get to Glacier.   The northeast Montana landscape seemed to be painted in a palette of grey, brown, and tan with rare spots of green.  We drove through miles and miles of wheat fields, past huge silos and grain elevators, under smoke-hazed, overcast, pale grey skies.   After a while, it actually became a bit depressing!

US 2 passes through several Indian Reservations and parallels railroad tracks.  Most of the towns and the campgrounds are next to these railroad tracks.  Our first stop along the way was in Havre, Montana (pronounced “have – her”), at the Evergreen Campground.   Thankfully, this campground was a few miles outside of the town and not next to the railroad.   Oddly, it was in fact in the front yard of the owner’s home!  We were able to catch up with laundry, WIFI, and news which we weren’t able to do in the past 2 weeks.  Havre boasts about its “underground city” tour and Jean was sad that we missed it.  Later on, we heard from some fellow campers that we hadn’t missed anything, so she was relieved.  We were all hooked up and ready to pull away toward our next stop when our truck would not start or even turn over... not even a click!   Luckily we had a set of 25 foot jumper cables and were able to start the truck off of the trailer battery.  Havre had a Walmart so it was a quick stop to buy a new battery.  Jerome install it himself as Walmart employees can’t change a battery in the parking lot and we weren’t about to unhook the truck from the trailer for something that Jerome could do in 10 minutes!

model made from the mold of the T.Rex skeleton found at Fort Peck

From Havre, we next camped at Downstream Campground, an Army Corps of Engineers (ACE) campground, in Fort Peck, Montana.   This was a really interesting place to visit.   The Fort Peck Dam was built as part of the New Deal.  It is the highest of six major dams along the Missouri River, the largest hydraulically filled dam in the US, and it created the 5^th largest man-made lake in the US.  On site is a great Interpretive Center with a skeleton cast of “Peck’s Rex”, the Tyrannosaurus Rex discovered 20 miles southeast of Fort Peck.  The original skeleton is now on loan to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History for 50 years.  It is known there as the “Wankle T.rex”, one of the most complete T.rex specimens ever discovered. 

 

As we headed further east, we camped in the Stanley City Campground, where we were the only people camping in their small city park.   The trains whizzed by–sometimes 2 passing in different directions at the same time- just maybe 50 yards away from our campsite.   We had of two of the worst Mexican burritos ever here, but all in all, it was a nice little town. 

  

Eight days and 3 campgrounds after leaving Glacier National Park and the burning wildfires there, we finally were about to get out of the hazy-grey skies and see clear blue again.  Driving into the Turtle River State Park in Arvilla, Montana was like driving into a lush green oasis with a river running next to it.  We stayed here over the Labor Day Weekend and again, as on US 2 so far, we could not get any TV or radio stations.  After 2 days of trouncing through the underbrush to get Carly untangled, we were informed that it was poison ivy!  Lucky for Jean that we were informed incorrectly or that she wasn’t allergic to that strain of poison ivy.  Even without radio stations to listen to and all the “poison ivy”, we really enjoyed it here.

it was so nice to see colorful flowers in Pokegama

and berries too!

Traveling further east, we stayed in Pokegama (pronounce Po – keg- a- ma) Dam Recreation Area, another ACE campground.   It seemed strange to us that we were in a town called Grand Rapids, looking out at the Mississippi River, but we weren’t in Michigan or Mississippi….. we were in Minnesota!   We discovered that the Mississippi River headwaters is here and that people can actually wade across it. This is also Judy Garland’s hometown.   We found out about both of these interesting facts too late to enjoy wading across the river or visit the Judy Garland Museum and her childhood home, but we really enjoyed visiting the Art Center here and the town in general.  The train tracks here at Pokegama were even closer than in Stanley but luckily the trains here only passed through once a day if at all.

the view of the Mississippi River from our front door.... and Carly of course

our first glimpse of fall colors across the river

Finally, finally, on September 8^th, we crossed into the Michigan Upper Peninsula.   Here we stayed in the Eddy Park Campground on Sunday Lake in Wakefield.   That first night, while we were listening to the wind and feeling it gently rock our trailer, we could only imagine what was happening at the very same time at home with Hurricane Irma making landfall.  To our surprise, Helena and Carl, who were in East Glacier when we were, then camped next to us in Havre, and in Fort Peck, were now camping here too.  It’s so much fun to meet up again with people we have met in other campgrounds.  If you ever pass through Wakefield, the pasties at Russell’s Bakery are delicious.

J

Speaking of meeting up with others, while in Munising, we were so very fortunate to be able to meet up with our dear, long-time friends from Traverse City, Dick and Gaila Mallory.  They were on their way west on US 2 heading the way that we had just come from.   We hadn’t planned on the campgrounds in the upper peninsula being full on a Monday, especially after Labor Day, and we ended up having to search a bit to find a campground here.   We were relieved to find Otter Lake Campground, about 9 miles south of town.  It’s pretty, wooded, on a nice lake, and was a great place to sit around a campfire catching up with Gaila and Dick.   As it turned out, Gaila and Dick’s friends, Diane and Dean (also from Traverse City) were on their way home from Glacier and joined us as well. What a fun evening we all had! 

Dean & Diane, Gaila & Dick, and us

The next day, they all headed out and we stayed another day so that we could go into Munising and take the Pictured Rocks boat tour.   The fall colors were already popping and we had a wonderful time. 

Jerome, the consummate photographer, at Wagner Falls

kayakers enjoying the beautiful day.... too bad it wasn't us kayaking too

incredible "natural" artwork made by minerals leaching out of the rocks

arch rock

colorful black and white cave

pedestal rock with lone tree attached to nearby cliff by it's roots (notice on left)

Grand Island East Channel lighthouse across the bay from Munising

  ‘Now on to lower Michigan and Traverse City….                 Jerome & Jean