Author Archives: Jill and Bud

We’re back in Arkansas at Bull Shoals – White River State Park. The park is along the river just below the dam that forms Bull Shoals Lake.

It was nice when we got here Friday afternoon and after we go things set up, Matey and I sat out and enjoyed the view of the river for a while.

Unfortunately it’s been raining most of the time since then. Matey and I have had to walk during the periods of drizzle, in between the times of rain.

We discovered this spring this morning. It’s right in the campground. Water is coming out from the bank of rocks you see here. The little stream started here, from the spring.

I’m sure there’s lots more to see but we’ve opted to stay where the temperature is 72.5 inside the camper rather than 47.1 outside.

We are not seeing much more than the view of the river past our dripping awning. At least it’s a pretty place to sit.

Here we are at site 16. You might notice that the front of the trailer is a lot closer to the ground than the back, the site has quite a slope. But we were able to get things level. You should also notice that the afternoon sun is shining directly on Bud’s satellite antenna, so he has TV.

That evening Matey and I walked down to the lake, so I got a nice view.

And there were some birds, a snowy egret close to shore and a flock of white pelicans in the distance.

Yesterday morning Matey and I took a walk and it turned out to be quite a beautiful trail, so I got that too.

The trail was surprisingly rugged…

and gave some nice peeks at the lake.

In the afternoon we all took a walk and came across these grazing deer.

They let us get quite close…

before they moved.

Even then they didn’t go far.

A small herd came to eat acorns around the camper,

so Matey had deer TV.

We were all happy.

We’re staying at Wakonda State Park, Missouri. It’s a well constructed and appointed park with level concrete slabs, and water, sewer and 50 amp electric at our site.

The park was made from abandoned stone and gravel pits and has six somewhat geometric lakes from the flooded quarries.

The landscape is flat with none of the exotic features we’ve seen in our travels.

But as Matey and I walked on the trail around Jasper Lake this morning I was continually struck by the beauty everywhere.

From broad vistas…

and brilliant colors,

to tiny flowers,

beauty surrounded us.

Even the weeds…

and grasses glowed in the morning sun.

The more I travel the more grateful I feel. And I feel compelled to share the beauty of this world, even the beauty of poison ivy!

In confirming that this was abandoned gravel pits I found that the name Wakonda comes from Osage and Missouri words meaning something consecrated, referring to the spiritual. They got that right.

I wasn’t expecting much from this campground. It’s an Iowa State Recreation Area and is really just a few rows of campsites next to a boat launch.

It sits between the Mississippi River, which is nice,

and the railroad line,

which is not so nice. It is small and there is nowhere to walk Matey.

But the day dawned clear and sunny, and there is a disc golf course just a few miles away.

That turned out to be very nice.

There were interesting things in the woods, including Osage oranges. I love these bumpy green fruits, but they are not edible.

We also spotted this dragon in the woods.

On closer inspection he was even more impressive, his fiery breath was painted on the splintery end of the broken log that formed him.

And in the end we had a pretty nice day.

We are now camped along the upper Mississippi River where Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota meet. Our friends Jim and Margaret and their dog, Bo, rented a camper van and joined us for three nights. Here they are with VanVan. The experience taught them a lot of things they didn’t want if they decide to get a camper of their own.

They had a spot right next to us at Blackhawk Park Campground.

I think of the Mississippi as in a broad valley, but here the river is lined with steep bluffs.

It’s quite beautiful.

Jim and Margaret are great sports and since the weather was nice they agreed to a game of disc golf.

The course was one of the nicest we’ve played. It was wooded but open enough for amateurs like us. There was grass in most of the fairways, so Matey was enjoying a roll.

Jim and Margaret had not played disc golf since we visited them at their home in Rochester, Minnesota. But they have their own discs now and were getting the hang of it.

There was a nice variety of shots, including this high basket.

Bud thought we needed a picture of me retrieving the discs to show how high the basket was. We had a lot of fun. Bo even got to be loose the last couple of holes and pretty much learned that these frisbees are not for fetching.

Wednesday we stayed at the park where we are camped and took a couple of walks along the river. At one end of the park you can walk along the main channel where there is the occasional barge.

They are back home, now, and I had to go do the wash. That turned out to be quite pleasant. I went to Mississippi Suds Laundromat just across the river in Lansing, Iowa.

It was a pretty little town…

and not what I think of when I picture Iowa. I was glad to enjoy the scenery, since it’s always hard to part from friends.

It’s been cold and raining for most of the last four days we spent at Harnischfeger Park, a county park near our friends Jane and Rob Speer. I met Jane in third grade, and Bud has known her since fifth grade. One of the nice things about retirement has been reconnecting with her and getting to know her husband, Rob. Not only was the weather bad, but Rob wasn’t feeling well, but they managed to show us a good time anyway. They had us for supper the day we arrived, which was a nice treat. The next day Jane drove out through the rain to see our trailer and visit for a bit. She even brought most of the fixings for lunch!

On Saturday it was probably a bit colder, but it wasn’t raining, so Jane took us to Madison. Rob still wasn’t feeling up for an outing so he graciously agreed to keep Matey. We met two of their children along with spouses, kids and dog and that was fun.

We also took a tour of the capitol building.

This building replaced one that burned down and was completed in 1917. It’s a very impressive building, it’s mostly stone and has 14 different kinds of marble in it.

The dome is the third largest, by volume, in the world. One of the tour group asked our guide about the largest ones. He thought one was in Turkey, but then said, tongue in cheek, “We don’t really care about those.” To give you some sense of the size, one of the rings below the windows is a railing and if you look closely you can see the tops of the doors that take you out to an observation walk. We did not do that, it was cold and by the time our tour was done we were hungry, so we opted for a restaurant instead.

There are four wings with four meeting rooms. No one was there since it was Saturday, but our guide unlocked them and took us through. This was a general meeting room.

Since this was an interior room the architect designed skylights to bring in natural light.

The next wing had the Supreme Court. The plastic chairs aren’t usually there, they were in place for a special function.

This is the skylight in that room.

We visited the senate chamber…

with its skylight.

The Assembly Room was a big enough space that it had exterior windows, but it still had a beautiful skylight.

On Sunday the sun finally peeked out. Rob was feeling some better so he and Jane both came out and we all took a walk on the trails at Harnischfeger Park. They had never been there, and were impressed with what a nice county park it is. There are several miles of trails.

The eastern boundary of the park is the Rock River.

It really was a nice camping spot once the sun came out. We went for one last meal at Jane and Rob’s and thanks to them had a fine time during what might have been some dreary days.

We’re moving on today and though it’s not raining it is cold and cloudy.

Last Wednesday we were headed south for an overnight stay outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. We saw that on the way we would be passing close to the Michigan State University Forestry Innovation Center in Escanaba. Last June we had stopped to see my major professor from college, Eric Randall. We found out that his son, Jesse, (now Dr. Jesse Randall) was the head of that center.

I emailed Jesse and he was happy to have us visit. That’s Jesse with Bud in front of their new building.

Inside, besides a classroom that will be totally wired for remote learning, is a very modern maple syrup evaporator along with a reverse osmosis machine that concentrates the sap before it’s boiled down further in the evaporator and some other equipment to make maple candy and cream. They are even experimenting with distilling syrup to produce an as yet unnamed “hootch” as Jesse calls it. The sap can produce an off flavor in the syrup if the tree warms too much in the tapping season. With climate change producers are getting a lot more of this off flavored syrup. Distilling it can remove the bad flavors. They are perfecting the process, but Jesse says the best runs produce a liquor that tastes like butterscotch candy, is smooth to drink and is 130 proof! So be looking for a new drink.

Jesse took us all around the acres of land. There were stands of poplar and willow being tested and developed for biomass production. There were Christmas trees for genetic studies and even a prairie maintained by controlled burning he is using to train students in the art of the controlled burn. But my favorite place was his sugar bush. This is a pure stand of maples, and to me there is no prettier tree. Maple sap is collected using plastic tubes now. You may be able to see some of the tubing running through these trees. I did my master’s research on this system way back in the mid 1980’s. Being in Jesse’s sugar bush was like coming home.

Jesse gave us the perfect send off by giving us a pint of Michigan State Maple Syrup. Thank you Jesse for a great time.

We came to Munising/Pictured Rocks KOA on Saturday. They have some nicely spaced, shaded and somewhat private sites.

But we opted for a space right up front, no shade, full hookups and no problem with the TV.

Sunday was going to be the nicest day so we drove to Miners Beach to see some of this lakeshore. Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is along Lake Superior. It’s been windy and there were some impressive waves. And it was as cold as it looks; the warmest temperature we’ve seen since we got here is about 50.

I zoomed in to catch the waves against the shore. No boat tours that day, and in fact the wind and waves have remained high.

We didn’t spend long on the beach, it was too cold!

We took a trail that said it went to Miners Castle. You could hear the wind in the treetops but it was calmer and warmer walking through the woods.

The trail led along Miners River. The land was sand through here.

The river was carving through the sand, but it must be a slow process. See the horizontal tree? Its roots are still holding to the bank on the right, but two of its branches have grown up into trees themselves!

We did some scrambling up banks with lots of tree roots and came out in an upland woods with a solid understory of maple seedlings.

Eventually we could look through the trees back down to the beach where we started.

This formation is Miners Castle. I tried to position myself so the top of the “castle” was not right against the horizon, but no matter how I twisted I could not get a better image.

There was a nice platform here and I did get some more pictures of the cliffs.

If you can’t get out in a boat I understand this is about the best place to see the cliffs, so I’m glad we came here.

Monday it rained all day. We were very glad we had no shade and good TV as we stayed in the trailer for hours while the cold rain came. Finally in the afternoon we drove just a few miles to Munising Falls. It was only raining lightly and there was a short paved trail.

The falls were pretty and it gave all of us a chance to stretch our legs.

Today was more dry than wet, so even though it was in the low forties we decided to play a round of disc golf.

The course was laid out in a park and along some cross country ski trials.

There were some interesting baskets but there was a lot of walking between the basket and the next tee. We ended up walking just over three miles. I think that’s a record for any course we’ve done.

There were even a few peeks of blue sky and we had a good time. But now it’s raining again and only 44 degrees so I’m ready to head south!

Yesterday we crossed over the international bridge in Sault Saint Marie. This is probably our last minute in Canada. You can just see the Canadian flag on the left and the US flag on the right as we approach the border. Again the border crossing was a non-event. It probably added 15 minutes to our trip, almost all of that waiting for others. Our inspection was about 90 seconds.

We came to Brimley State Park, Michigan’s oldest state park, right on the shore of Lake Superior and just minutes from Sault Saint Marie, MI. I think you can see the cities in this photo, they are in the break in the shoreline just a bit right of center. It is probably the Ontario side you’re seeing from here.

I’m happy to be back on one of the Great Lakes and last night’s sunset was gorgeous.

This is a pretty park. It has 287 camp sites, but fortunately this time of year most of them are empty.

We had a nice site, site 185, that backed up on the day use area. Not many folks there these days so it was pretty private and that big open area gave us a view of the lake.

I said we had that site because although there was open sky behind us for Bud to get TV it wasn’t working.

So today we moved to site 94. A little less private and no view of the lake, but still pretty and the TV worked first try.

We weren’t planning to do much today, anyway. A good thing about being back in the US is that our medical insurance works, so we scheduled appointments and got three shots. The latest COVID shot went in my right arm and high dose flu and RSV in the left.

I did have the energy to add Michigan to our travel map, so it has all the patches it’s going to get for a while. That’s a lot of miles to pull a trailer and I count that we’ve set up in a campground 137 times since we sold our house – not counting the times we’ve switched sites to get TV!

Today is our last day at Chutes Provincial Park in Massey, Ontario and our last day in Canada. We have seen so much beauty and met many wonderful people. I hate to leave Canada, but I know winter is coming so it’s time to go. Chutes is named for the waterfalls and rapids of the River aux Sables which runs through here just before it joins the Spanish River and heads to Lake Huron.

There’s a very nice trail here that takes you through the woods along the river.

The Seven Sisters Rapids show off the glacial scraped preCambrian rock of the Canadian Shield.

Views of the river were framed with fall colors.

Below the main falls was a section of river with gentle rapids.

Here the river was thick with spawning salmon. I didn’t think these could be salmon, but found there’s a subspecies of Atlantic salmon that are “lake-locked”. They never get to the ocean and they only reach an average size of 12 to 20 inches. Each of those dark shadows is a fish. It looked like a real banquet for a bear, but we saw no evidence of bears.

This would have been a restful stop if the satellite TV antenna hadn’t driven us nearly batty. This was the site I had booked. It had some afternoon sun, but the openings to the southwest, where the DirecTV satellites are, were fairly small. We moved the antenna around to about five places but could never get a signal.

Since Bud had been without TV for our stay at Mikisew Provincial Park I thought he’d be willing to move if we could get a site that would give us TV. I found this site, which might look the same but on the other side of those trees is an open field, and it’s on the southwest side of the site. The only problem was it was booked for the weekend. We decided it was worth it to move after two nights, so yesterday afternoon we came here.

One drawback was that the power post was on the wrong side of the site, but since we have a 30 foot 50 amp extension cord we could manage. The cord from the trailer is running under it from the other side. I put the junction up on the picnic table bench to help protect it from moisture.

We had to use our 75 foot RG11 coaxial antenna cable, but we made it out through the trees. But no TV! Huh? We checked the cable ends, we even swapped ends. We tried three 25 foot cables joined with splicers in case there was a problem with the big one. We didn’t expect that to work and it didn’t. In all the fussing I noticed a nut on the antenna housing had turned as we tightened the cable. Convinced that the cable must be loose inside we removed the plastic dome. Everything looked fine. We put it out without the dome and watched the gears move the dish to line it up with the satellites. We didn’t think it was pointing towards where our phone app said the satellites should be. We moved it so it would have a clearer shot where it seemed to point; that was worse. We gave up and put the dome back on.

This morning we moved it back to the original position. This is the view it has towards the southwest. There are no obstructions; it should work. Bud started fussing again. He took the dome off. He tried aiming it by hand. He let it reset again and it started to pick up a signal but it still wouldn’t come on. He let it sit for about a half hour and then reset it again. It worked. So what changed? Meanwhile it was supposed to rain in the next hour and the dome was still off so he went out and very carefully put the dome back on. It’s still working. Today is Bud’s birthday, so happy birthday Bud, you have TV. And tomorrow we leave.