1993/07 Rockies trip - North Shore |
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Thu 17th - Mon 21st
John and Edna don't much like our heat and humidity, but most of the time we were just wet, without much heat, and most of the state's southwest has been underwater this spring.
On the Friday, we headed up to Gooseberry Falls state park on Lake Superior for me to run in Grandma's Marathon. The original plan was to go on the Thursday, with Karen as my driver for the day of the race, as Sandie was working, but eventually all eight of us went on the Friday.
Jay Cooke
On our way up we stopped for a break at Jay Cooke state park and crossed over the Swinging Bridge to climb down to the rapids of the St Louis River. Most of the river's water is diverted upstream into a canal that feeds a power station's generators, but there had been so much rain that the river was 
roaring.
Gooseberry Falls
We camped at Gooseberry Falls and took a walk down the Gooseberry River to Agate Beach on Lake Superior. The waterfalls at Gooseberry were roaring too.
We were lucky enough to have some dry running and hiking, but it seemed to rain all the rest of the time. . The race was cool enough for most people to put on tights and gloves. I assumed that it would warm up during the race, so I wore the bare minimum, but I didn't feel cold until the last mile. 
I had a sore thigh after ten miles, so couldn't run as fast as I wanted, but I still managed to take a minute off my best time.
Temperance River
Afterwards, we stuffed ourselves at Perkins, and then drove further up the coast to the Temperance River, and spent the 
afternoon climbing around the river gorge and looking at the rapids and waterfalls. 
We did some cooking outside, but, as usual, it was too cold to sit outside for long.
Voyager Village
Coming back on the Sunday in the rain through Wisconsin, 
we stopped off at the Voyager Village clubhouse for their brunch, dropped the trailer off at our camping lot, and then went off to Riverside Stables for some riding. However, because of the weather, Sandy and crew had given up for the day and gone off to a horse show, so we didn't get to ride. They'd lost a lot of trees in a tornado a week earlier, and were still looking for pieces of their barn roof, so the place looked a little more run down than usual, but they didn't lose any animals. VV's own campground also looked a mess, with most of the trees gone.