Wisconsin - Days 11 - 20 - Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers and Lake Superior

It took me so long to get caught up with the previous 10 days that now I'm another 15 days behind, so I'll do the same thing I did before.  This time, though, I didn't visit as many "sights" - what I saw was mainly scenery.  But it was some scenery - absolutely beautiful.  For several days I drove along the Mississippi River, and I'm doing a separate post about the River Road itself.


Route Maps

route on Monday the 12th to Wyalusing State Park

route on Tuesday the 13th
to Hixton/Alma Center

route on Friday the 16th to New Richmond

route on Saturday the 17th to Iron River

route on Friday the 20th to Arbor Vitae

Lands End
On my way to the river from Madison, I stopped at the Lands End HQ in Dodgeville.  I expected they would have an outlet store near their headquarters, and they do.  Unfortunately, that store keeps the same hours as their other retail stores and doesn't open until 10 AM.  I got there before 9:00, because I knew I had a lot of driving to do today, and I just didn't want to wait around in a parking lot that wasn't even landscaped - the outside of the building looks like a warehouse/thrift store, and the parking lot looked right in character.  So I walked the dogs, swallowed my disappointment, and left.


Campgrounds

* Wyalusing State Park: The registration office had 6 or 8 large hummingbird feeders up and dozens were feeding at them at one time.  It was an incredible sight.  They had clear liquid in the feeders, telling me that food coloring is needed only for people, not for birds.  The rangers told me they were Ruby-throated Hummingbirds that came in every year to raise their families.  I'd never seen anything like it.  I stayed here because it's where the Wisconsin River flows into the Mississippi, and I'd hoped the campground would have a view.  Sadly, I found that any view would come from hiking trails, so too bad.

* Alma Center/Hixton KOA:  This campground has an odd layout that seems to cater heavily to what they call buddy sites - where 2 groups of campers traveling together can site their campers facing each other.  I had to drive through the campsite behind me to get to mine, and they had to drive through mine to get out.  But they were a pleasant couple from Ontario who didn't mind my dogs and were about as quiet as I am, so it wasn't a problem.  I ended up staying an extra night here because it was comfortable and I was tired and there weren't many kids around.  Plus I needed to do laundry and get a shower and do other chores.  Plus they had a decent wifi signal.

* River's Edge Tubing and Campground: Almost every camper in the campground was young enough to be my grandchild.  It was a weekend, decent weather, and the main thing people come here for, apparently, is to tube in the Willow River which runs along the campground.  The campground itself is on rising land above the river, with dirt roads only and few trees.  The vast majority of campers were groups of young adults who camped in tents.  It's probably not much more than an hour's drive from the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, probably explaining so many Minnesota license plates here.  And they were all very polite and pleasant, they mostly didn't bring dogs, and if they got rowdy I didn't hear them.

* Top O' The Morn Resort Campground: I ended up staying here 3 nights because it was comfortable and had a decent wifi signal.  I found myself back in the land of pay showers, but my 50¢ bought me a lot more than the 3 minutes they said I'd get, and the water was plenty hot, so it could have - and has - been much worse.  It's owned by a youngish couple, very pleasant and accommodating.  A lot of the campers come here to use their ATVs - the owner told me there's a whole series of ATV trails in this area, and one goes all the way up to Lake Superior (about 20 miles away).  The campground is full of trees and is built on a moderate hill on the edge of Iron Lake, where people like to fish.  Very pleasant.

* Arbor Vitae Campground: Named, presumably, for the town of Arbor Vitae, which in turn was, presumably, named for the Arbor Vitae River, which runs through the campground, and the Big Arbor Vitae Lake, immediately across the road from the campground.  (They don't seem to be much for creative names around here.)  Having taken 4 years of Latin in high school, I had a hard time believing that they pronounce "vitae" as "VY tuh" but the campground owner does, anyway.  This campground is entirely dirt roads, which don't do well with rain; and it looked like they'd recently had some heavy rains.  All the campers were pleasant, which is more than I can say for the owner, and I had a decent spot.  But there wasn't much of any place to walk the dogs and, all together, I was glad it was only a way station for us.


Comments along the roadways

(I wrote some of these when I was originally trying to get this posted, and others when I was stuck in campgrounds where neither they nor my hotspot had an internet signal, so they're not all in chronological order and the spacing's a little odd.)

I saw a sign at somebody's campsite: If you're lucky enough to go camping, you're lucky enough.

I passed a somewhat isolated house and saw a private plane parked near land that looked very runway-ish.  Making me a little surprised that's the first time I've seen that.

I passed a pond along the river and counted 18 Great Egrets in it.

At Lock & Dam #9, the Corps of Engineers put up a sign explaining "Life Style of Eagles."  Life style?  Really?

I passed a cemetery and saw a satellite dish at one of the grave sites.  What on earth do you suppose that's about?

At one point we had to slow way down because an enormous dark bird flew right in front of us and kept flying right in front of us, going our direction.  I spent some time with the bird book and decided it must have been a Raven, which can have a wingspan of more than 5'.  This RV is only 8' wide, so you can see how big it looked to us.

I saw a river boat that I'm guessing was a cruise boat - I mean, it carried passengers on river cruises.  Looked very Mississippi River.

Several places along the way I saw pickup trucks stopped beside the road with rear ends full of corn, and long lines of people waiting to buy some.

I saw a farm that sold birch syrup.

Patch Grove, pop. 198, has a business called Jezebel's Dinning and Drinks - their spelling, not mine.

I was very impressed with the paint job on this tow truck in Hixton.  Note its purple grill and that the business is open 23½ hours a day.  Makes being towed not seem so onerous.

I've been noticing that Wisconsinites I hear on the radio pronounce Wisconsin differently that I've always heard.  I say wis-CON-sin; they say wih-SCON-sin.  It's a little thing that I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for hearing it on the radio - when you can't see the person talking, you listen to the words more clearly.

I was lucky to be driving through small towns on a Saturday and managed to find a Farmers’ Market in Frederic.  Small town, tiny market, but it included maybe 9 or 10 vendors with a variety of items – string beans, onions, potatoes, peppers, of course corn, herbs, flowers, baked goods, honey, some crafts.

I passed through the town of Webster and learned they’re gearing up for the Gandy Dancer Days.  I noticed a couple of weeks ago that Mazomanie, northwest of Madison, also celebrates a Gandy Dancer Festival this month.  Theirs includes bluegrass, but I don’t know what Webster has planned.

“Gandy dancer,” by the way, is railroad slang that denotes a member of a railroad section gang that lays or maintains tracks.  (I had to look it up.)

I passed a huge field of sunflowers. I’ve seen quite a few of them this month.

There’s not a road running along the St. Croix River, as there is the Mississippi.  My road runs straight north, while the river (and Wisconsin) swings wide west.  I crossed it again part way along its northern-bound route, at about where they stop using the river as a boundary and substitute a straight line running north.  It looks like the northwesternmost boundary is the mouth of the Cloquet River, where it dumps into Lake Superior, with the town of Superior on the Wisconsin side and Duluth on the Minnesota side – but I imagine I’ll find out next June (Minnesota’s month).

I too turned eastward at Superior, and took the state road that runs along the Lake Superior shoreline.

I took this photo when we stopped at a state wayside.  When we pulled in, there were 4 or 5 other cars parked and several parties having lunch at the picnic tables.  We only stayed there about 20 minutes or so, but every one of the others had cleared out by the time we left.  It was almost as if we had a big “Quarantine” sign on us or something.  But easier to walk the dogs when there aren’t any distractions.  And hard to beat this view of Lake Superior.

The road more or less followed the shoreline and, at Port Wing (designated a Bird City), we turned due south, driving through mixed forestland.  I saw lots of birch and figure this area must be beautiful in the fall.

Along the way we passed the turn to Iron River National Fish Hatchery, and another turn to a cheese factory, though I haven’t been able to find any information on it.

The town of Iron River says it’s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.”  And considering its size, I believe it.

In this northern part of the state I’m having some weird communication difficulties.  Not only haven’t I been able to get a reliable wifi signal, but I also can’t get a phone signal.  Apparently this is an area that neither Verizon nor T-Mobile services, though I expect users of Apple products would be in good shape because folks are getting a signal from somewhere.

I saw a fawn bounding across the road in front of me and wondered if it were old enough to be let out without adult supervision.

The night before we left the Iron River campground, I went to take the dogs out for their last walk before bed and ran into a little problem.  As we were getting out of the RV, the people who’d moved in next door were also letting their dog out.  We could only see the dog from underneath their camper, but that was enough for Dexter who took off like a rocket ship.  Even though I was completely off-guard, I’ve been training myself mentally to never let go of the leashes no matter what, and I didn’t.  So Dext dragged me across the ground and I whammed into the fire ring (looks like it was made for a huge tire to be attached to – wide across and wide tall – they stick up from the ground about 8” high).  Dext kept trying to get to the dog and I kept hanging on and telling him to settle down and I have no idea at all what Gracie was doing.  The next door neighbor put her dog back inside and came to my rescue – held my dogs’ leashes and helped me stand up and get back inside the RV.  I could see I was bleeding though I wasn’t sure where from, but the blood was gushing so I had to attend to it.

The only way I could stop all the bleeding was to put Band-Aids on my upper lip, left knuckle and left knee.  My face and hands had ground-in dirt and iron (from the fire ring) and ashes (ditto) and it took some work to get clean.  The final tally was scrapes on my nose and chin, both elbows, both knees, and my left hand; bleeding cuts as shown above with Band-Aids; bruises all over including both lips; and beginning the next day very sore muscles in my upper arms from hauling on the leashes for dear life.  And I still had to take them for a walk before bedtime.  I wish I thought he’d ever grow up, but I don’t.  Anyway, all these injuries made driving more of a chore than it had been, but were fortunately not permanent.

As we drove north from Iron River, I saw the large weather system in this photo moving rapidly from west to east ahead of us.  I was congratulating myself that we wouldn’t have to deal with it, when I realized the road was turning and taking us right into it.  And then when we turned east ourselves at Port Wing, we were traveling underneath the cloud system, which was going as fast as we were.  All of this meant very strong winds and hard rain and nighttime-type dark inside the RV that lasted for miles.  Spooky.

We went through the town of Cornucopia, that says it’s Wisconsin’s northernmost town.

We went past the Ojibwe’s Red Cliff Indian Reservation, with its tribal offices and health facilities and other community buildings.

I stopped at the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore Visitor Center in Bayfield and will do a separate post about that.

I passed an unofficial road sign that said: Finnsville, population 2. I saw 2 RVs and several rundown buildings huddled together.  Not much, but I’m thinking the Finns have a sense of humor.

I heard on the radio that when a butterfly struggles to get itself out of the cocoon, it’s stimulating blood flow that makes its wings strong enough to fly.  If a human intervenes and helps it out of the cocoon, its wings are too weak to fly successfully.  Just think of the allegorical possibilities.

I passed several filled logging trucks in this area.

I passed a sign indicating the Bayfield Fruit Loop, which I think is a series of 15 berry farms that offer pick-your-own fruit.  I keep finding things in Wisconsin that make me think there are lots of areas where you could come and stay in a B&B or small hotel for a few days and find plenty of things to see and do.

The town of Mercer had a huge statue of a loon along the road with a sign: Clair d’Loon.

Somewhere around Manitowish Waters I passed something labeled a taxidermy institute that was for sale.

Warning: opinion piece

I happened to see an online report of what I guess was a segment on the Today Show about high schools enforcing their dress codes.  Two girls were "dress coded" (English is such a flexible language) for wearing tank tops.

One who's a sophomore said, "It made me really mad that boys who were wearing tank tops and muscle shirts didn't get dress coded.  It was obvious that they were singling out the girls."

One who's a junior was told her tank top was against the dress code because her shoulders were exposed so boys were looking at her.  She said, "I proceeded to ask [the dean] why that was my issue, why it was my priority to make sure boys weren't looking at me.  I never got a clear answer, it was just implied that boys have provocative mindsets, and it's a distraction to them.  I have no issue with dress code policies, however, when it's not being enforced on both sides equally it's just one thing: discrimination."

I read that and started to cry.  I thought about all the years when I was growing up and I was told all these same things these girls are being told and how I never questioned it.  I thought about a friend of mine who was raped and the police told her it was her own fault because she was wearing a short skirt and walking alone on a city street at night.  I thought about our gradual understanding that society never thought boys should be taught to see girls as something other than a sex object but instead girls were taught not to give them any provocation (as if teen-age boys need provocation).  I thought about current rape/assault allegations against public figures and many people blaming the women: why were they alone with him in the first place? what do they expect if they get drunk with a boy? and so forth, but never why did he take advantage of the situation?

I thought about how girls and young women these days don't think they're feminists - but the things these girls said is feminism in action.  It's what we always dreamed of for our daughters that we'd never gotten for ourselves.  I don't know how these girls' mothers feel about this, but it's clear how the girls see things.  And I'm so very glad - for them and for all of us who will live in a better world because of people like them.