road trippin part 1: minneapolis, mn to madeline island, wi

So, surprise, last week David and I packed up the car, grabbed the dogs, and headed out of town to do a little road trip through northern Wisconsin, the UP, and lower Michigan (as well as driving straight through Indiana and Illinois). We left right after the Twins game on the 4th and returned home in the morning on the 12th, in time to take a little nap and head out to work the Kenny Chesney concert, which is a post for another time.

Even though I gave no inkling of it, for safety purposes- don't want my crazy blog-stalkers to know when I am out of town- we actually have had the whole thing planned for months. We had to, after all it was fourth of July weekend. We contemplated a few different routes and locations, but ultimately decided on Madeline Island, WI to Bay View State Park, MI to Mackinac Island, MI to Lansing, MI and then back home, as our big loop. If we would have had more time we would have loved to spend more time exploring the UP as well as being able to break-up the long drive home by staying over night in Chicago. Alas, the life of a vendor did not allow us those luxuries (it did however give us the luxury of being able to go on the trip, so I won't complain, too much).

So Day 1 we set off at 5:00pm, after David had worked the Twins game, and I had spent the morning preparing our food and packing the car, with the destination Big Bay Town Park on Madeline Island. We left a little behind schedule, which made the drive a little stressful as we wanted to make that 9:00pm ferry to the island and not have to wait around to catch the 10:00pm boat. Luckily we drove in to the dock minutes before the ferry boarded (which was thankfully a few minutes behind schedule). We ferried fairly uneventfully, except for some nervous Chihuahuas, from Bayfield to La Pointe. If we wouldn't have been hoping to catch the last few minutes of light to set up camp we could have stayed in La Pointe (the town where the ferry lands on Madeline) and watched the fireworks. But like I said, we were in a hurry. So we drove straight off the ferry and to our campsite. Our site was much more heavily wooded than we were expecting, which of course was nice, but did not allow any of those last rays of light to reach us as we set up camp. So we set up in the dark with nothing but a little headlamp and a flashlight to help us. But within an hour we were laying in bed, listening to the neighbors light off fireworks, dogs (not ours) bark in response, and the nearby frogs croak unceasingly as we tried to drift to sleep...

Day 2 was beach day. Initially we had planned on being a little more ambitious about the day's activities, but after a not-so-good night's sleep due to the previously mentioned racket, combined with waking up in the middle of the night with the worst headache of my life, we decided on sleeping in and just lounging at the beach conveniently located at our campground. The weather was perfect: 85 and sunny, which made the waters of Superior appealing to pretty much everyone on the island but Winston (read the beach was packed).

Franklin ultimately ventured in for a dip after a little motivating, but Winston preferred the shade of the make-shift tent we made the pups located comfortably on the sand.

The day concluded with a little pre-dinner run followed by some post-dinner Chinese Poker and an evening walk on the beach (See how my straight flush beat David's aces full of fours? He wasn't too pleased).

 

Day 3 was our last full Day in the Bayfield/ Madeline Island area. We ferried back from the Island to Bayfield with the intention of doing a little shopping and enjoying our picnic lunch somewhere on the water. In reality it was way too hot and humid to enjoy any of those activities and after checking out the marina and a few shops (where one of us had to stay out in the heat with the dogs) we ate our lunch in the shade and ferried back to the Island to make the most of the rest of our day.

Upon getting back we saw we had a little visitor at our campsite, and his mom.

The afternoon brought with it a quick storm that thankfully blew out the humidity and calmed the waters in the bay creating the perfect conditions for our canoe trip down the coast to see the sea-caves.

We canoed for about 3 hours down the shores of Big Bay State Park and back, and presumably saw just a fraction of what the island had to offer in terms of Sandstone formations. It was one of our favorite parts of the trip, and one of the reasons we want to go back to the Apostle Islands, although next time we might have to find away to check out one of the other islands that supposedly have bigger and better sea caves.

Day 4 we got up bright and early, which even without an alarm is never a problem when camping as the sun does a fine job of waking you up just streaming through your tent windows. And by 9:00am we were packed up and on the ferry back to the mainland to embark on leg #2 of our trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula.