Monday - Day 5

Today was a driving day, the most miles of any day so far. We drove from Rochester, MN to Bayfield, WI, around 290 miles. The 290 miles included a detour that added at least 20 miles to the trip. We chose routes that did not include any miles on the Interstate because we wanted to actually see the countryside.

About 10 miles from Redwing, MN we stopped and had lunch at a nice little roadside park, right next to the Mississippi River. For those of us who see the Mississippi from Missouri it is startling to see how blue and beautiful it is up north. Actually we started seeing lakes all over the place during our drive. Not one looked like a mudpuddle, the water in every pond/lake was a beautiful blue.

We thought about stopping in Red Wing to see if we could find a good deal on some boots but several reviews of Red Wing said that there were no boot bargains to be had.

We saw this cheese factory as we were passing by and had to stop and check it out. We bought a cheese sampler.

 The tank closest to the viewing window must have just been filled with cream/mild. The people in the back were stirring similar tanks.

Then it was on to the Apostle Islands campground. It was still 88 degrees when we arrived, HOT. It wasn’t such a long day, but we were tired by the time we arrived, got things set up and had supper. The bad news was that so many people in the campground were trying to run their AC that there were voltage problems. We did manage to finally get the temperature inside the camper down to the mid 70’s, by morning. Also, the campground was full up so the only spot we could get when we called this morning was one with electric & water, no sewer. We are in this spot for tonight and tomorrow night so, with our limited gray water capacity, we couldn’t just stand in the shower and let the cold water.