Uniquely Theo

There was no dawdling after our Isle Royale Seaplane landed as we had over a 400 mile drive to reach Ranier MN for our Voyagers National Park visit. This would be the 56th park I have visited. After working our way through the expressway construction in Duluth, the drive was mostly easy and uneventful with Jamie and I sharing the driving.   To relieve the feeling of road weariness setting in, we stopped for lunch at  Culver’s (BUT skipped the ice cream) and arrived in Ranier MN , our destination by late afternoon. We were staying at the Cantilever Hotel and Distillery off Rainy Lake and close to the gateway of Voyageurs National Park. This boutique hotel to me was quite an anomaly in this town with a population of 569, with it being quite cosmopolitan in a town with an historically gnarly reputation and basically a spot to watch the trains cross the international border on the Ranier Lift Bridge. It was proximate to Rainy Lake and right next to a very very very busy train track which had a cantilever bridge, the oldest cantilevered bridge in North America. I rarely remark on hotel rooms but its hotel rooms are supposed to bring back an experience of this bygone era with tall ceilings, industrial elements, bathrooms with claw foot tubs. I found it quite an inviting experience but clearly it is new “old” not old “new”. No ancient rust stains in the claw foot tubs. The fun part of this room was to watch the high volume of train rumbling past the hotel —- they even provide ear plugs for patrons. For sleeping purposes, I found them easy to ignore and not nearly as plentiful during the night. There would have been a day when it would have been “the cat’s meow” to have a distillery out my hotel room door.

Bridges are becoming the obsession since encountering the two vertical lift bridges in Duluth MN and Hancock MI.  Bear with this obsession if you will. The Ranier Lift Bridge is a Rolling Lift Bridge, and was the epicenter for importing contraband liquid libations during the Prohibition (hence the gnarly reputation) . The single-track lift bridge crosses Rainy River between Ranier, Minnesota, and Fort Frances, Ontario, and is one of the busiest ports of entry for international rail freight in the United States. This very small town is very very busy train wise! . Traffic over the Ranier Bridge is more than twenty trains a day with most pulling between 100 and 200 cars. Theycan be 1.5 miles long and a very long wait (20 + minutes) at many intersection you might want to cross. Hopefully residents have a schedule of trains so as not to be 20 minutes late for work. Our post “sitting in the car all day hike” was an attempt to get a good vantage point to see this bridge.  The one access would be up a prohibited road and we definitely did not want an already ticked off station master who was already hollering at a cyclist chasing us down.

So we gave up the search and decided to have dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was a nice 70 degree evening and that demanded sitting at a table outside.  It definitely was not a “come back another time experience “.  The waitress was quite surly and totally inefficient and inattentive. It took forever to get our drinks and getting our meals took even longer than forever so not the most generous of tips was given. The best part of the dinner was watching this big orange tabby cat trying to sneak into the bar and a neighborhood dog cruising the tables looking for handouts ( evidenced by his girth he appears to have received quite a number of handouts) . Ranier is a dog friendly city and allows its resident dog owners the privilege of letting their dogs roam unleashed.

We awoke on July 18th early enough to get on the road to the Ash River Visitors Center in Voyageurs National Park for a scheduled boat excursion to Kettle Falls at 10:00 am. Voyageurs is a water-based park with no drive-to sites in the park. Campsites and house-boat sites are all boat-in, hence one of the reasons we did not stay in the park. I did not haul my boat across country. Actually I would have had to buy a boat to haul it cross-country.

Thus, the natural choice was to book a water-based event and travel a water-based highway to experience the water based park. But before we departed , we filled the hotel traveler cups with a truly awful brown water which they served up as coffee and charged as much as a fancy late’ at Starbuck’s. This has been quite an issue of late as it seems every time we ordered coffee in Michigan and Minnesota it is truly tasteless and this is probably the first time ever that I can recall never being able to finish my first cup of coffee. I guess not many people around here favor robust dark roasted beans and the nice rich strong taste of coffee they produce. My comments are not meant to offend those who enjoy brown water! But we all managed to be awake enough to get to the Ash River Center.

The Ne-zho-dain tour boat a 42-foot-long Catamaran style flat bottom “chug along ” had about 30 people and as per usual 26 were there and ready to board and of course 4 showed up about 1 minute past the appointed hour to leave. We were actually told to report at 9:30, a half hour ahead of time. Then of course we had to wait for their bathroom excursion (no potty on board) and once aboard for the woman, who thought she left her phone in the aromatic pit toilet building, to retrieve it where, all the while , it was in her husbands pocket who was on board! The voyage to the historic Kettle Falls Hotel took about two hours aboard the Ne-zho-dain tour boat and what a great feeling of immersion into this pristine area of shimmering waters, forested islands, and towering pines – several of which were home to massive bald eagles nests.

Bald eagles build massive nests and they are usually built high in trees.  On this day, the eagles who owned these nest were out and about and preferring not stay home for our arrival. However we were able to spy on at least four inhabitants of this wilderness area when they weren’t aware of our need to capture their image . o these photos are not posed.

As we cruised the interconnected water ways, I mused about kayaking to one of the campsites and pitching my tent for a few days but would definitely want a site that is not on one of the main watery highways with the many boats zipping and roaring about. I mused again about how it’s not exactly true wilderness when humans can get about an area with scads of motorized vehicles rather than being confined to using two feet to walk or two arms to paddle. Eye-strain as we might, we could not sight any wolves or moose on shore and had to be content with eyeing the loons and eagles.

Upon arriving at the Kettle Falls Hotel, opened in 1913 , we were allowed two hours to spend on land for dining hiking, and touring the hotel and nearby dam. First we picked up the overpriced box lunch we order before departing. The upside was it was ready when we arrived but the downside was that it consisted of bread with the texture and shape of Wonder Bread (though I ordered it in brown ) and one slice of meat, and one slice of cheese (Tasia got two slices of cheese for the vegetarian option) and a small bag of chips, all for the whopping price of $17.25. Drinks extra. Glad we hadn’t expected fine dining or gourmet vittles. The hotel maintains much of its old time character with the best part being eating Wonder Bread in the Lumberjack Saloon (aka Tiltin’ Hilton) with its sloping floor (to the extreme). The floor was preserved when a renovation fixed the clay foundation (which became mushy over time and the whole bottom level sported sloping floors) .

It was time to explore the surrounds and we set out to hike the area around the hotel and view the dam. Kettle Falls is a result of water from Namakan Lake descending into Rainy Lake. We can no longer view the original falls as today a large dam is in its place. But the roiling water rushing down the sluice ways was a visual treat and not to be missed once there.

The return trip through this maze of interconnected waterways and islands was an equally pleasing scenic excursion. I was curious about navigating the area as the waterway we voyaged was proximate to the international boundary between the US and Canada. Seems the boundary was established by the customary water channel used by the American fur traders. Would that such international boundaries be so readily established today. My issue with international boundaries concerns how this invisible boundary line will be enough to stop AT&T from charging me $12.00 for a International Day Pass should the Captain creep over the dotted line we see on the map. When I was in Port Angeles Washington, proximate to the Canadian Border’s invisible very watery boundary line, I got dinged even though I never left the States.

After disembarking, a brief hike on the Beaver Pond Overlook Trail was in order but nary a beaver or beaver’s lodge to behold. Then a trip to International Falls Minnesota was the consensus destination. This is another destination I had pictured as a somewhat cosmopolitan tourist enclave. NOT.

First there was no falls. Next, a giant Smokey Bear Statue stood quite tall (26′ only to be beat out by a 30′ Smokey in South Dakota) in the middle of a downtown city park. Not very cultivated but definitely relating to the logging industry. The piles of sawdust and paper mills there give the air a heavy smell of rotting wood. Thirdly, other than its claim to fame as the “Icebox of the Nation” being one of the coldest places in the lower 48, it seems that you can find here such things as the “famous” last port-a potty before Canada, the last flock of geese before crossing over, the last paper mill on this side of the border before getting to Canada (whose factories along the Rainy River here spew nonstop bad odors as well), and concluding from our search for a place to eat dinner, the last not-so-good-place-to-eat before Canada.

Heading back to Ranier, with our new found passion for BIG statues, we stopped to investigate “Vic”, a 25-foot-tall statue of a voyageur that was built as a protest (by Vic Davis) to a property dispute against the U.S. government using eminent domain to seize private land for the creation of Voyageurs National Park . Now towards days end , we opted out of what we deemed as somewhat dodgy restaurant in Ranier , Louie’s, and ate yet again at the hotel distillery restaurant which we swore we would never again patronize. .What a difference a day makes. Good food, decent service, good waitress followed by a good night.

Before getting on the road to Duluth we headed over to the Rainy Lake visitors center to spend money on NPS “stuff and such!” and have a close encounter with some no so alive wildlife. Since the mileage to Duluth was not crazy long, a hike before a long sit in the car was in order. The Oberholtzer Trail proximate to the visitors center, two mile relatively easy hike was the logical choice . We wandered through deciduous and conifer forest as the trail twisted around the edge of a cattail filled wetland and enjoyed two different overlooks with marsh and lake views. Have you ever gotten so used to taking selfies that you might totally “just do it” even when there are others right there with you to snap that handsomely beautiful face in that handsomely beautiful spot (which more often than not is obscured by your handsomely beautiful prominent face blocking almost everything out. Note: above photo was not posed. But first a stop in Kabetogama for gas and a bit of Walleye fishing.

This was the last evening we would be together, so the dinner restaurant choice for our “farewell” was in Downtown Duluth at the Zeitgeist Restaurant, part of a nonprofit theatre arts complex. Other than major parking issues (as with just about every downtown) it was a great choice.

July 20th was a travel day but not the leasts bit boring . Since Tasia and Jamies departure time was not until mid-afternoon, a morning down at Canal Park was in order after an exploration of the neighborhood where my father’s family lived in the early 1900’s. Feeding our keen fascination with bridge structure (here I go again) and definitely wanting Jamie to experience the Aerial Lift Bridge in Duluth, we headed to Canal Park. Our hope was that there would also be a cargo ship coming into port. We were to be in luck. After exploring the US Army Core of Engineers Maritime Museum, we decided to walk across the Aerial Lift Bridge. Once on the other side we could access the lighthouse on the southern breakwater pier and get an up close read of the graffiti. Few surfaces are safe from graffiti artists. We decided they must paint over it every couple of years since some of the art was dated and the oldest date was only a couple years past. The Duluth Harbor North Pier Lighthouse located on north breakwater appeared less available to the artists and thus not bedecked (or painted more often).

It was fascinating and remarkable experience traversing the bridge and there was plenty of time to welcome the Paul R. Tregurth, “Queen of the Lakes, ” a 1003 ft long x 150 wide cargo ship and the longest vessel on the Great Lakes come into port and of course the Aerial Lift Bridge put on its show, The size is so massive that it makes what happened to the Frances Scott Key Bridge even more imaginable.

Subsequently, I dropped Tasia and Jamie around 1:30 PM and after doing a very minor re-organization of the car to find the things I needed to get to my first campsite of phase three of this trip, I was on the road headed to Munising, Michigan and a forest service campground in the Hiawatha National Forest. Having started out late and need to take several “stretch the legs and bathroom” stops, I was pushing it to reach my destination to arrive with adequate light top set up my tent etc. The “highlight” of the trip was the text chain that began when Tasia noted that her flight had been delayed… and Jamie’s as well since they were on the same flight. They would miss their connections in Minneapolis. The real rub was that Tasia had the same occurrence on the way into Duluth and got stuck in Minneapolis . Of course there was nothing I could do and even though they are my kids, they are grown adults who can figure it out themselves. Turns out this was all part of the Delta debacle as a result of the CrowdStrike snafu. They slept one night on the Minneapolis airport floor and two in a hotel before they finally airlifted out on Tuesday. I was headed to Michigan for my own campsite challenge.