On our way home ...

It will take us another 2 months to get home, but we have now headed west again. Reached our furthest point north in Michigan.


Wow - big triangle from AZ to Key West to the U.P.

My niece Kelsey and her boyfriend Dan were visiting her Dad, George and step Mom, Linda. We all took an incredible sunset cruise along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. Breathtaking. Local cuisine - pasty. (Rhymes with nasty, not hasty.) Meat pie with potatoes and veggies. Good!!! Marquette is a beautiful city on Lake Superior. That's a big ore loader - loads huge river barges with coal. Our front yard one day. Gusty winds, wicked rain and neighbors trying to hold their campsites together. See the neighbors under their table cover? Lucky for them, it didn't last long and they succeeded. What the storm looked like out our front window... Gregg found a new reading room in the RV... More pictures of our front yard on the shores of Gitchee Gumee, the incredible Lake Superior, largest fresh water lake in the WORLD..

Fun in the U.P.

Last year we spent time on the North shore of Lake Superior in MN, this year on the South Shore in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.


Some day we would like to do a full circle tour of any of these gorgeous Great Lakes.


We spent some days in teeny Grand Marais, MN last year and some in teenier Grand Marais, MI this year. Lots of
photo opportunities!



We were in a municipal campground right on the lake and were lucky enough to be there during a big Kayak Symposium. Interesting!


Not a problem - that was a class in rolling in the kayak. No, I did NOT take that class!















There was a nice church right across the street from the campground that played beautiful bell carols every daylight hour. I felt like I was in Heaven!






















I have tried and TRIED to take photos of spider webs and finally got one...if you click on that, you can enlarge it. (then use your back arrow to get back to this blog)













Friend Linda was at the kayak symposium and had a break at the same time I was driving out to see rescued bears at a reserve. How fun! We got to pet the 7 month old cub - SO soft and SO playful!





We saw smiling bears,









and bears that pray.


Lots and lots of bears there and we saw them climb trees, run and play, swim, and pace. They look so happy!


I can't resist taking sunset pictures and pictures with long shadows. Here is how I look with lo-o-o-ng legs. Pretty weird. Guess I am glad I have short legs!

Nice agate beach..

and I was there...

Our yard

One thing we love about our wandering --- our yard keeps changing. And sometimes we get one JUST RIGHT. Loved this one in little Oconto, WI. Spotted it from the highway and pulled right in, stopped by noon. How lucky we are to be enjoying this flexibility...

We've been visiting friends in Michigan's U.P., Upper Penninsula. We've decided to call George our brother-in-law-twice-removed. He is the father of my nieces and nephew from Illinois. Have had fun with him and his wife Linda.

George and Linda's beautiful back yard on the Au Train River.

Linda preparing her kayak for a weekend long symposium in the same town we headed for next, Grand Marais, MI. We'll probably bump into her again this weekend. We're going to do a little kayaking here. Our AZ kayaking friends would love this place with hundreds of sea kayaks here for this big symposium.

Aren't these gorgeous??? No, we didn't buy them...

By the shores of Gitchee Gumee, by the shining big-sea water. We keep coming back to Lake Superior every year...so beautiful with its deep blue waters.

Our campground is right on the shore of Gitchee Gumee. This is our beach, our yard for now ...

Enjoying Wisconsin!

It's not ALL about getting the fresh squeaky cheese curds direct from cheese factories ... though that is a large part of our enjoying Wisconsin.



Take a look at the fabulous 70 mile bike ride we did...

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Good Old Midwest 4th of July

What a great way to spend the 4th of July - with my Mom's crazy Lang family in Bettendorf, IA - Quad Cities. THAT is a POOL party - almost everyone in it, most with water guns, so no one on shore stayed dry.

My Lang cousins - we are the "older generation" now. We had a GREAT time seeing everyone.

You never know who you'll see an RV park - how about an RV with a big red nose?

Gregg, Jeri, Kelsey and I visited Mom, Dad and brother Bob in the beautiful Rock Island Arsenal National Cemetery. (The other side of the headstone is engraved for Dad.)

I just love crossing the Mighty Mississippi River.

Doesn't northwest Illinois look a little like Tuscany, Italy??? Sure is pretty...

Good Old Potosi Beer - Wisconsin brewed.

This has been our campground for 2 nights- a Corps of Engineers park, Grant River Rec Area at Potosi. Right on the banks of the river, we can watch the barges and other river traffic go by. This was dusk last night.

A new First!!! (I love "firsts").

Fish Fly (or May Fly) hatch. We'd heard of them of course, being amateur fly-fishers. But now we've been IN one.

The camera does not adequately capture the enormity of this experience.

There have been clouds of them with the air sometimes absolutely full of the little critters. The grey area to the right of the tree is one.

They don't bite or even seem to leave any residue behind so we have rather enjoyed them.

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(Do you ever have trouble seeing all the text on this blog? If so, double click on the blank spot and the text will come into view.)

We are thankful for...

• Beautiful weather this week - low 80's & low humidity. Good biking weather.
• Got our door locks fixed and we hit the road again.
• Joined our friends Jan and Chuck at Swan Lake State Park in Carroll, IA.
• Meeting new friends along the way - people we hope to see again some day.

Had our trees trimmed in the campground yesterday...

Found a cute little bar in a tiny Iowa town on our bikes - full of mounted animals, large and small, and even a deer hind-end. A First....

Met some roamers like us ... traveling around looking for bike trails. Hope to run

into Ted & Colleen from Maryland again some day - "Fools On a Mission to Tour America at 10 mph" -

Gary and Judy have 2 Lions club exchange students staying with them this month. We joined all of them in Pender, Nebraska for a Quasquicentennial parade that included Shriners from all around. Lots of the little cars, etc and Gary's White Horse Mounted Patrol group from Sioux City. So beautiful to see. After the show, they put the Lions Club girls up on the horses. That's
Birute from Lithuania and Zophia from Slovakia. They are delightful, speak English very well, and are really enjoying being "Iowa Farm Girls". Birute calls our RV a "Driving House". I like it! Going to use that from now on...

The corn will definitely NOT be "knee high by the Fourth of July" this year ... unless it's the Jolly Green Giant's knee. More like "as high as an elephant's eye." The rains have been perfect for corn so far ... and now need to slow down. Water table is up so high that creeks and rivers now overflow with every rain.