Cannon Falls Camping and Biking

Another camping and biking adventure with Bud.

Cannon Falls is surprisingly close to the Twin Cities. A little over half hour and we were at the Lake Byllesby Campground in Dakota County. The campground is adjacent to the dam that creates the lake. The dam is a hydropower plant on the Cannon River.

The campground is well maintained and has very nice facilities (bathrooms and showers). We tent-camped among several RVs with electric and water hookups so no generators and very nice campers.

It was super windy when we arrived on Tuesday and were trying to set up the tent when, fortunately, the women in the RV next to our site offered to help. We really couldn't get have gotten it setup without them. We later got some fried green tomatoes to eat 😊

The tent and site were set up quickly enough that we decided to go on our first bike ride. There is a trail out of the campground that connects with the official Cannon Valley Trail (CVT). We took the spur trail into Cannon Falls before heading on an out-and-back down the CVT to the halfway point, Welch Village.

Cannon River along the CVT

The CVT is really well maintained. It primarily travels next to the Cannon River where you can occasionally see a canoer or someone fishing. There is a daily $7 fee to use the trail. The CVT website is not user friendly at all, but the trail fee is obviously well used to maintain the trail and bridges.

We saw a few animals including a deer being chased by something very furry, a ground hog, and a good-sized snapping turtle.

On the way back to camp, we road back into Cannon Falls for a late lunch.

There was an incredible sunset Tuesday night. The Canadian forest fire smoke made for very dramatic reds and oranges of the sun and later, the moon.

It had been a long day, so we retired early. Wednesday, after a breakfast of scrambled eggs, we drove to Red Wing to ride the other half of the CVT. This portion was more crowded but really that is relative because it wasn't bad. The entire CVT is fairly flat, but this portion is even flatter than the Cannon Falls side.

An out-an-back trip is great because you really do see different things when going in different directions. Seems odd but for instance, the river is more obvious when going in one direction than the other.

On the ride back to Red Wing, we were able to assist a couple who had an incident. The wife got nervous and crashed her electric bike. I was helping the husband get the chain back on when I noticed the wife was bleeding. She had taken a bad fall. Bud had bandaids and we used my hand sanitizer to get her somewhat cleaned and patched up.

We had lunch in Red Wing before heading back. On the way back to camp, we stopped in Cannon Falls again...this time for ice cream.

We spent some down time at the Lake Byllesby beach. The water was not pleasant looking so did not do any swimming. Wednesday night we lit a campfire and made s'mores.

Trout stream in Miesville Ravine Park

Thursday, we packed up and drove to the Miesville Ravine to do a short hike. It was a nice break from biking. We stopped in Miesville for lunch at King's Place Bar and Grill, a very popular restaurant/bar.

A short video of the adventure is here.

Boundary Waters - 2024

Clove Lake

I probably say this every year, but we had another fantastic adventure in the Boundary Waters.

Same foursome as the past 20+ years - Jenny, Julie, Brian, and me. This year we drove up to Jenny and Andrew's cabin on Saturday and paddled into the BWCA on Sunday.

Our usual route to the Gunflint Trail, the Grade, was closed due to a construction project so we had to drive all the way back to US61 then to Grand Marais. We took advantage of the detour to stop for coffee at Java Moose.

We made good time up the Gunflint Trail to Gunflint Lodge to pick up our canoes. We got good guidance from Carson (not Carston) at the outfitters. He estimated it would take us 4 hours and he was spot on.

I had wrongly anticipated that paddling up a river, the Granite River, would be easy going. The river was very pleasant but some of the portages around the rapids and waterfalls were tricky...especially the one marked as "split rock."

We had intended to make it to Larch Lake but decided to stop at Clove Lake which is a wide spot along the river. It was a great choice. Our campsite had a sandy beach and the sand extended well into the lake. It was so easy and comfortable coming into and out of the site.

The theme of this year's trip was, "Well, you are practically a scientist." This was based on our ability to determine (make up) several things including 1) why there was a sandy beach 2) why the snowshoe hare was so "friendly and 3) what makes a super moon.

There was a flat, grassy tent site and the perfect setup for the hammocks. Clove Lake was not busy and had an eagle nest on one side. The parent eagles would fly around occasionally and there teenage offspring flew around frequently.

There were several beaver lodges and on one of our day trips, we interrupted a family of otters playing in the reeds.

We were also visited by a snowshoe hare which was a first for us. This hare appeared very accustomed to humans and got very close at times. We also had some friendly chipmunks and a song sparrow.

The weather was perfect and we even had the supermoon. We were hoping for northern lights but the moon was so bright and we were facing south so didn't see any aurora.

The video is just over 6 minutes and available here. I suggest you watch the video in landscape.

Spring Green, Wisconsin. American Players Theatre

 It has been several years since I joined the trip to Spring Green, Wisconsin, and the American Players Theatre. It was a good trip where I got to meet new friends and catch up with old ones.

We saw "Ring Round the Moon" in the hilltop theater. It was very enjoyable though the mosquitos were not. Rose and I were surprised to see Barbara Kingsley in the play. Barbara is an actor from back in my Guthrie Theater days.

Here are some photos from the weekend....

The group hanging out in front of Arcadia Books in downtown Spring Green

Ice cream at the new ice cream shop in downtown Spring Green

I always buy some new article of clothing at Nina's in downtown Spring Green

The Old Feed Mill in Mazomanie,

Rose checking out a "new" car

View from the hilltop theater at American Players Theater

Me and Dave before the show

The play was long and the moon was bright

Spring Valley Inn, Spring Green

Dinner at the Old Feed Mill

There was a spectacular full moon.

Picnic before the show

You have to closely but there were two sandhill cranes in the field next to the motel

Door County - June 2024

 Another year. Another Door County, Wisconsin adventure. This year Jill brought her granddaughter, Aiyana, on the adventure. This will be a post in photos.

We stayed at the same place as last year, The Liberty Lodge in Sister Bay. There is a lovely view of Green Bay.

Jill reserved rooms on the front veranda side.

The Lodge serves a lovely breakfast, has a fantastic gazebo, and large grass yard. Here I am with Aiyana.

The real draw of Door County are the beaches on the Lake Michigan side. We were fortunate to get to hang out at Mary and Roy's place right on the shore.

A sunset on the Green Bay side. No Canadian wildfire smoke this year. Yay!

Jill signed us up for pottery throwing. It was challenging and fun.

The pottery place has a menagerie of arts and crafts projects.

We visited the Cana Island lighthouse which you can climb up inside. This was a first for all of us.

Yes, there is a replica (wooden) statue of Lady Liberty at Liberty Lodge.

We took the car ferry over to Washington Island. The ferry's name was "Madonna."

Lavendar fields on Washington Island.

Cherries in Door County.

I had no idea there were so many varieties of cherries.

We went to the percussion camp at Birch Creek Conservatory again this year. Free concert by the students and instructors.

Fields and barns everywhere on the peninsula. 

A dramatic sunset in Ephraim.

This photo has been modified to remove unwanted items (a car and some wires). The house in the background is where the staff stay.

There are these beautiful white and black pelicans.

The famous "goats on the roof" at Al Johnson's in Sister Bay.

A map of the peninsula.

The clear water of Lake Michigan.

Biking - Camping Lake Louise State Park

 

This year's first biking-camping trip. Bud and I went further south (almost to Iowa) this spring to camp at Lake Louise State Park and cycle the Shooting Star State Trail.

Lake Louise is about 1 1/2 hours south past Rochester. We were the only tent campers in the park! The tent camping is split into two sections that are right next to each other. One is closer to the Upper Iowa River. Both are open but surrounded by large trees. There is a pit toilet near the tent area. There are nice showers and bathroom facilities just down the gravel road at the RV site.

We arrived in bright sunshine and warm weather. After quickly getting set up, we jumped on our bikes to explore the closest town, LeRoy. The bike bridge to LeRoy is being repaired and the detour is not marked but an easy ride over the road bridge. Not much to see in LeRoy. There is a hotel with a restaurant. There is a bowling alley down the street.

Back at camp we thought we would eat out on our first night. Having seen what LeRoy offered we drove in the other direction toward Austin, Minnesota. There are 3 towns - Taoli, Adams, and Rose Creek. There were no places to eat at any of these towns! Taoli has no restaurants. Adams has one that is only open for breakfast and lunch. The one restaurant in Rose Creek is not open on Mondays. 

So back at camp, Bud fixed us a dinner of chicken and rice. It was very good.

Tuesday, we biked the Shooting Star Trail on an out and back to Adams - 24 miles total round trip. We had lunch at Bubbles Cafe in Adams. It got busy with a good lunch crowd (makes sense since it was the only place to eat for miles!)

The trail follows the Upper Iowa River for the most part. It isn't a big river and more like a creek. We passed near newly planted fields of corn and soybean and a couple of pig farms. We also passed through a huge solar farm under construction. There are lots of wind turbines down here, too.

The Shooting Star Trail is very, very flat. Yay!

Back at camp we showered and put away most of the gear as storms were forecast. We headed to LeRoy and the Sweets Hotel for dinner. The hotel has a large restaurant, and the food was very good. It is an historic looking hotel with lots of wood and an old-world feel.

We got back to camp just before the rain started. And rain it did indeed. There was a long enough break in the weather for me to go to the restrooms to brush my teeth. On the way back I got to experience an incredible firefly show.

The rain turned into a big-time storm with lots of lightening, thunder, and rain. The field we were camped on turned into a pool of water but luckily or due to our preparations, we only got a little water in the tent. Wednesday when we checked the weather app, we saw that over 1 inch of rain had fallen!

Wednesday morning, we dried everything out, packed up, and headed home with a stop in Rochester to ride the Douglas State Trail. Either I was a bit worn out from Tuesday's ride or the trail was steeper, but I pooped out about 7.5 miles, so we turned around and rode back to our start. It was also very windy.

This was another really good trip and many thanks to Bud for all the food and preparations. We highly recommend the Shooting Star State Trail as it is very flat. We saw a variety of animals and flowering plants.

When you watch the video, the first audio you hear is of the songbirds that were all around. I recorded that from inside our tent on Tuesday morning.

Video link here.

Another home improvement-decor project

The wide-angle shot

With much appreciation to Bud for assisting with hanging this custom wallpaper, a project years in the making is complete.

It is rewarding when a vision becomes reality. I had been wanting to do a custom mural of trees on this long wall in the living room and searched through many Boundary Waters photos for just the right set of trees.

Not finding one I took advantage of a trip to Door County, Wisconsin in the winter of 2022 to take specific photos for use.

I edited the photo to just the right set of trees then overexposed the image to make it less realistic. Birch trees are everywhere in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin and create the vertical effect I wanted.

Photo edited mockup

In an internet search for custom wallpaper, I found photowall.com and submitted my order after a lot of measuring, double checking, and creating a photo mockup.

I ordered the custom wallpaper on February 25 and it arrived a little over a week later from Sweden!! It came in 5 different boxes with instructions and wallpaper paste! It arrived so quickly I wasn't ready to mount it. I highly recommend Photowall.com if you need any wallpaper. I did opt for the premium paper and am so pleased with it. The quality of the photo is outstanding, and you can order whatever size you want or need.

I was discussing the project with Bud at a restaurant when someone nearby interjected that I should consider sizing the wall beforehand. I had never heard of this but did some research and it sounded like a really good idea. So, I applied the sizing material to the wall yesterday and Bud and I hung the wallpaper today!

Nearing the end

I was very careful on getting the first panel plum. Figured it would all go very wrong if the whole thing was cock-eyed.

I haven't decided if I will put the Barbara Stanwyck posters back up. I can easily put them up or take them down as I kept the hangers available.

Again, many thanks to Bud for helping out.

Maggie wonders what all the fuss is about

The original photo of birch trees

Elephant Camp - Victoria Falls

Elephant Camp in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe was our last stop on this amazing adventure of eastern Zimbabwe. It was also where we did the most variety of activities and had the most luxurious accommodations. In an attempt to cover most of what we did, the video, click here, is the longest in the series.

View of Victoria Falls from Elephant Camp

We arrived by caravan plane on day 12 (April 13). The caravan plane arrived at Robins Airstrip with 2 passengers and gathered the three of us and the family from the other lodge that we had run into while out on safari. The flight was a quick 15 minutes and would have been 3 hours by drive.

We were picked up at the Victoria (Vic) Falls airport and driven to Elephant Camp a short distance away. You can see the Falls from Elephant Camp. Carol, Camp/Lodge Manager, fooled us into believing that the mist coming from the Falls was in fact smoke from wildfires. We actually believed her for a bit.  She wasn't the only Zimbabwean that tried to practical joke us. I promised her we would get even. 😊 It is also true that the local name for the Falls is Mosi-oa-Tunya, "Thundering Smoke."

Susan immediately had a massage after our orientation.

Continuing the tradition of sundowners, we had a short safari drive with our guide, Wonder, to the Zambezi River Gorge. We did see lots of animals along a small waterway including a troop of baboons playing in a tree.

After being cloudy all day, the sun came out for sundown and lit up the gorge in spectacular fashion.

The foursome at the very misty Falls

On Sunday Wonder took us to tour the Falls. Because of the pour rainy season, the Falls are only at about 50% volume. When you see the photos, note that there would normally be 50% more water flowing over the Falls! Also, to be honest, since the Falls are so enormous, stretch out for almost a mile, and create their own micro-climate of tropical forest; the impact is muted.

There are constant helicopter tours where I'm sure you get the full impact. But the constant helicopters are a noisy annoyance when viewing the Falls from afar.

Wonder told Pam and I the story of how he got his name. It is a beautiful, sad, and inspiring story and meant so much that he shared this with us.

From the Falls we went across the street to the appropriately named Lookout Cafe and a canopy zipline tour. Susan opted not to do the zipline. The zipline is in a very lush gorge downstream from the Falls. Our guides were Joe and Gift. The zipline consisted of several lines between the two sides of the gorge. The climb out was on the strenuous side. We rejoined Susan for a lovely lunch at the Lookout Cafe.

We must have gone back to Camp/Lodge though my notes do not indicate that.

Wonder took us on an afternoon safari drive into Zambezi National Park. We saw a very large herd of elephants that were right among us along the drive. Since this national park is close to the town and to Zambia, we crossed paths with more people than the previous three places combined. We did learn that there was a large herd of Cape Buffalo at the opposite end of the park, and we convinced Wonder to take us all the way.

Zambezi National Park is where the elephant and giraffe at the watering hole video clip was taken. I consider this one of the highlights of our safari drives. We saw lots of animals on this evening drive and had another situation where we kept our guide in a national park after hours.

The Bridge

Day 14, April 15, was another full day. George took us shopping in town and for a walk across the Victoria Falls Bridge. The bridge is 100 years old, and some really big trucks drive over it...thankfully, one at a time. One can bungee jump from the bridge but surprisingly none of us did that.

We went back to Elephant Camp where I told Carol, the manager, that we were not able to walk the bridge because structural faults were found. She took the bait for a bit then realized I had gotten her back for her practical joke. 😊

That afternoon Susan, Marlin, and Jeff took in the Elephant Experience. There was a short safari drive to find the elephants. You got to "pet" them and to Marlin and Susan's absolute delight, feed them. You do get a real sense of how big these animals are when you are standing right next to them.

Sunset cruising

Our last night consisted of a Zambezi River sunset cruise. You don't get very close to the Falls (probably a good thing) but you can see the mist. We saw crocodiles and birds along the way and lots of other sunset cruise boats. Back at Camp we could see a drone display over the Falls featuring the Top Five African animal images. It was really quite spectacular and unexpected. Turned out there was a convention of travel agents at the Lookout Cafe and the display was part of the tourism board promotion.

Day 15, April 16, we departed Victoria Falls for Johannesburg and our connecting flights. George took Pam and Susan into town for another quick shopping excursion. He also showed them the township he lives in.

The trip home was thankfully uneventful though the flight from Johannesburg was very full and very long (an additional 3 hours longer than the same flight over).

Link to Elephant Camp video.

Link to Hwange Bush Camp blog post.

Link to Khulu Lodge and Tent Camp blog post.

Link to Amalinda Lodge blog post.

Africa Animal Video.