Wisconsen Cheese and To Duluth

June 20, 2019 Thursday Day 32

We got up early enough to observe the sunrise from our BnB and ate our fruit, nuts and yogurt breakfast.

Then packed up, unplugged the car (we got 42 electric miles) and headed off for the Franconia Sculpture Park. Immediately took a wrong turn, but quickly righted myself and retraced our steps through Taylor Falls and south, not far, toward Minneapolis. This is an amazing and cool place. 43 acres of outdoor sculptures, wildflowers and a small forest, plus the opportunity to watch and speak with sculptors in action. It is a non-profit that provides workshops for artists and has an artist in residence program. It was hot, but there is a self service refrigerator with cold water and frezzie pops that operates on the honor system. There were lots of sculptures to view as we meandered through the Park on graveled paths. A beautiful and engaging place.

Those are only a small sample of the sculptures. The only downside was that there were some mosquitos that really bothered my spouse, so while I ate lunch at the picnic table in the Park, she ate in the car.

After spending a few hours at the Sculpture Park we headed north through Taylor and Souix Falls one last time and headed north on state route 87. We  took a gasoline pit stop at Bass Lake near Cushing and then continued north on state route 48 and then east on route 70 through lots of flat agricultural land to the Burnett Dairy Co-op in Alpha. This appeared to be a large dairy operation, lots of large milk tanks, and a large retail store that sold all things dairy, plus wine and related items, e.g. bread. They had free, cold milk, regular and chocolate and lots of bread and cheese samples. One could make a meal out of it. We ate some ice cream and purchased some real Wisconsen wine and cheese.

Then we drove to Siren. There was a charging station there behind the police station. I just intended to walk around the town and stretch our legs while we got a little electric charge for the car, but we found a going out of business sale at Peggy's Fashion Rack and Gifts. Under Peggy the store had been open for 30 years, but she said that she was getting tired and wanted to retire. She had the store up for sale for 2 years, but had not attracted any buyers so she was just closing it down. It was sort of a little department store with a lot of cold weather items. We purchased some gloves, hats, scarves, pants and suspenders, walked back to the car and resumed our trip north on state route 35.

We passed more flat agricultural land that gave way to forests as we passed over the St. Croix River again and then into Douglas County, the most northwestern county in the state. Stopping at a state park we learned that the county was named for Stephen Douglas, the famed Little Giant whose debates with Abraham Lincoln primarily about the future of slavery in the US in 1858 in the Illinois Senate race. Douglas won the election, but the texts of the debates were publicized throughout the nation and helped to launch Lincoln to the presidency. I do not know why the county was named after Douglas, but I was told by a park user that in 1952 in the republican senate primary Douglas was one of only 2 counties that voted against Senator Joseph McCarthy. He also said that the last republican presidential candidate to win the county before Trump was Herbert Hoover.

The Ojibwa Indians, who themselves were transplants from the east, were present when a French voyager showed up sailing around the south shore of Lake Superior in 1618. He was followed by fur traders from French, English and lastly American fur trading companies who established trading posts. In the mid 19th century immigrants, primarily from Northern Europe flowed into the territory to farm, work in the mines and cut down trees, which they and their employers were incredibly efficient.

We coasted into and through Superior, the county seat. It seemed kind of worn out and tired. We traversed a large bridge spanning the Duluth Superior harbor into Duluth MN. Then we drove along the shoreline and skirted Duluth's downtown, over the Aerial Lift Bridge and onto Minnesota Point, which along with Wisconsen Point make up the largest freshwater sand bar in the world. That is the location of our hotel, the Park Point Marine Inn  which lies right on the bay. A nice, relatively new place and a spacious room with a view of the marina.

We walked back up Minnesota Point to Canal Park near the aerial bridge. From here you got a view of some of the 49 miles of the harbor shoreline and the scores of elevators and docks that surrounded the harbor. Millions of tons of grain, ore, coal and lumber annually pass through one of the world's largest inland seaports. It was sunny, but cool and there were wind driven white caps on the lake that ran up to a narrow beach. The piers that lined the shipping canal into the Duluth harbor each had a lighthouse on the lake end.

The aerial lift Bridge was built in 1905 and continues to lift to permit passage of over 1000 boats, ranging in size from sailboats to 1000 ft freighters into the harbor. We watched it lift a few times. We walked over the bridge and encountered many runners. Turns out this is the weekend of Grandma's Marathon, along with several shorter races, one of the largest marathons in the Midwest. We stopped to speak with several groups of runners who were either out jogging or picking up their race packets. One was a group of young public school teachers from the area. They were from the Duluth area and although they had gone away to college, they had returned. They characterized Duluth as the air conditioned city since it was never hot. The always cool to cold waters of Lake Superior cooled the lake in the summer and surprisingly moderated the cold in the winter. They claimed that it usually did not go below zero in the city in the winter due to the lake effect, but areas just outside the city frequently experienced below zero temperatures. They were intrigued by our trip and California and  we talked about running training regimes. They were entered in the half and full marathons.

Wishing them good luck we walked into the commercial and entertainment district. We stopped by a whiskey distillery and sampled some product. The museums were closed and after inspecting several potential eateries, we settled for Grandmas Salon and Grill, the sponsor of the races. It was a large place that is decorated with an eclectic assortment of signs and objects. I had a very good Walleye fish dinner. After dinner we walked back  over the Aerial Lift Bridge and back to the hotel.

St. Croix Falls

June 19, 2019 Wednesday Day 31

We ate our breakfast of fruit and yogurt in the apartment and then headed off for the Ice Age Trail with 35 miles of electricity. As we drove through Taylors Falls we noticed a very small public library in a wood frame building. Almost every small town has a public library. We were unable to visit the historic Folsom House since it was closed during our visit. We also passed the oldest public school building in Minnesota, built in 1852.

We crossed the St. Croix River on the two lane, very high bridge and almost immediately took a left turn into historic St. Croix. For a small town, population 2133, which is more than twice that of Taylors Falls, St Croix Falls has a pretty long and prosperous looking main street. It is at the center of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway and is the western  terminus for the 50 mile Gandy Dancer state trail and the state spanning Ice Age Trail .

The Riverway, I did not know that we had National Scenic riverways, stretches from the highlands of northern Wisconsin and central Minnesota to the river's junction with the Mississippi River, a 235 mile river reserve. It was one of the original rivers designated as a wild river in 1968. It was long used by the Ojibwe tribe as a water link between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes and during the 17th and 18th centuries used by the French voyageurs who explored the region and traded for beaver furs. In the 19th century the river served as a passageway for logs from the logging camps in the North Woods to the mills downstream.

Traveling to the River Visitor Center we passed through an area of well maintained, large homes with lots of mature leafy trees on the outside of town. The Visitor Center overlooked the river and offered a movie about the river. All the Rangers were in a staff meeting so we helped ourselves to some materials and drove further north to the beginning of the Ice Age Trail. The last Ice Age glaciers about 10.000 years ago had their southern edges across Wisconsin. The advancing ice was split into six major lobes by the topography. Beginning in 1958 efforts began to establish a park/trail that preserved the remains of Wisconsin's glacial history.  By 1980 the state and federal governments established a National scenic Trail that meandered 1200 miles across Wisconsin stretching from
Green Bay to St. Croix Falls which roughly outlined the southern most progress of the last glaciers.

We enjoyed a very pleasant, shaded 1.2 mile walk on a trail that was either soft or planked. We encountered very few people among the trail's greenery and river overlooks. When the trail crossed the road to begin its eastward journey we turned around and drove back into town. We stopped off at the modern library, seemingly the only structure in town built in this century. It was well stocked and had a lot of people in it.

Driving east out of downtown we ate lunch at Wayne's Cafe in the new, strip mall part of town on highway 8. We missed the all you can eat fish fry on Friday and could not take advantage of the Wednesday post 5:00 $3 burgers. We ate big plates of various comfort foods. The milkshake was very good. It almost seemed as if this was a community center with lots of people conversing and discussing business.

We then went to the Wisconsin part of the Interstate Sate Park on the east side of the river. Walked and hiked around on the rocks and bluffs above the river and the Dallas and took a hike around a lake which had a small beach.

The Interstate Park had its origins in a 1860s proposal by a businessman to mine the basalt that comprised the Dalles to make gravel. That galvanized protectionists to lobby the Minnesota and Wisconsin legislatures to create a park. Minnesota acted first in 1895 and Wisconsin followed in 1900 creating its first state park. That marked the end of the logging era, but the park is now covered with second growth forest.

The Wisconsin Park visitor center had a 24 minute film that traced the Ice Age trail and explained the geographic formations created by the glaciers: striations resulting from boulders scraping bedrock, drumlins are elongated hills  resulting from materials deposited by the glaciers in the direction that the glacier was moving, moraines are deposited materials at the front edge of the glacier (Long Island where I grew up is a  terminal moraine), and kettles and eskers are geographic formations formed by streams flowing over or under the glaciers. They created a diverse landscape with many lakes (more than Minnesota) and rolling land. The park has rocks from three geological eras about 500 million years ago. The infrastructure in the Park was largely created by the CCC during the depression.

After our hikes we returned to the food market to pick up some lunch, dinner and electric charging. We drove back to the BnB with just enough electricity to avoid gasoline and cooked a chicken and veggie dinner. Watched a colorful sunset.

Leaving Minneapolis to Taylors Falls

June 18, 2019 Tuesday Day 30

Wow, it is hard for us to get out at a reasonable hour. We got up late, ate and packed and did not get out until about noon. Took pictures of the grandsons intertwined with each other. No place to be at a specific time so no urgency. Everyone is staggering around still feeling the effects of the cross Atlantic trip and time zone change. At least we should not run into rush hour traffic leaving Minneapolis.

It took us about an hour to drive up to Taylors Falls, MN. I was amazed at how quickly we left the city and its suburbs and got into rural country off the interstate following state routes 8 and 95. The latter was a senic and winding drive that at times overlooked the St. Croix River. Many trees, not much agriculture and several small towns along the route. The drive took us to Chisago County which at first glace, and most subsequent glances looked like the word Chicago.

Taylors Falls, named for a Taylor who established a mill in the mid 19th century using the falls in the river for power and was later a big shot in the territorial government, is really just a village. It is a bit over 4 sq miles in size and has less than 1000 permanent inhabitants, who appear to be overwhelmingly white. It is a one stop light town which was populated primarily by Scandinavian immigrants. Its biggest claim to fame is that it was the setting where the main characters in the Swedish novel The Emigrants settled. I was told that there are several thousand summer residents.

But what its lacks in size it makes up in charm and eye catching scenery. The eponymous Falls are long gone, buried under the backed up water when a dam that was constructed in 1906, but it still has: the hills that rise from the St. Croix River, the rapids in the river, the glacier created "Dallas" rock formations along the river and the Interstate Park that straddles the River and is administered by both Wisconsen and Minnesota. It also has a ski area which is spread out over 26 ski hills and doubles as a water park in the summer. A lot of ski acreage, but not much vertical drop.

We drove through town out to our BnB. It was several miles out of town in a very rural area on a small road. When we pulled up about 3:00 pm we were warmly greeted by a middle aged lady who quickly asked us what we were doing there. It turns out that her property had just been listed on AirBnb and she was not expecting her first guest until Friday. She felt that her property was not ready for guests. I thought that we had a reservation through Airbnb, but the host had not actually responded. Given the late hour and absence of any visible options (turns out that while Taylor Falls did not have any hotels, St. Croix Falls across the river had lots of chain hotels, but I did not know that at that time.)  we urged her to make whatever fixes she needed and we would be back in a few hours. That worked out and after we unloaded we drove back into town intending to head to the Park. However we saw signs for a river boat ride and followed them to its parking lot, adjacent to the Park's parking lot. We signed up for the 6:00 pm  45 minute boat ride. $28 for two senior tickets and we avoided the parking fee at the Park. We walked over to the Park and proceeded to the Glacial Pothole Trail. This area marks the southern most flow of the glaciers 10,000 years ago. As the ice moved it froze around grains of sand and pebbles. When the ice melted it initially accumulated in giant glacial lakes that were formed in large pockets of land gouged out by the glaciers and held back by the foreword wall of material built up by the glaciers. Eventually the water broke through in torrents and as the glacial lakes drained they cut several spectacular gorges one of which is the Dalles of St. Croix. They also formed eddies in the rocks and the sand and pebbles the water carried gouged out cylindrical shaped potholes. Many are small, but some are very large and deep. The Unexplored Pothole is the Park's widest and the Bottomless is 60 ft. deep, the world's largest explored Pothole. There are more glacier potholes is this Park than anywhere else in the world. We got down to the river's edge and stood on the bluffs, high above the river and then walked along the mile and a quarter River Trail.

We then retraced our steps and when back to the dock for a ride on the river steamer. At 6:00 it was still very light. It was a pretty big boat that was floated up on the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers. There were not many passengers. We were given a guided tour by one of the boat guides (just a teenager with a summer job,) who pointed out the various, unusual rock formations that in some places rise 200 ft. high, river depths that were up to 100 ft, and the site of a log jam in 1886 so big that it had to be dynamited loose. It was a 45 minute ride that was very relaxing.

In the latter part of the 19th century the area was heavily logged (we would subsequently learn that was common throughout the upper Midwest) to fuel building booms in the growing US cities and Europe. However as each forest was depleted the loggers moved on and in the 1890 census Taylor Falls lost half of its population.

There were not many choices for dinner in town, and we went to the Chisago House Restaurant. Located on the main drag in an older impressive building, they had many comfort foods on the menu and a good salad bar. It was not Saturday so we could not have the prime rib buffet, but the food was pretty good and the service was very good. I enjoyed the pie dessert.

After dinner we drove over the St. Croix River into St. Croix Falls in Wisconsen to a food market to get some breakfast eats and snacks. To my surprise there was a newly installed, the newly painted lines limiting parking to electric vehicles was still drying on the pavement, level 2 electric charging station in the parking lot. Installed by the local electric utility it was free to use. I had not seen any electric cars in this area. It was a quick shopping trip so we only got a few miles, enough to almost get us back to our Airbnb.

The Airbnb host provided an extension cord from the garage so I could charge up the car. We had a downstairs unit that was very new, two bedrooms and lots of room. It did not have a full kitchen, but the refrigerator was sufficient to store our breakfast foods. We watched a very late sunset over the woods and farmland.
 

The Trip Back

June 16-17, 2019 Sunday and Monday, Days 28 and 29.

Sunday

We departed for the airport early, but not as early as I had planned. I wanted to get on the road by 8:00, but we left at 8:30. We had the grandson again and his dad, mom and brother would be following shortly since his plane was schedule to leave 30 minutes after ours. We were scheduled to be on the same airplane out of Reykjavik, but that was not to be.

Our host prepared an early breakfast for us and we said our goodbyes over breakfast. We got on the road first and followed the GPS as it took us through many back country roads before getting to the toll road. After driving for about 2.5 hours I took a few wrong turns around Paris before getting to the airport. We very slowly moved through the check-in line as Icelandair had only three clerks working and several flights departing.  However we were only inconvenienced and still had adequate time to make our 2:00 pm flight. My son, the father of the grandson we were transporting learned that he had been bumped off his 2:30 flight. Apparently the airline had sent him an email early in the morning which he had not seen putting him on a 1:00 pm flight which he arrived at the airport to late to board. He spent a few hours trying to work out alternative arrangements which ended up being a flight the following day.  The airline covered the hotel and meals. Much later he received cash compensation under EU rules. Passengers so inconvenienced in the US would not receive any of that.

We moved through Security and the airport uneventfully until the boarding gate where my spouse left her passport. After several frantic moments she recovered it and we settled into our seats for the flight to Reykjavik. The grandson handled all of this with aplomb. However we had a relatively short connection at Reykjavik and there were several security gates to pass through, so we were dragging him through the airport as I feared that we would miss our connecting flight.

The flight back to the US was uneventful and we were met at the airport by my daughter-in-law's mother. Everyone was pretty tired by the trip so after some dinner we all went to sleep.

Monday

It felt odd being back in the USA and without specific activities. Everyone spoke English and it was easy to get around. my only planned activity was to attend a previously scheduled dental appointment. I was assured that the dental cleaning procedure was completely covered by insurance and that point was reaffirmed in the office. I even purchased an electric toothbrush there and was told that I did not owe anything else. Since then the billing office has repeatedly billed me several hundred dollars for the procedure and is impervious to my protestations.

We took the grandson down to the playground at the park, but he was pretty wacked out by jet lag and he would not walk back.

His parents, my son, and their other child arrived late that afternoon. They too were pretty jet lagged and so we had a brief dinner and then went to bed.

Wedding and activities

June 12-15, 2019  Wednesday to Saturday Days 24-27

Wednesday

Now the real festivities start. The last of the guests arrived. They came from other points in Europe and late arrivals from the US. My son is getting his goal as many guests appear to be adding on a vacation to their trip before or after the wedding. There were cousins and other relatives that I had not seen for years.

Unfortunately it was very overcast and intermittent rain during the day. More unfortunately, my cold was at its height and my major activities during the standard daylight hours were to help set up for the evening barbeque and to move our stuff to the wedding residence complex. I did not do well with either of them and spent a good part of the day in bed. I really had no idea what most of the others did during the day, although while I was moving to the wedding residence complex it appeared that many were just hanging out there.

The evening was also overcast, but that was just an excuse for having a barbeque at Summer's place. Bruno and Karen did lots of shopping during the afternoon including 4 types of meat, the goose was the most exotic. There were about 40 people there and notwithstanding the weather I think all had a very good time. Bruno handled the barbeque under the gazebo and most people ate indoors. Lots of French wine that flowed freely.

Thursday

I was still feeling the lingering effects of the cold, but I was able to go to the store to buy snacks for the people hanging out at the residence complex. The weather was good and many guests fanned out to visit local attractions. One son had hand carried a piñata that a friend of his had made in Argentina. It was battered by the kids and grandkids.

The big daily event was a catered dinner at the residential complex. Part was outside, but part of the festivities were in a cave that extended 50 feet into the rockface. Fun dinner with lots of social interaction. I got to interact with relatives that I had not spoken with in years. Good food and drink.

Friday

This was the day, the wedding ceremony. Started off by the male cousins and siblings and myself making a chuppah at the wedding venue. The activity was held at the private home of one of Summer's friends. We cut down bamboo shoots on the grounds and bound them together into a chuppah structure It took us about 2..5 hours to complete the construction, place it in position and decorate it. Then we went off to lunch.

Invitees began to gather on the house grounds in the mid-afternoon for the ceremony. I engaged in a 15 minute or so conversation with my ex-spouse. Nothing earth shattering, just a, civil, superficial conversation catching up on what we had been doing the past half dozen years. I was told that some of our offspring were agog that we could have such a conversation and had been assuming for years that we could not be in the same room.  Fooled them.

The ceremony was light hearted and memorialized by several speakers, including myself and my ex-spouse. Again no fireworks. Dinner was good and the  entertainment that followed was fun. We ended up going well past 11:00 pm and were finally shooed out of the cave by 12:30 am by our host.

Saturday

Recovery day. Many people left in the morning and I did not see them to say goodbye.
A number of us took a trip to Chombord Castle. For a few hours we just lay around and had an ongoing picnic. Then most went into and walked around the castle. Elliot ad I and Freddy got some bikes and rode around the grounds.

We ate leftovers for dinner and packed up to leave the next morning.

Pre Wedding Activities

June 9-11, Sunday-Tuesday 2019 Days 21-23

Sunday

My sleep cycle, as usual when I go to Europe is not adjusted yet. The grandson slept late. We ate a nice breakfast with the daughter and granddaughters and after he woke up walked out with the grandson and granddaughters to take an extended look at the cows.

We then went over to the residence complex in Nazelles-Negron where the immediate family members of the wedding couple will be, or are staying. It was not completely booked by the wedding people until Wednesday and people will be checking in intermittently until then. A very nice place with several courtyards, nicely landscaped and a view of the Loire Valley.

My son whose grandson we ferried over arrived and we met him, along with our youngest daughter whom he transported down from Paris at the complex. I also met for the first time my new daughter-in-laws family, her mother sister and family and her brother.


Our oldest daughter and her husband graciously opened their home and those who had arrived had dinner there. A nice meal with a lot of mingling and getting to know people. A very good place to have a large gathering buffet meal.

On Monday I picked up our youngest son at the local train station who had flown in from Buenos Aries for the wedding celebration. I then gathered up two of the granddaughters, a son and daughter and the oldest grandson for a trip to Blois to visit the Magic Museum. I had last been there in 2015 and enjoyed it. I thought that the kids would enjoy it too. The trip along the river was a pleasant 30 minute drive and I was surprised not only that I did not get lost, but at how well I recalled Blois and getting to the museum. We had some difficulty finding a parking space until I remembered that it was a religious holiday and there was no need for a parking permit. It was ultimately a very short walk to the museum.

The museum is on a large courtyard that also hosts the Palace/Museum. One of the highlights of the Magic Museum is the dragons that emerge from the front wall.

The Museum had lots of magic exhibits and a history of magic. The best was a live 30 minute magic show in a large theatre and then an in person card show. We got lunch in a café in the courtyard and then walked around the downtown including walking up the Mona Lisa stairs.

Blois

Blois

On the drive back all the passengers fell asleep. I felt like doing the same since I was tired and getting a cold. We again had a large dinner, larger as more people were arriving, at our daughter's house. It was beginning to rain. During the dinner we had a surprise birthday party for our youngest daughter who was turning 25. She was a bit sad because she was away from her friends, but she greatly appreciated the party.  
Tuesday
The cold is descending on me. Too little sleep. It was also overcast and intermittently raining. Clean-up brigade from the prior night's dinner and party. The spouse and son-in-law went shopping for the Wednesday night dinner when there would be four dozen people. That is a big deal in a small French town since they go to multiple stores to get specific foods, eg, the special store for duck. We hung out at the daughter's farmhouse with the younger daughter. The we went over to the residence complex and hung out with more people. Finally we went into Amboise for dinner at Chez Bruno, a restaurant owned by our oldest daughter's employer. He is a mini conglomerate with not only the restaurant, but a wine store, vineyard and winery. A very nice dinner with lots of the proprietor's wine, but it is harder to mingle in a restaurant as we were able to do during the prior two night's dinners. Last night staying at the daughter's place.