Out of Our Rut Blog Welcome Page

Welcome to the Out of Our Rut blog landing page.

Who we are:

We are a couple of former engineers that lived and worked in the Rochester New York area for over 30 years. When we were laid off from two different companies, one day apart, we took that as a sign to change things up. We had built a beautiful home on 50 acres and loved the place, but with plenty of time on our hands, we began to travel more and realized that when we were on the road for weeks on end, we didn't really miss all the “stuff” we had back home. Plus the work involved with maintaining our home and property seemed to be the only reason we would head back home. That prompted us to get out of our rut and sell 95% of our possessions and our home and move into our 38 foot motorhome and travel the country full time starting in June of 2016.

Chris and Jack Hiking in Washington State

At Pullout Along Rugged Oregon Coast

Our mission:

To explore the country with a strong bias towards outdoor activities. Our passions are hiking and geocaching with some mountain biking on the side. I am an avid photographer. I guess working at Eastman Kodak for 32 years had an influence in that. And while we live in a motorhome and stay in many campgrounds, we really are not campers. We seldom have campfires and don't have a corn hole game. We rarely stay at a campground for its amenities. We pick a place that is near where we want to explore. We think of it more like our home happens to have wheels and can move around. Our desire in these travels is to slow the pace. We didn't want to see if we could get to all the National Parks as quickly as possible. We like to keep a travel day to less than 200 miles and if the place warrants, stay for a week or more.

At Geocaching Headquarters in Seattle for #10,000

The blog:

For friends and family (as well as us) to keep track of what we have been up to, we have created this blog. It chronicles where we've been and what we've done as we wander around the country. Each stop along the way will, at minimum, get mentioned in the blog. Some longer stops in areas we enjoyed may get multiple blog posts in order to give that stop it's due. Generally the blog has lots of photographs as I find it difficult to eliminate photos I like. The blog will talk about the campground to some extent, but it shouldn't be considered a campground review. We seldom seem to exhaust the things we want to explore before we exhaust ourselves and need to move on. That means we may completely skip some activities or places in an area that others may consider essential. We look at that as a reason to come back in the future.

Pretty Sunset in Quartzite Arizona

At the Window in Big Bend National Park

This landing page:

The problem with just about any blog is that fact it is chronological. This is fine since that is how the events occurred in real life. But since our blog is so much about a given location, it can be difficult for somebody to find a specific blog post for a given location. I even find it a challenge to remember when we happened to be at a given location if I wanted to look something up. For instance, if someone asked about Twin Falls Idaho. I know we stayed there but it might take me awhile to figure out that we were there in June of 2017 to get them to the right post. If I could only look at a map of all the places we have stayed and have an easy way to get to the relevant blog post.

Since I already use Google My Maps to keep track of our locations, I have created a special map that has all of our stops since going full time. None of the routes are included in the map since that just seems to clutter it up and don't really add value. By clicking the link below the map, an interactive map with all of our stops will open in another window. It is then possible to move around the map and zoom in an area of interest. Clicking on any pin on the map will pop up the name of the location along with a link to the blog post(s) associated with that stop. Since I am nearly always 2 to 4 weeks behind in the blog, some of the most recent map points may not have a link to a blog, but they will in time. The GREEN pins are locations that happen to include one of our annual or yearly reviews.

So if you want to see what we found to explore in a given area, this should provide a much easier way to find the blog post.

Click HERE to open interactive Google map

2025 Year End Review

With 2025 coming to an end, we are celebrating nine and a half years of living on the road full time in our 38 foot motorhome. We began and finished the year at our RV lot in Titusville Florida at The Great Outdoors (TGO). We purchased the lot almost 2 years ago. It’s a fairly basic lot with a nice flat concrete driveway and the standard full hook up utilities but it does have a 10 foot by 12 foot shed which is very convenient for working on projects over the months we will be stationary here. The resort has a lot of nice amenities but we don’t take advantage of most of them. I must admit that I do miss the occasional winter spent out in southern California and Arizona where the hiking and views are a lot nicer.

We started out 2025 wrapping up some of our doctors appointments in an attempt to get our old bodies in shape for another six months of travel. Our plans for the year were to explore some of the upper Midwest. As we looked into what we wanted to see and do in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, we picked out a few events that were both location and date specific. These types of stops have a much firmer window that form the rough outline and timing of our journey.

The first event was to take part in a Habitat for Humanity build in Marquette Michigan in the Upper Peninsula. The two week window for the RV-Care-A-Vanner program was from mid to late June. The second planned event was to attend the Oshkosh Air Show in Wisconsin. This weeklong show runs in late July. With those two points on our map we have quite a bit of distance and time to fill in before, between and after these events.

It is definitely a time consuming task to map out a route, plan our camping stops and figure out how long we want to stay in areas along the way. We spent a few weeks over last winter researching things to see and do in various cities along the route. Where is the good hiking or points of interest?  I use a Google Map and a website called Furkot to piece together a plan. As we get a better handle on our route and timing, we can start to make reservations at various campgrounds and by the end of April we had a 70% of the nights reserved out through Labor Day. We have found that after then, we can be much more serendipitous about our planning for the route back to Florida.

Below is a map of our route for the year. By starting and returning to the same place, the map is a bit confusing. I have a link below the map that will open the actual Google Map which allows others to zoom and pan around to get a better view of the route. Clicking on any of the pins for a travel stop will pop up a window with the name of the stop as well as the blog post related to that stop.

Click HERE to open the Google Map

We left Titusville in late April with just over 7 weeks to make our way to Marquette. While getting the rig serviced in South Carolina, we needed to make a quick drive up to Ohio for a death in the family. It was nice to see so many relatives and friends even if it was at a sad time. We continued our journey with 2 weeks in a few state parks in the southern Appalachians.  In Cincinnati, we got a chance to get together with family and have some Skyline Chili and Graeters Ice Cream. We managed to sneak in a stop at a National Park and get our motorhome windshield replaced in northern Indiana. Then we worked our way up north through Michigan stopping at a few Elks Lodges before crossing over the Mackinac Bridge into the Upper Peninsula. The time spent working with the Habitat for Humanity affiliate in Marquette was quite rewarding and we learned a few construction tricks.

We had about 3 weeks before the Oshkosh Air Show and we got to explore the western side of the UP at a few different campgrounds before working our way south into Wisconsin. We really enjoyed the air show and you’ll read more about that later in this post. Then we continued west into Minnesota where we spent the next 37 nights at various county and state parks. I was able to talk my wife into a side trip into eastern North Dakota to experience what others have called the Disneyland of geocaching - more on that later as well.

It was about this time that we “called an audible”. We had previously planned to head back to Marquette and help out again on the Habitat build and see how it had progressed since our stop in June. But after we had talked with some fellow campers while in Minnesota, we decided to return to Minnesota to check out the north shore area along Lake Superior. This gave us the opportunity to even meet up with my nephew and his wife from Cincinnati while they were in town for her high school reunion. By then it was late September and we figured we better start making our way south to avoid the cold and snow that is inevitable for this area.

We stopped in the Apostle Islands in northern Wisconsin for several days where we got a chance to explore some of the unique landscape along the shoreline. As we headed south, we got to experience a cranberry harvest up close and personal and visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin both in Wisconsin. We continued through parts of Iowa, Illinois and Indiana with Chris making a return to her college town of Peoria after 40 years!

Coming through Tennessee, we got to spend a week back in the mountains to see the fall colors before timing our drive through Atlanta on a Sunday morning to minimize the traffic. A few days in a state park in Georgia and a couple of overnight stops at Elks Lodges and we made it back to Florida. It felt good when we returned to TGO after being gone for 190 nights. Things have definitely slowed down over the last two months as we get back to doing some work on the motorhome, our lot and getting in doctors appointments.

Here are a few more maps to help show where we spent our time. These “heat maps” are shaded to reflect the number of nights spent in each state - dark red is more nights, pale red is fewer nights. The first one is just for 2025. We camped in 13 different states this year with Florida, Minnesota and Michigan coming in the top 3 spots. The second map is similar but includes all 9.5 years we’ve been fulltime. The final map is the full 9.5 years but divided down to the county level to get a better understanding of where we were in each state.

Our 2025 Camping Map

Our 9.5 Year Camping Map

9.5 Years at County Level

Lots of people ask “how much does this lifestyle cost?”  Well the table below should help answer that. It doesn’t include items that would be spent if we were living in a sticks and bricks home like groceries, dining out, health care, clothing. But it does include camping costs as well as fuel for both the motorhome and the car as well as the miles driven. We did put on more miles on the rig this year but not significantly more.  Nothing else was all that surprising. Since the actual table has so many years now, I only include the past six years.  One other aspect is that the cost per night here at TGO is initially an educated estimate but I won’t have our last rental income check for the year until mid February at which point I will update the spreadsheet and this table.

Just the Stats for the Past 6 Years

The table does breakdown the type of places we have camped into four categories: boondocking, state parks, private campgrounds and Elks Lodges. While we tend to like state, county or city parks over private campgrounds, location is our most important consideration when picking a campground as well as availability and do we fit in the site. This year we did bump up our state park number a little bit compared the past couple of years. Our overall cost per night worked out to be just over $32 - a bit higher than many years but again not significantly higher.

Like we have done in past year end reviews, we have looked over the 49 stops from this year and tried to identify our favorites. After the votes were tallied, we came up with 8 clear winners. Don't look at this list as the best campgrounds we stayed at during the year. I will provide the name of the campground we stayed at but these winning stops are based purely on its location or what we found to see and do in the area. I will also warn readers that one place on the list might be a mediocre location if you’re not an avid geocacher but we found it to be quite entertaining.

For each winning stop, there is a short description of what we liked about it, a link to the first blog post for that location which will provide much more information about the stop and some of our favorite pictures from the stop. Since I am behind on my blog writing, there are some of the stops without the link to the post but this will be updated as they are written. In chronological order, here are the top 8 stops for 2025.

• Cloudland Canyon State Park, Trenton Georgia - We had done a day trip to this park back in 2021 and fell in love with the park and it’s wonderful hikes and views. We managed to get a spot for 5 nights and found it to be a rather roomy site. The final 8 miles into the parking lot is up a rather steep and curving road. It is doable in a rig our size but not necessarily fun. We repeated one of our favorite hikes the West Rim Loop. By staying in the park for multiple days, we were able to hike Sitton’s Gulch Trail which follows the base of the valley along a creek. This park is not too far from Chattanooga so we spent one day exploring some of the sights in that town including the Chattanooga Choo Choo. Cloudland Canyon is a nice relaxing place to visit in northern Georgia.

Cloudland Canyon Blog Post

Cloudland Canyon View

Large Overhanging Rock

• Union River Big Bear Campground, Silver City Michigan - Situated in the far western part of the Upper Peninsula, this private campground is pretty much surrounded by the Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park. We stayed here for a week after completing our Habitat build in Marquette. It is a remote location that didn’t have any cell coverage for our devices but there was reasonable WiFi that worked in our rig. There are many hiking trails within the park and we take advantage of many of them. The main feature of this area are the numerous waterfalls - more of them than can be seen in the time we were here. We had found a decent guide that rated the falls on beauty and ease of getting to the viewing location and we managed to hit a great number of the better ones. The only real problem with this stop was coming in early July - the bugs were pretty bad at times. If you can time your visit for the fall colors, I bet the views would be spectacular and the bugs would be less of an issue.

First Porcupine Mountains Blog Post

Lake of the Clouds

Beautiful Bond Falls

• Hancock Recreation Area Campground, Hancock Michigan - This stop isn’t all that far from the Porcupine Mountains but there is so much to see and do in this area that it would be a challenge to attempt both areas from one campground. Situated on the Keweenaw Peninsula that juts out into Lake Superior, this part of the UP was formerly a big copper mining area. Several of the old mines and facilities have been taken over by the National Park Service and offer a wide range of interesting tours. We did head up to Copper Harbor to explore an old lighthouse and fort. This area is known for some excellent mountain biking be we didn’t get a chance to try any bike trails and only got In minimal hiking since there were so many other things to see and do and we only had 5 nights in Hancock.

First Keweenaw Peninsula Blog Post

Shaft-Rock House at Quincy Mine

Eagle Harbor Light House

Incredible Stone Building in Calumet

• Camp Scholler Air Show, Oshkosh Wisconsin - Usually I don’t try to rank our tops picks for any given year, but this stop was so much fun that it was easily our favorite place of 2025 and rates up with the Albuquerque Balloon Festival and the Lake Havasu Pyrotechnics Show as bucket list destinations. Similar to these other two, Oshkosh is only on the list because of the event that takes place every July - the EAA Airventure Show. There are around 12,000 mostly primitive camping sites in a 400 acre field so you’re not here for the camping experience. But for a full week, you can join in with roughly 100,000 other visitors each day and partake in everything aviation related. We are not at all into airplanes or flying but we still had a great time. There are 4 hour long airshows each afternoon and two nights during the week are nighttime airshows with planes, fireworks, laser lights and drones which were some of the most incredible events to behold. My blog post listed below will provide all the details about attending and what you’ll see while at Oshkosh. Add it to your bucket list!

Oshkosh Air Show Blog Post

Large Group of Warbirds During Air Show

Colorful Aerobatic Biplane

Nighttime Air Show Begins

• Bear Paw Campground Lake Itasca State Park, Shelvin Minnesota - In mid August, we spent 9 nights camping inside Lake Itasca State Park in northern Minnesota. The park’s claim to fame is being the headwaters of the Mississippi River. It’s one of the few places along this 2300 mile long river where visitors are encouraged to walk across from one side to the other. It’s only about 15 feet and ankle deep so it isn’t all that impressive of a feat. There are many miles of hiking trails to enjoy. The 11 mile paved bike path right out of the campground can be linked with a gravel one way wilderness drive for a great 17 mile loop around the lake.

Being there for an extended time, we were able to venture out of the park to see some other sights. The Heartland Trail a little southeast of camp was a wonderful bike ride out of the town of Walker. Possibly the highlight of the stop was a day trip to the town of Detroit Lakes to see the trolls. These 6 art installations are scattered all around the area and we found it is a full day to get them all in since most of them are not right at a parking area but require a bit of a walk. But the effort was worth it.

 Blog Post Not Written Yet

Calm Waters of Lake Itasca Near Sunset

The First Few Feet of the Mighty Mississippi River

Chris Mimics Ronny Funny Face Troll

• Turtle River State Park, Arvilla North Dakota - Located 25 miles outside of Grand Forks is the small town of Gilby North Dakota. Small is an understatement - population ~240 people! The nearest campground was this state park about 10 miles away. Why did we want to go to this blip on the map in the middle of farm fields and not much else? That’s easy - geocaching. We had heard about Gilby on a geocaching podcast we routinely listen to and it sounded quite intriguing. When we put together our travel plans for Minnesota, I realized that we were only going to be 150 miles from Gilby and talked Chris into heading there. This place is known as the Disneyland of geocaching mainly because of one very creative cache hider named Trycacheus.

We spend 3 full days driving all over the backroads of Gilby in search of some of the most creative caches we’ve done over our 15+ years of geocaching. Most of the hides involved some sort of puzzle that must be solved in order to open the final cache container and each puzzle was very unique. Some were complicated and required a fair amount of thought while others were simply cute and fun to solve. Brainpower was used for most of them but a few required strength or throwing accuracy. In our 6 nights there, we found 71 caches with 50 of them having over 100 favorite points. We were there a couple weeks before some big geocaching event but that probably worked out in our favor so we could enjoy the time spent solving them in solitude. There were a few other things to see in the area but not many. So if you are a geocacher, this is a must do stop, otherwise you will likely skip this part of North Dakota.

 

 Blog Post Not Written Yet

Giant Anvil Weathervane is a Geocache

ET Phone Home Bike Cache

Geocaching Swiss Army Knife Cache

• Black Beach Campground, Silver Bay Minnesota - This stop wasn’t planned until a couple weeks before staying there. We only decided to consider checking out this part of Minnesota known as the “North Shore” after several people talked about how beautiful it is and a tour of the state should include seeing it. It’s an area that extends about 150 miles northeast of Duluth to the Canadian border near Grand Portage all along the northern shore of Lake Superior. We worked 4 nights into our schedule to check it out. There are a fair number of campgrounds along the route and some of the state parks looked nice but didn’t have availability during our timeframe. We picked Silver Bay because it was roughly halfway along the North Shore so we could easily explore in either direction.

There are numerous places to see with lots of waterfalls and other attractions. Gooseberry Falls and Split Rock Lighthouse were two of our favorites. One day was spent exploring all the way up to Grand Portage just before the border crossing. We did a beautiful hike there and found lots of places to stop at on our drive back. If you do make it to the area, you should really check out Betty’s Pies in Two Harbors. Had we only known to include the North Shore as we were planning our tour of Minnesota, we would have allotted more time to explore.

 Blog Post Not Written Yet

Split Rock Lighthouse Reflection

Gooseberry Falls State Park

Black Beach

Finally Saw the Northern Lights

• Top of the World Campground, Tellico Plains Tennessee - This was our last long stop before heading back to Florida for the winter. We really enjoy spending time in the Appalachian Mountains and doing so in the fall is even better. Having spent most of our time in these mountains on the North Carolina side near Asheville, we picked this out of the way campground to spend a week exploring. We found some quirky things to see in the area including tours of Mayfield Dairy and Sweetwater Valley farms where we saw robotic cow milking equipment in action.

There are many nice hikes to do in this area but it might be most famous for Cherohala Skyway - a 43 mile stretch of road from Tellico Plain TN to Robbinsville NC. It’s a very scenic drive through the mountains and we had (accidentally) timed our visit to be near peak autumn colors. This road ties into another drive called the Tail of the Dragon and many car enthusiasts come here from far away to drive these roads. The day we drove a section of it, there was an Aston Martin car club enjoying the drive - a total of 38 from vintage ones like James Bond drove to brand new models. They would have been much more fun to drive than the Jeep!

 Blog Post Not Written Yet

View from Our Campsite at Top of the World

River View Along Cherohala Skyway

Indian Boundary Lake TN

Below is a map showing all 435 places we have camped in the past eight and a half years. For additional information on any of them, click on the link below the map which will open the actual Google Map I use. Pan and zoom on the map and by clicking on any pin, a window will pop up with the name of the location and a link to the blog post(s) for that place. Those interested in hiking, mountain biking, geocaching or nature photography, may find some of the posts useful if you plan to visit an area we have explored. Our blog posts are more about the interesting locations we discovered during our stops and less about campground reviews so don't expect to find much information about what campground is the best in a specific area.

Click HERE to Open Interactive Google Map

We still haven’t made any plans for where 2026 will take us but I’m sure we will come up with something in the next couple months.

Twin Cities MN Part 3

Map of this blog's locations click this link to open the map

We had a lot to fit in during the rest of our stop at Rice Creek Chain of Lakes Campground in Lino Lakes Minnesota, a little north of St. Paul. Chris had looked into visiting the Minneapolis Institute of Art but she realized that while I would be willing to go there, it wouldn’t be high on my list. But while checking out this place, she discovered that they also owned a historic house in town and offer tours one weekend a month. What's so special about this home that would be something I might be more interested in? It is a type of architecture called Prairie School, which is a style that we both really appreciate. While not designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, it is in the same style that he was famous for. So Chris reserved spots on a tour Sunday at 1 PM.

Since it was going to be a bit of a drive from our new campground to the house, we looked at what else there is to see and do in that general direction and planned a day surrounding the house tour. We start out at Lakewood Cemetery. There are several Adventure Labs in the cemetery which should help show some of its more famous residents.

Entrance Circle at Lakewood Cemetery

This is a big cemetery covering 250 acres so we should have arrived earlier in the day if we hoped to explore the 20 stops included in our tour. There is also a walking tour provided online by the cemetery but this would have been even more daunting, with 66 stops.

Stained Glass in Chapel

A few of the famous people interred here are the founder of the Mars candy company and Herbert H. Humphrey who was a senator from Minnesota and also the Vice President during the Johnson administration in the late 1950’s. But the only person I can honestly say I remember was Herbert Khaury. You likely wouldn’t have known him by that name but you might if I said Tiny Tim - of "tiptoe through the tulips" fame.

RIP Tiny Tim

When we arrived at the the Memorial Chapel, we needed to read a plaque hanging by the front door. This shouldn’t have been a big deal to do except there was some sort of event taking place and many visitors were entering the building. I took the opportunity to walk up when the coast was clear but I was greeted by a woman at the door. Turns out there was a violinist performing that afternoon. I explained I just needed to read the sign although she did mention that she believed there were still tickets air we wanted to join them.

Memorial Chapel at Lakewood Cemetery

We had to hustle back to the car in order to have time to drive to the house tour just a few miles away and eat lunch. We managed to walk almost 3 miles and completed 13 of the planned stops. It was quite the place and hoped to come back after the tour but ended up finding something else to do.

Mars Family Mausoleum

The Purcell-Cutts house was designed by William Purcell in 1913. He was a contemporary of Frank Lloyd Wright and might have even been considered a competitor. The house was designed and built for himself and his family but they only lived in it for a few years. It was then sold to Anson Cutts in 1919 and that one family lived in and owned the home until 1985 when it was bequeathed to the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 1985. After a lengthy restoration project, it was opened to the public in 1990. The home does definitely stand out as quite different from all of the neighboring homes. One strange design element was the mostly flat roof which seems like it would be problematic in Minneapolis winters.

Exterior of Purcell-Cutts Home

Details on House Beams

Our tour consisted of one guide and about a dozen visitors. They squeeze tour groups in hourly so we start out in the front yard where we get some of the history of the architect, the design and the Cutts family that lived here for so many decades without making very many modifications so the home is essentially as it was originally designed. As the previous group leaves, we headed in to don our booties so we don’t soil the carpets - good thing because our shoes were soaked from walking through the damp grass at the cemetery for a couple hours.

Main Room

Bookcase

Desk Area

We work our way from room to room, stopping long enough to get more history as well as have some of the more unusual aspects of the home design.

Goose Rider

Tapestry

Fireplace Detail

Each room seems to have a great deal of detail including some very nice stained glass windows. The side lights at the front door have “Peek a Boo” artistically worked into the design.

Tour Group Gathered by Fireplace

More Stained Glass on Front Windows

Peek A Boo

As might be expected for the age of the house and the lack of updates to it over the years, the kitchen seems a bit underwhelming but functional. The dining room chairs were a very unique design that included small stained glass inserts in the back rest.

Minimal Kitchen

Dining Room Chairs with Stained Glass Accent

As we headed upstairs, there are even more details to catch your eye. Not all of the woodwork was quarter sawn white oak. When I asked the tour guide, she did say when it was designed, some cheaper woods were used but stained to make it look more expensive.

Stairs to Second Floor

Cozy Bed Nook

Bedroom

We enjoyed the tour of the Purcell-Cutts home. There were some beautiful features.

Unusual Lamp and Stenciling

Bathroom

Since it was a beautiful day and just midafternoon, we decided to check out some of this part of town. We had an Adventure Lab that toured us around the nearby Lake of the Isles. A trail follows the shoreline of this lake and is a flat 2.6 mile loop. It was a warm afternoon and this is a very popular place to walk, run or ride a bike. One nice aspect of the trail is there are actually separate walking and biking trails. We didn’t realize that initially but figured it out pretty quickly.

Lake of the Isles

One of the first stops a was a rather unusual lawn ornament of sorts. A homeowner had a 100 year old oak tree damaged by a storm. Rather than completely removing the tree, they had the trunk carved. The more traditional design used in chainsaw carving of a tree might be a bear or eagle, but this homeowner wanted a giant Number 2 pencil. It seemed like many visitors to the area found this place for a selfie.

Very Big No 2 Pencil

As we continued around the lake, it was clear this is a very affluent neighborhood. The homes and churches were big and beautiful with well manicured lawns and gardens.

Beautiful Stone Church

Unusual Roof Line

Our tour led us a few blocks from the walking path into the surrounding neighborhood. Our goal was to see the Mary Tyler Moore House. For those too young to remember, Mary was an actress best known for her roles in the Dick Van Dyke show in the 1960’s and The Mary Tyler Moore Show from the 1970’s. In that show she played a producer at a local Minneapolis news station. The home we were looking for was never actually Mary’s real home. It was simply used as the exterior of the place she rented an upstairs apartment for the show and appears in the opening credits. Safe to say we wouldn’t have stumbled apron this location on our own.

House Made Cameo in Mary Tyler Moore Show

We finished up the walk around the lake. Besides all the people walking and biking, there were a fair number out on the water in kayaks or other watercraft. A few teenagers were diving off a bridge trying to beat the heat. The downtown skyline can be seen in the distance. We likely ended up with a 3 mile walk and enjoyed seeing the area.

Downtown Visible Across Lake

The following day we head out for a bike ride. Our starting point will be at Duluth Junction. There are actually two different rail trails that come together here. The Gateway State Trail traverses 18 miles from just north of St Paul to the northeast to a regional park. The Browns Creek State starts at Duluth Junction and heads mainly east to the town of Stillwater. We picked this option since Stillwater looked to be an interesting place to visit and there were also numerous geocaches along this route. Trailhead parking is about a quarter mile north of the start of our trail but we simply ride along the Gateway Trail to get to our intended route.

Duluth Junction

The downside of starting at Duluth Junction and heading east is that the ride is mainly downhill to Stillwater. That’s not a problem for the first half of the ride, but we will eventually need to turn around and come back uphill. We hope the 350 feet of elevation won’t be too bad. The first few miles of the trail is nice and we manage to find a few geocaches along the way. At around 3.4 miles, we hit a detour. It wasn’t clear the cause of the closure but the good news was that even though the detour followed a road, there were independent bike lanes so car traffic wasn’t a problem.

Detour Ahead

As we approached the town of Stillwater, the dedicated bike lanes ended but there wasn’t too much traffic on the city streets. We stop at one park that overlooks the downtown area and gives a nice view of the bridges across the St Croix River. The last portion of the ride into town is down a rather steep hill which won’t be fun on the return trip.

View of St Croix River from Pioneer Park

We had timed our arrival into town for about noon and Chris had picked out a lunch stop just on the south side of town - The Oasis Cafe. We stopped to take in a few views of the river on our way to lunch. The old lift bridge was kind of neat. At one boat dock we spotted some river boats. It seemed quite odd that a town of under 20,000 people would be able to justify there being at least 5 different river boats but apparently it’s a popular pastime here.

Historic Lift Bridge

River Boats

Even More River Boats

The cafe worked well for us. They had outside seating so we could park our bikes near our table, enjoy the view and not feel self conscious about being sweaty from our 7 mile ride so far. Plus the food was good. We considered biking a loop across the river into Wisconsin and back, but realized that we should save our energy for the hill we needed to climb out of town. We stop at the old lift bridge to get a better view of it. This used to be a bridge for vehicles but was converted to pedestrian and bikes back in 2020 when a newer bridge was built downstream.

Closer Look at Lift Bridge

View of Stillwater from Bridge

We had a few more places to check out on the north side of town. The old warden’s house was neat looking building from the 1850’s. It’s now a museum but we passed on taking a look inside. The downtown area definitely looks like it has been nicely converted from some of its industrial past.

Warden's House

Former Sawmill Turned Into Retail Space

The first quarter mile coming out of town was a difficult climb but we made it. We paused for a few other stops along the way and finished the day with 15.5 miles on the bikes.

Lake McKusick

Water Lily

The next day was spent dealing with the Jeep. Our windshield washer pump didn’t seem to be working since back in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. When I had the car in for an oil change in Sheboygan, they had concluded it required a new pump but couldn’t get one delivered in the time we would be in the area. I had called a dealer in Minneapolis with the hopes that they could use the other shop’s diagnosis to order a pump and have it on hand when I brought the car in but that wasn’t how they worked. They would need to go through their own analysis. After waiting for a couple hours, the service advisor came and told me it was a bad pump but it wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow.  But instead of reassembling the car so I could drive it home and come back again tomorrow, they offered me a loaner car - a Jeep Gladiator.

Jack's New Ride?

I found the Gladiator wasn’t all that nice of a ride so we didn’t go out to drive it much the next day. Instead we decided to walk around Rice Creek Park, checking out some of the trails. There was some south sort of children’s group playing at the beach. The trails we tried were nice but partway into our walk, I received a call saying our Grand Cherokee was ready to be picked up so we headed back to the rig and drove to the dealership.

Centerville Lake Beach Near Campground

We had a geocaching event to attend from 4 to 6 this afternoon but since we got the car back much sooner than we expected, we were able to head out beforehand and find geocaches in a couple more counties to the west and north of camp. One place we stopped at was at Woodland Trails Park near the town of Elks River. We had selected this place simply because it has a cache hidden fairly early in the life of geocaching - February 2001. We have only found 35 caches that are older than this one. But it turns out that this park was also quite nice. There are several miles of trails that looked to be inviting. Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to explore if we hoped to make it to the event on time.

Woodland Trails Park

North Mickey Trail Toward Old Geocache

Our geocaching event was at Lakeside Park near the town of Blaine Minnesota. There was a great turnout although the fact that it was an ice cream social may have contributed to the good attendance. The hosts provided chocolate or vanilla ice cream with numerous toppings to make a nice sundae. We enjoyed meeting so many of the locals and picked their brains about what other things we should consider visiting as we continued our travels in their state.

Lakeside Park Near Geocaching Ice Cream Event

For our last full day in the Twin Cities area, we head to another park on the east side of St Paul. Battle Creek Regional Park is big - over 1800 acres. It has many miles of hiking trails as well as dozens of geocaches. The park is spread across a couple different areas although it does look like you can hike between them.

We start the day hiking in the easternmost section. We had possibly the most elaborate Wherigo cache we have ever attempted. For those unfamiliar, this style of cache requires running an application on a smart device and then navigating to multiple locations and answering questions. Normally a Wherigo might take you to a sign and you need to answer some trivial question like when was this plaque dedicated. This one was much more involved and to a certain extent spooky. It would place scary music as you went from one location to the next. We ended up walking over 2 miles doing this and a few other geocaches in this area. The other quite unusual thing about this park is the off leash dog park. We have seen many of these during our travels but this one was huge. The fenced in area covers 35 acres! As we wandered through it to find a cache, we saw a few dogs running around. We can only imagine how many dogs go missing when the owner decides it’s time to leave.

After eating lunch, we drive over to a different section of the park to get in a more conventional hike. This portion was clearly setup for cross country skiing. Not only were the trails fairly wide and meandering but the area was rather hilly which would make for good skiing. Maybe the more impressive aspect of the trail system is that it appears to be lighted and has snow making capability. These Minnesotans are serious about their winter activities.  We got in another 2 miles or so of hiking and found the 5 caches hidden here before heading back to camp.

Cross Country Ski Trail at Battle Creek Regional Park

We had seen earlier in our stay at Rice Creek that the small town of Centerville just a couple miles away was going to have their water ski jumping team performing that evening at 7 PM. We came back after dinner with our chairs and took in the show. Having seen the other show in Northern Wisconsin, we sort of had an idea of what to expect.

At Start of Ski Show

Flying Skiers

The Bald Eagle Water Ski Team started out with some of the younger team members - some barely big enough to stand up on their skis. Like the previous water ski program, this one had a “theme” to it. This one was loosely based on the TV show Survivor.

Barefoot Skiers

And They're Off

And Then There Were Three

The couple dozen performers were divided into a tribes and they would use the various skiing runs like Survivor uses challenges.

Occasionally skiers would be eliminated if they fell down on a jump or during some sort of acrobatic lift.

Graceful Skiers

Upside Down

If two contestants completed their performance, they would be brought up onto the stage and the audience would vote by cheering.

Coming in for Landing

Only One Landed Cleanly

They definitely put on an entertaining show and did a nice job of having something going on without large time gaps.

Two Pyramids

Four Jumpers

Lost Their Skis

This team used a special platform on the dock to build their pyramid of 6 prior to being pulled off the dock. It looked challenging but they pulled it off.

Six Person Pyramid Gets Ready

And They're Off

Success

There were lots of talented skiers although it seemed like the team we saw in Spread Eagle earlier this summer might have been just a bit more polished.

Backwards Skier

Look Ma, No Hands

As the night went on, the sun started to set across the lake and provided for some dramatic photos.

Low Sun Angle Reflection

Reenacting Lift On Dry Land

Impressive Pyramid Group

The winner of the Survivor competition was announced but the whole team celebrated.

Boat Nearly Flips!

Bald Eagle Team Celebrates

When we first made our reservations for Minnesota this past winter we had plans for 18 nights at two state parks near Bemidji. But the drive from the Twin Cities was a bit further than we typically like to travel so we had picked a Corps of Engineers campground near Brainerd as an intermediate stop along the way. It was 150 miles to Gull Lake Recreation Area. The campground was nice enough but I must admit the narrow road through it to our site was a bit nerve wracking. It didn’t help that I had someone following me in but they patiently waited while I got backed into our site. Since we got in at a reasonable time, I had the opportunity to head out for a few more caches in Minnesota counties that we haven’t been to before.

After driving around and picking up 7 more counties today, it was clear that this part of the state has some interesting places to see and we should have actually budgeted more days here to try to see some of it.

Mille Lacs Lake

Wally the Walleye