The journey begins.

 From Kentwood, the birth place of Casita Rojita, we traveled to suburban Detroit and on to the north.  This was the start of the journey to explore the Mississippi River.  But first it was a stop off to see some good friends and family along the way.  

These stops included our old stomping grounds, Mackinaw City then on to the UP.  Our first night was Tahquamenon Falls State Park on to Grand Maria’s, past the picture rocks of Lake Superior.  We spent a good part of this day on a washboard dirt road that allowed to believe nothing was going to fall off or come apart on our lovely Casita.  We spent the night on Lake Michigamme State Park.

Next stop Wisconsin and a detour to take in the Apostle Islands.  It seems that at least some National Parks are not open due to good old 19.  So it was more of a drive by.  We hope this is not true further on.  But we have discovered that you have to make reservations to stay at state park campgrounds and this past weekend they were all full up.  We found a small campground that we were able to stay the night with power.  It started to rain and put out most of our campfire.

In the rainy morning we headed to Duluth and explored the rather ripped up downtown area of course in the rain.  It had turned cold. We did stop by the Duluth Trading Company, where Pan bought two pairs of wool socks. We also stopped in at Mernard’s as we needed some small plastic pipe to fix the water bottle system and found a wonderful wood crate so Susie’s legs could touch the floor in the front seat.

From here we headed to Itasca State Park, we had reservations, and the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River.  To start our adventure down the Great River Road (GRR). We also discovered that if we only had the cooler running and not charging all our electronics at the same time the battery could well survive the night in time for the solar panels to catch the light in the morning.  In other words we did not have electricity to plug into.

Friday morning we broke camp, it is nice these days as there is no rolling up sleeping bags and folding tents, we headed to Lake Itasca and the headwaters.  We spent the days wandering back roads and looking for the captain’s wheel that is the marker for the GRR. We were following a travel book that obviously was printed a while back.  We spent much of the day lost in the rain and finished with a hail storm. A stop in Bemidji to check out Paul and Babe.  We spent the night in Grand Rapids in a county fairgrounds campground.  We shared it with some folks and their horses and some kind of stock car racing. Pan and Jus must have put lots of insulation in Casita’s walls as we were surprised at the noise as we headed to the john.

We discovered there is an app for the GRR, Pan had it hiding on her phone, but it made the green captain’s wheels much easier to find.  Thus a smoother day. We had intermittent rain but saw a lot of the river running next to farm fields and through small towns.  Decided to impose on a friend’s driveway as we had had it with trying to find empty campsites.  It is Sunday and we are making a late start.  Pan is also trying to create this blog.