Katy Trail and Jefferson City

Covered in kudzu

October 16, 2012

Staying in Montgomery City, we decided to look around for hiking opportunities in this area and ended up on the Katy Trail near McKittrick, Missouri. The Katy Trail is built on old railroad beds, just like the trail we traveled in South Dakota. (See Wind Cave National Park and Mikelson Trail) This one stretches 240 miles across Missouri and is quite beautiful.

McKittrick "station" on the trail

Years ago on a visit to St. Charles, Missouri, we hiked a section of the Katy Trail as well  Today we didn't go far, maybe about 1/2 mile.  The weather was really hot and neither of us were really into hiking today.  But I did snap a few pictures.  We saw quite a few birds on the trail, one of which was some kind of owl shadowing us as we walked.

Beautiful Katy Trail

We left the trail and decided to take a big loop and drove through the capital city, Jefferson City.  The state capital building is magnificent, built along the lines of Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's famous home.

The Dome

We didn't get there until after hours so we couldn't go inside.  The grounds are nicely laid out and the dome looked beautiful in the afternoon light.

Jefferson

I had a terrible time getting a good photo of the statue of Thomas Jefferson because he was in partial shade.  This one is the best I could do. 

The grounds

The afternoon light was gorgeous

All in all, a nice day.  We got to see some of the scenic Missouri countryside, ate dinner in an "authentic" Mexican restaurant and saw the beautiful capital building.

Wineries and Graveyards

October 15, 2012

We left the U.P. on Saturday morning and made it as far as Dubuque, Iowa that night.  It was a really long pull for one day, over 350 miles.  Usually, we try not to go over 200 miles.  We spent the night in the Walmart parking lot there.  We asked the manager when we pulled in if it was okay to put our slides out.  He said no problem.  It would have been perfect if we hadn't been parked at a slight angle.  Couldn't put our leveling jacks out as we were still hooked up to the truck so we spent a "crooked" night.  At least our heads were above our feet and we were able to watch our satellite TV!

The next day we drove another 300 miles to land in Montgomery City, Missouri, home of the Lazy Days Campground, where we stayed for a week.  As luck would have it, Missouri's changing fall color was at it's peak, so we got to experience the change all over again.  Wow!  Being such a "desert/city" girl, I enjoyed every changing tree the second time around.

Missouri color

By the time Monday rolled around, we were ready to do something fun.  Jim had spent much of the past two days driving.  I finally got to drive the rig myself on the way to Missouri so Jim could take a nap.  It was raining the entire first day on the way to Dubuque and I got to drive through the rain....I thought I would be nervous but after the first five minutes I was able to relax and enjoy the experience.

We decided to go visit one of my favorite wineries, the Stone Hill Winery in Hermann, Missouri.  This was the third time we had visited this winery.  They have fabulous red wines made from Norton grapes.  I haven't found this kind of wine anywhere else yet.  I believe it is a regional grape.  We had lunch there as well, at their Vintage 1847 Restaurant.

Entrance to the restaurant

Jim posted a few pictures from there on FaceBook the day we were there.  We don't usually drink with our meals but since we were at a winery, of course we had a glass of wine with our meal.  Superb!  Bought a few bottles for the wine cabinet in the trailer.

Inside Stone Hill Winery

Who, me?

We visited two more wineries today, the Alan Puchta Winery and the Oak Glen Winery, also in Hermann. Bought wines from both and managed to fill my 12-bottle wine cabinet today with great wines! 





















On the way back to the trailer we were driving down one of the lesser known highways, sightseeing, and came across this small cemetary.  Of course we stopped!  Jim knows better than to pass up a graveyard when I'm in the truck. 

Just a child

We spent an hour wandering among the graves, wondering aloud at the history and family ties.  Reading headstones can be a basic genealogy lesson as well as an emotional testimony to the past.  There was a gravestone from a man who was born in 1789 and died in 1845.  His name was Rees Bryan. I actually looked him up on the Ancestry.com website and found him and his family.  Children's graves are the saddest to come upon, especially when we see multiple children from the same parents.  Their lives were hard.

 Interesting day.

Sighted on the way home

Goodbye, U.P.!

October 12, 2012

Our last night in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan was bittersweet.  On the one hand, we were ready for some new scenery.  On the other hand, we have had such a marvelous time living in this part of the country.  This was so totally different from any place Jim or I have ever lived.  We are used to the desert climates in California and New Mexico.

We sat around tonight around our last campfire here, Jim with his cigar and both of us toasting our time here and reliving some of the highlights of our adventures in the U.P.

Our Last night

Our campsite

Last sunset

 We have met some wonderful people, especially our camp hosts, Pat and Doug.  They really made our trip to the U.P. so enjoyable.  We hung out with them many days and spent many nights laughing and joking around the campfires.  Other people came and went in the park, but none stayed as long as we did.  It was due to Pat and Doug's invitation that we went on the Senior Color Tour and had that great experience on the ATV's.  I'm sure we will keep in touch in the years to come.

Light House in Escanaba

Railroad trestle on one of our rides

We got snowed on a few times, starting in the last week of September.  Nothing major, but enough to let us know the winters in the U.P. might be pretty cold.  Along one road we traveled there was a pole with snow measurements.  The most snow in one season topped 320 inches!  We definitely don't want to be here for that!  They have a big snowmobiling lifestyle up here in the winter and we were told people come from all over the world to experience snowmobiling in the U.P.  They have hundreds of miles of trails dedicated to it.

Jim at Wagner Falls in Munising

I want to take this opportunity to post some miscellaneous photos that I snapped on the rides Jim and I took around the U.P.  It is such a beautiful area and both of us want to come back and explore the places we missed.  (Don't forget, click on the photos to enlarge.)

Again, caught on one of our rides....a fitting end to our wonderful trip!

Goodbye, Michigan!  See you again.

Adventure Mine Tour

Entrance to an "Adventure"

October 8, 2012

Another day to revisit somewhere we'd been before.  When we took the Senior Color Tour on September 27th we passed a place I wanted to return to and we finally did.  It is a place near Greenland, Michigan called the Adventure Mine.

One of the entrances

This particular mine operated between 1850 and 1920 and removed more than 11 million pounds of native copper from the ground.  Over the years, it was opened several more times but the owners could never make the mine profitable again.

This piece of copper weighed over 300 pounds!

The mine is an actual open underground copper mine where you can go on various tours, depending on how much of a mining experience you wish to have.  There are several options:  the Trammer's Tour, the Prospector's Tour, the Miner's Tour and the Captain's Tour.  We opted to take the Prospector's Tour which was described as moderately difficult and lasted for about an hour and 20 minutes. 

Our tour guide demonstrating the early tools

Checking out "treasure"

Things found in the mine over the years

 Wow!  Jim and I got what amounted to a private tour.  Our tour guide was a young girl who really seemed to know her stuff about the mine.  She regaled us with lots of information relating to how the miner's worked, how the mine equipment operated and other tidbits relating to the bats that live in the mine.  We saw lots of bats.

Oodles of bats!

More bats

  Apparently they are getting into hibernation mode with the onset of the cold weather.  They were hanging everywhere we went in the tunnels and in some of the larger caverns.  We wore hard hats with headlamps attached and roamed through quite a bit of one level of the mine. 





Jim wasn't as keen as I was to go on this tour but we both ended up having a good time and doing something else that not every tourist can say they've done!

Coming out of the mine

Pictured Rocks Sunset Cruise

October 1, 2012

Harbor at Pictured Rocks Cruise Line

Waiting in line - we were first!

Since the cruise didn't take off until 5:15 p.m., we showed up in Munising early and explored the area a little.  We left Crystal Falls around noon because the trip to Munising takes around 2 hours.  We drove all the way through the town and ended up at a visitor center on the main highway.

Wagner Falls

Jim's photo - slowed water down

My photo - real time water

The gentleman inside was very informative and steered us to some local waterfalls that were easily accessible and ones we could see before our cruise took off.  The only one we ended up seeing was Wagner Falls, a few hundred feet off of the main highway through the town.  After we spent some time there, we went to the Sunset Cruise docks and waited for our turn to get on our cruise boat.




































The cruise turned out to be well worth the money spent.  It lasted about 3 hours and took us up the coast of Lake Superior along the Painted Rocks National Lakeshore, which we'd only seen from above on our previous trip.  (See Pictured Rock National Lakeshore Blog)  There is also an island near the shore of Lake Superior here, called Grand Island, which we passed on our cruise.  It is pretty rustic, with minimal access.

Abandoned building on Grand Island

 While on the cruise, I wanted to change lenses on my camera.  I took my 17-55 mm off my Nikon D90 and laid it on the seat next to me.  The boat hit a little rough water and my lens rolled right off the seat! The lens cap was on it but the glass was not spared.  Fortunately, I had a neutral density filter on it so the only glass that broke was the filter which I didn't find out until later.  Due to the broken glass, I put the lens away and used the 80-200 mm for the rest of the cruise so my photos were limited sometimes.

Colored Rocks

More Colored Rocks

Natural Arch

Cruise ship identical to the one we were on

Sandbar decor

Stowaway

Sunset on the way back

All in all, not a bad way to spend the day.  Dinner at the Dogpatch Restaurant in Munising, decorated with all the characters from L'il Abner....kinda silly, okay food.

Nice way to end the day