Back to School 5/31/11

Well we were back to school today.  We learned fingerweaving and where all the fire extinguishers are.

We will have to be giving a 15 minute program so we got information on that and spent most of the afternoon in the Park Library.  I think those college kids have a big advantage over us.  I can't remember the last time we had to do an outline for something like this.  Poor Dale is sitting at the kitchen table, as I write....he's doing his homework.  Once we got home, this afternoon, we took a walk to the Marina. The lake is gorgeous.

From the shores of Gitchi Gami......no joke

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,

By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,

Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Dark behind it rose the forest,

Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,

Rose the firs with cones upon them;

Bright before it beat the water,

Beat the clear and sunny water,

Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

The Ojibwe call Lake Superior,  Gichigami, meaning "big water." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the name as "Gitche Gumee" in The Song of Hiawatha written in 1855

Who would have ever guessed our journey back into time, here at Grand Portage, would have made such on impact on us. 

Thunder Bay, Canada

We made the 40 mile trip to Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.  It was sort of confusing. Gas is sold by the liter. Food is packaged by the metric system. So a box of cereal isn't 18oz but 900g.  Now what in the heck is that.   I doubt if we got to Thunder Bay very often.  The groceries were more expensive then what we can get at the trading post. Our DVD player broke so we thought we'd get one at the Wal Mart in Thunder Bay. It was $30 more then what we can get online.   So we decided to pay the $58 online plus $0.97 shipping instead of $88 there in Canada.  We did have some wonderful pizza there though.  The best we've EVER had.  Boston's Family Pizza.  I'd say we'll go back to Canada just for the pizza.  Getting out of the country wasn't too much trouble.  Coming back, though we got the 3rd degree.  We gave them our passport and our receipt for our groceries so they could see what we got.  It's a good thing we didn't get any oranges but he said we would have been OK with the bananas (which we left there)  Oh well.  Definately a learning experience.

Friday, May 27, 2011....The Spirit Tree

Well we finished one week of our training today. What a fabulous week. These Ojibwe people are truly awesome. To think I never heard of them untill we decided to come up here for the summer. Warm, friendly and truly industrious and those voyageurs....I can’t even image working that hard. Paddling non-stop for 15 hours a day, then taking that 450 pound canoe and toss it over your shoulder and haul it over 8 ½ miles of land to get around waterfalls or rapids...but the 4 tons of merchandise. Granted this was accomplished by 16 men....but even so.
Besides learning the history of these people, we are learning to make fire from flint and steel, we have made cording, sewn birch bark panels to make wigwams. Besides hiking up to High Falls, we have actually hiked on "The Grand Portage" and today we hiked out to "The Spirit Tree" What a precious thing. That little tree has seen alot.....it’s been hear for at least 400 years.
Today we learned about the Ojibwe (Chippewa) people. Carl Gawboy, a well known artist of Native American historical water color paintings and murals came and talked to us for 2 hrs. He used his life, here in the north woods, has his inspiration. Then later we had a potluck with everyone bringing a dish that represented their cultural background. What fun....and so yummy.
After that the tribal secretary/treasure came by and talked to us. What a smart young woman. 24 yrs old and elected to this tribal position. They are so warm and welcoming. This is a wonderful experience. I was sitting there today in our class and thought, who would have ever thought we would have experienced such a wonderful thing. We have received our costumes and promise to take photos of us fully decked out. Wait til you see Dale in his "Gentleman’s Outfit".

Saturday, May 21, 2011

 Today is my dad’s 84^th birthday. Since the phone man never showed up Friday we drove to the trading post and I used the pay phone to call and wish him a Happy Birthday. That was rather frustrating since dad can’t hear very well and I’m yelling at him inside the trading post. I guess everyone in Grand Portage now knows it’s my dad’s birthday. I also called the phone company while we were there and they said the phone installation had been changed to Monday. Hope that works out alright....since we start our schooling that day and no one is going to be here. Then I called John to wish him a happy birthday. He’s going to be 40 tomorrow. Brings a tear to my eye to think my baby is going to be 40. We were going to introduce ourselves to the post office lady, Mary. The post office is at the trading post. We hear she knows we’re here...even knew our names. When Sharon, our neighbor stopped in there when they first arrived....Mary informed her we were already here. So we thought we better go say howdy to the lady. However, the post office closed at 10:30 today so we’ll try again Monday during lunch time. It’s gray and 60ish today...it seems pretty chilly because there is no sun. It has just started raining. No walk this afternoon, I guess. Maybe tomorrow. Monday we start our classes. 8 hours a day Mon - Fri .Dale’s already worried. He’s afraid he’s not going to be able to remember all the facts. So far we’ve learned a lot just by reading the mass of books they sent us and just by talking to people. It’s hard to imagine they transported goods and fur in a canoe. A very big Montreal Canoe. 36 ft long. It carried between 3 and 4 tons of merchandise. Those canoes were a lot bigger then those little things that people float down the Jack’s Fork River. The English would transport goods like yard goods, blankets, flour, sugar, tobacco, cookware, firearms, wine & hard liquor to trade for furs. I’ll be sure to include photos of us in our costumes, once they have been assigned to us.

Friday, May 20, 2011

What a gorgeous day. Sun shining, the lake is calm and it’s 70 degrees. We are sitting here waiting for the telephone man to arrive. Did I tell you...we have no phone, cell, internet or TV. We’re pretty isolated. It’s been a good day to get those little chores around the house taken care of. I’ve done a load of wash, dusted, made potato salad and coconut cream tarts. Whatever happened to that idea we were going to eat smart and exercise and lose weight. We’ve been doing a lot of walking. I think we’ve just been eating too good. One of the things we notice is that it stays light longer. It doesn’t get dark until around 8:45....and the sun comes up by 5am.   In Missouri it didn’t stay light that late until mid June.
I would like to make mention that anyone that is even thinking about doing the full time RV lifestyle should have handyman skills. If Dale hadn’t been so inclined I don’t know what we would have done. Living in a RV is just like living in a traditional stick built home.....there is still maintenance. We might not have to mow the lawn but there are plenty of other things.
Since May 4^th...Dale has fixed a leaky washer/dryer, a leaky shower, a leaky air conditioner, a kitchen sink that wouldn’t drain..... and a leaky toilet. The toilet was our fault. We decided we wanted to raise the height of the stool a little instead of "sitting on the floor". It’s amazing what a difference a 2 ½ riser can do. It is so much more comfortable. However what was suppose to be a very simple task ended up taking poor Dale half the day. The water supply had to be extended 3" to accommodate the additional height....it was too short, too tall, leaking then finally 5 hrs later it all came together. Thank goodness it was one of his Duluth jobs and there was a Menards very handy. The internet has been very handy with several of our little issues. That’s my job...Google "how to" fix it. I’ve been quite successful at it too. I found out how to fix the leaky air conditioner and how to drain the kitchen sink. He also has installed a shelf in our entry closet to get things more organized.

We arrived in Grand Portage, MN around 3pm on Monday 5/16. We were the first RV volunteers to arrive. Our "boss" made us feel very welcome and took us to our campsite. There were two friendly neighbors that greeted us (Bear a Golden Retriever and Brutus a black lab) We got settled in and felt quite comfortable for the evening. Tuesday 5/17 (Dale’s birthday) we drove back to Grand Maras. Dale got a haircut and we had lunch at a little restaurant by the lake...The Blue Water Café. We checked out the Ben Franklin and the Lake Superior Traders stores....oh and the grocery store. Stocked up on milk and eggs and bought a cake mix to make Dale his favorite...Cherry Chip Cake with Cherry Frosting. A guy’s gotta have a birthday cake when he turns 65. Groceries are a little more expense here. The cake mix was $2.42 and the frosting was $2.47. Milk was $3.99 and eggs $0.99. So not so bad. I did notice that a box of raisin bran was $4.77.  Diesel, by the way, is $3.90.  Dale's pretty happy about that, don't you know.   We’ve met our new neighbors...our co-workers Sharon & Kerry. They arrived Wednesday. They are very nice and have been full timers for 7 years. They’ve already provided us with a wealth of information. They arrived while we were gone hiking up to High Falls...my gosh it’s awesome. It is located just out from Grand Portage State Park. Not to be confused with Grand Portage National Monument, where we work. We’re going to go up to the falls again and I’m going to video the whole thing and put it on YouTube. Yesterday (Thursday) we walked through the grounds of the monument. The buildings are wonderful. There was an interpreter in the canoe building and he shared all sorts of information about the different canoes with us. Then we went into the Great Hall and the kitchen

Duluth, MN Thursday 5/12 - Saturday 5/14

It rained most of the way from St Paul up to Duluth. I've never seen so many birch trees. Gorgeous.. At one of the rest stops I found an interesting birdhouse. It was made out of a bleach bottle.  We had planned on staying at Indian Point RV Park but after we got there decided we'd try plan B.  There was only one other trailer and I just didn't feel comfortable with the whole set up.  Our 2nd choice Ogston RV Park in Hermantown is great. There are lots of people here.  It's farther away from Hwy 61...the road we'll be taking to Grand Portage...but the accomdations are wonderful.  We're very close to the laundry facilites and there is a pool table, TV, library and games there.  Dale and I played pool and worked on a puzzle while we waited for our laundry to get done.  It's been very cold the last 2 days. I've made good use of the Long Johns I got for the trip.  Right now it's 49 degrees.  We have managed to get most of our shopping done.  I feel like a pioneer getting ready to cross the prairie.  Got to make sure to have all the staples.  We are planning on leaving here on Monday morning.  Dale has some things he wants to do to the trailer before we leave town. We wants to add a shelf to a storage closet and he wants to check out a leak in the washer and we got a riser for the toilet at Camping World and he's wanting to install that.  So if he needs more time to get these things done we may not leave till Tuesday.  Hopefully things will go smoothly and we'll be able to leave Monday as planned.  I'm attaching some pictures we took along the way here.  I read an article that said Duluth is considered the San Francisco of the mid-west.  I say whoever wrote that article hasn't been to San Francisco.

Wednesday, May 11th

We're still in St Paul.  We made a trip over to Rogers, MN had lunch at Culvers - I love that place...I think Dale's hooked too.  It was his first time there.  Naturally we had to finish up our lunch with frozen custard. Yum, yum.  Dale got pretty excited when he found diesel for $3.99...naturally we had to fill her up.

Then we were off to Camping World.  We got everything on our list.  It's an RVers department store.  Cabella's was just a few doors up the street.  You'll be happy to know we stocked up on mosquito repellent.  Mosquito's are Minnesota's state bird, you know.  We will be leaving for Duluth tomorrow.  We will be staying there for several days.  Have to get stocked up before our trip up to Grand Portage.  We'll need to do enough shopping to last for awhile. Grand Portage is pretty remote.

Tuesday, May 10th....Mall of America

We made it - Mall of America.  Amusement Park or a shopping mall???  I think it's both.  In addition to 520 stores and 50 restaurants....there is a Waterpark, Underwater Adventures Aquarium, a flight simulator, theme park with 25 rides.  4 levels of shopping.....a shoppers paradise.  I had a wonderful time.

                                                                                                              

Trip to Minnesota, Monday May 9th

We left Story City, IA at 10am after filling up the tank...diesel a whopping $4.15.  Arrived at our campground in St Paul at 2pm.  Lebanon Hills Campground....it seems like it's in the country but it's in town.  Boy was it windy.,,,the whole way.  Found some great rest stops and wonderful sights along the way.