Some final thoughts about Apostle Islands National Seashore. While beautiful, it is a boating oriented park. You really need a boat to see it. The tour boat situation is expensive ($40-$50) and is geared mostly for campers and hikers. The islands are 20 to 30 miles, a good 1-2 hour boat ride. The lighthouses on the Islands are currently being renovated at a high cost and will have limited access for most people.
We got an early start this morning. Weather was beautiful, go figure. The 450 mile journey wasn’t that exciting, other than in Superior, WI, which is a big commercial port, along with Duluth, MN. The highway spanned a couple of cool bridges, and had a great view of the freighters. Dan wants to go back for a longer look there. A picture follows, but apologies in advance for the out the window shot, no place to pull over....
Since I haven’t talked about our rig lately, thought it may be a good time. It got weighed earlier this year, the F250 weighs in at 7000 pounds and the trailer is 8100 lbs, with about 800 lbs on the king pin. The trailer is pretty close to expected, but the truck weight was surprisingly heavier, which explains its capability with this tow. On the way to Jamestown it was blowing 25 mpg right on our nose, holding us to 5th gear, 4th on the uphills, and about 7-8 mpg overall. It took about 9 ½ hours to arrive at Camp Wal-Mart of Jamestown, ND. We can do these long tows because of how the whole rig performs!
August 1, 2013 - Thursday
We woke to a sunny morning and got rolling by 7 AM or so, as we wanted to make Havre, MT 600 miles away. The wind had died down, but hills again kept us to 5th gear and about 8 mpg. The landscape in western North Dakota, near Theodore Roosevelt National Park looks a lot like the Badlands in South Dakota. About 30 miles into Montana we depart I-94 making our way along MT 200 west. This road was rough and very narrow. Cars have speed limit of 70 mph, trucks 60, which is insane. We putted along at 55-60 mph, and that got a little hairy as you passed wide load hay trucks.
After about 75 miles we took MT 24, which was also rough with big hills, but very pretty scenery. In about 40 miles we came to Fort Peck Lake, which is actually a reservoir, and quite pretty. There was a turn off so a picture follows.
After another 40 miles we headed west along US 2. This is the same road that originates in Michigan’s UP. We didn’t take it due to oil rig traffic and big trucks from Minot west.
We arrived at the Havre Wal-Mart after about 13 hours. Whew, a long drive. Dan got a little tried about the time we hit Fort Peck, so he kicked back a 5 Hour Energy. First time he used it, and wow he’s still doing laps in the parking lot! For old farts it may be 10 hour energy.
Hopefully we will make it to St Mary and Glacier NP tomorrow.
August 2, 2013 – Friday
We are in St. Mary, MT. It rained; actually poured most of the trip. Dan hates driving with the trailer in the rain. Visibility is low, traction is reduced, and it makes a mess of the truck and trailer, although one positive, it cleaned off most of the dead bugs from the front of the truck and trailer. Set up camp at Johnson’s in the rain, euch!
It is supposed to rain big through tomorrow, so we’ll need to find some indoor stuff to do. The mountains were pretty much invisible in the fog as we drove down to East Glacier to check out the Lodge there. It, as well as most of the other lodges in Glacier, were built by the railroads in their prosperous days in the 20s & 30s. East Glacier is like stepping back to that time, pretty neat. A picture follows.
We aren’t sure what our plans are for tomorrow.
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