The Harmons arrived yesterday, kicking off our Upper Peninsula road trip! We got up early to prep and sort through all the food before hitting the road.
Our first stop was Governor Knowles State Forest right off Highway 70 just past the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. We had been looking for a place to walk on our way up to Tom and Eileen’s cabin and Eileen had suggested this park. It was a gradual up, scenic hike with great views along the St. Croix River. It was very quiet and peaceful, we saw no other hikers on our 3.5 mile hike. The only person we did see was a DNR worker under the bridge that crossed the St. Croix. He told us that he was checking the structure of the bridge because they found a car stuck under the bridge earlier in the day and they wanted to be sure the bridge was not damaged. He showed us a picture of where the car landed. It was really strange to see. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
After our hike we stopped for lunch at Adventures Restaurant & Pub in Siren —Jean and I shared a burger and onion rings which was the perfect amount of food. It is too hard to try and carry leftovers.
We pulled into Eileen and Tom’s around 2:45 p.m., Juli, Nancy, Jill, and Linda had already arrived and the six of them had just completed a hike around the property. The women settled onto the screened porch for alot of conversation and laughing while Jim, Clay, and Tom took a 40-minute sauna session in their wood fired sauna that topped out at 180 degrees.
Dinner was an incredible potluck featuring chicken pasta salad, dried veggies (especially the beets!), pico, carrot cake, mint brownies, chocolate chip cookies, and lots of beer and wine.
Nancy, Juli, Linda, and Jill needed to be back at their cabin on the Namekagon by dark so they headed out around 5:30 p.m., the rest of us wound down with a few more drinks and a game of cards.
It was so great to just relax, talk, and reconnect. By 9:30 p.m., we turned in—a perfect start to the trip.