Chillin' in Ely MN and south to Missouri

After taking out of the wilderness we spent 3 more nights at Fall Lake Campground on Site 10 ... once again.  We have parked on Site 10 for 4 of our last 6 stays at Fall Lake Campground.  The other two of those stays we parked on Site 7.  Are we in a rut or what?

Parked on Site 10 at Fall Lake CG ... again

There we decompressed, dried and organized our gear and just chilled out.  

Fall Lake Campground is blessed with a plethora of Franklin's ground squirrels

We love Ely!

We had a lot of rain while in Minnesota

The USFS ranger station at Ely has some interesting displays:

A new diorama at Voyager North Outfitter

There is no shortage of paddle craft in Ely.  And Piragis Northwoods Company has a brand new Boathouse.

The stuffed hash browns with eggs over easy and homemade whole wheat toast at Britton's Cafe are legendary.   We are usually at Britton's for breakfast and the joint is packed.  On this day we arrived for lunch shortly before their 1:00 closing time, and there was only one other customer in the place.  Sweet!

Ginger likes the rest areas best of all: I-35 southbound central Minnesota

On Friday September 22 we departed Ely and headed south towards Missouri, where we will attend 3 back to back Newmar rally events. On this day we drove 283 miles south and parked at Lake Byllesby Regional Park in Cannon Falls MN, which is in SE Minnesota between St. Paul and Rochester.  Lake Byllesby claims to be the "largest lake in southern Dakota County".  Dorcas is getting really good at finding good but cheap parks along our route on short notice.  Who could ask for more?

Nice paved site with 50A water and sewer with a view

We had nice weather for the drive, but a little rain overnight Friday and Saturday morning.

Windshield view from the coach at Lake Byllesby

Much of our route in southeastern Minnesota and northeastern Iowa was on US 52.  Dorcas asked if that was the same US 52 that passed through our home town of Winston Salem.  I said I doubt it, but she called my bluff and looked it up.  Sure enough it is the same US 52.  From Wikipedia: 

U.S. Route 52 (US 52) is a major United States highway in the central United States that extends from the northern to southeastern region of the United States. Contrary to most other even-numbered U.S. Highways, US 52 primarily follows a northwest–southeast route, and is signed north–south or east–west depending on the local orientation of the route. The highway's northwestern terminus is in Portal, North Dakota at the Canada–United States border, where it continues as Saskatchewan Highway 39. Its southeastern terminus is in Charleston, South Carolina, at Number 2 Meeting Street and White Point Garden along the Charleston Harbor.

You learn something new every day.

On Saturday we continued south and spent the night at Updog RV Park in Mt. Pleasant Iowa after motoring 291 miles.  Again Dorcas hit the jackpot with a really nice affordable park, right on our route.  We had thunderstorms and rain again overnight, but nothing too serious. 

Site 53 at Updog RV Park

About 10:00 am we departed Updog RV Park and drove 98 miles south to Hannibal MO, where we will attend the first of three RV rallies in Missouri.  Our drive from Ely MN was easy and uneventful.  The roads were almost exclusively 4 lane and with 65 mph speed limits. We drove 672 miles dead south, and are now looking forward to experiencing the next leg of our 2023 Midwest adventure.

Our route to date: 2058 miles

Shucks!!!

This morning we departed our camp in Waterloo IA and headed north through the Cedar River valley.  The terrain was dominated by rolling farm land with rich black soil and lots of windmills.  We crossed into Minnesota and later turned west onto I-90, the longest highway in America, transversing from Boston to Seattle.  In my opinion it's also the straightest and flattest highways in America as welt, at least the portion in western Minnesota and eastern South Dakota.

Lots of windmills all over the Midwest

A very quaint Iowa rest area

A beautiful day at a South Dakota rest area

We stopped in Mitchell SD and pumped 123.7 gallons of diesel into our 135 gallon tank.  I knew I was low, but I didn't know I was that low.  This was a near world record fill-up for us (once before we pumped 127.4 gallons).  We're still living on the edge!

We visited the Mitchell Corn Palace.  We have been here several times before, but it always a-maize-s me.  The corn palace is a civic auditorium which is decorated each year with murals comprised of ears of corn of different colors.  This year's theme was "Rock of Ages" depicting rock and roll icons.

Dorcas found a friend to talk to who was all ears!

There are murals inside as well as outside

Look what I found on farmersonly.com!

We ate dinner around the corner from the Corn Palace at a sports bar called Overtime.  They had great burgers.  Then we headed across I-90 to Cabela's to spend the night in their parking lot.  I love free camping!  Cabela's is a huge sporting goods store, similar to Bass Pro Shop.  It is very hospitable to the RVing public, with a dedicated RV overnight parking lot, complete with dump station, kennels and a corral.  Free camping at its finest!  We went in the store and bought some trinkets and enjoyed their wildlife exhibits.

Cabela's sells lots of guns and archery stuff.  They love dead animals.

Camp Cabela's

We made 379 miles today.  Not bad but not great.  I want to hurry up and get to Canada; Dorcas wants us to drag our feet a bit. We are compromising with frequent rest breaks and stops at interesting places.

The forecast tonight is for rain and maybe a storm.  Better batten down the hatches.

Trouble in River City

We left Bloomington happy and confident after a good driving day the day before, and after getting a  good night' s rest.  Then trouble!  After driving about 10 miles the check engine light came on, and my Silverleaf engine monitoring system displayed a code indicating a loss of signal from the engine RPM sensor.  This has been a periodic problem.  This code seems to pop up once or twice every few years, and in fact came up just 10 minutes after leaving home on Saturday.  After stopping and shutting down the engine the code does not usually re-appear again, at least not for a while.  This sensor is actually one of two identical parts, one seeing crankcase speed and the other sensing camshaft speed.  If one fails completely the other will provide the same information to the engine computer.  If both fail the computer thinks the engine has stopped turning and cuts off fuel to the engine.  This means the coach stops and won't go no more.

A view from the SilverLeaf EMS

In the summer of 2011, while on our previous trip to Alaska, this same problem reared its ugly head. The code first occurred in Alaska but while we were starting to head towards home.  The first viable service opportunity was in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory.  We stopped there, and they confirmed my diagnosis of a bad speed sensor, but had no part in stock.  The next place on our route that had the part was Fort Saint John BC, almost 1500 miles beyond where we first observed the code.  Long story short, we had both sensors replaced in Fort Saint John.  It was an all day job and fairly expensive due to all the systems that had to be removed to access the sensors.  You can read about that experience here.

OK, so here we are near the beginning of a long trip. and we have had 2 identical "check engine" events in 3 days.  There was a Cummins service center about 100 miles west along our route, in Rock Island IL, near Davenport IA (both towns are on the Mississippi River and mentioned in "The Music Man", hence the reference to trouble in River City. From Wikipedia: The "river" in River City is probably the Mississippi River near Davenport, Iowa: the Rock Island conductor's announcing "River City, Iowa! Cigarettes illegal in this state" implies crossing the Mississippi from Rock Island, Illinois into Iowa.)  We made a call to Cummins and they could work us in.  Upon arrival the mechanic attached his scan tool to our engine data port and recorded a code indicating a single event of a lost engine sensor signal.

I hope he moves before we pull out!

The mechanic suggested the problem was a momentary "blip" with the sensor and was not persistent. He could not explain why it was occurring; could be a failing sensor, could be an iron particle or other debris on the magnet on the sensor, an electronic cable fault,  or one of several other problems.  There was no way to tell without removing the sensor ($$$$) and performing a more detailed analysis (delay!).  He did suggest the sensor was unlikely to fail completely any time soon, and that we were not likely to be stranded, and it would not damage any other engine parts.  We decided to let it be and continue on.  There were a number of Cummins service centers along our route, and we could always stop later if the problem worsened.

We left Cummins and immediately crossed the Mississippi River into Iowa.  Then the RPM error occurred again.  CRAP!.  We called Cummins and they said to come back.  They checked the ECM again and, once again, there was just one single occurrence of the error.  We again considered whether to have the sensors removed and the system tested.  Actually Dorcas and I debated for almost an hour.  She's a take no chances kinda girl, and my philosophy is: if it ain't really broke, don't spend over $1000 to fix it and lose a whole nother day to boot.  Finally we decided to head on and take our chances.  We still had more opportunities for a repair along our route if things turned for the worse.

In the meantime, the day turned into a scorcher. The high for the day was about 92 degrees.  But the temperature dropped substantially in the late afternoon as we skirted some thunderstorms.  After a  304 mile driving day, we pulled into the Walmart at Waterloo Iowa for the night.  Pretty good progress considering we spent almost 5 hours at the Cummins facility.  It would have been a nice quiet night if it weren't for the Chysler/Jeep dealership next door to to worry.  We were so tired it made no difference.

Parked at Camp Walmart Waterloo IA

By the way, check out our new Yakima Skybox.  I bought this off Criaig's List while in Florida, specifically for this trip.  It holds paddles, fishing rods, tackle, packs and a host of other relatively   light and bulky stuff that would ordinarily be in the way in the back of the car.

A new toy

Paddling on the "Mighty Miss"

We couldn't camp on the banks of the Mississippi for five nights without putting the boat into the big water.  Today was our last full day here, so today was the day.  We put in at a picnic area a few hundred yards from our campsite.  We headed down stream and then turned north between Battle Island and a smaller unnamed island.  After a mile or so we turned left and headed for the west bank, which was in Iowa.  There we beached for a break and a snack.  We continued southward across the mouth of the Upper Iowa River.  We then crossed back across the main river channel, passed the southern tip of Battle Island and returned to our put in.

It was a pleasant and uneventful trip.  We are not particularly fond of big water.  The wind was predominately moderate, perhaps 6 mph, but we experienced some gusts up to about 20 mph.  No big boats came up the river, but there were about a half dozen power boats that gave us a wide berth.

We paddled only a little over 3 miles.   It was a good day on the river.

Paddling by Battle Island

The view upstream

Big water

Apparently the Mississippi River is a designated canoe trail, at least in Iowa

Our put-in and take-out at Blackhawk Park

Our route

Motor Touring the Great River Road

We departed Buffalo Lake on Sunday and headed north to Blackhawk Park, a COE park about 25 miles south of La Crosse WI, about a three hour drive.  On our way through La Crosse we stopped and did a little shopping.  We stopped at Sam's Club for a few groceries and Dorcas bought an iPad Air 2 at Best Buy.  She had been considering an upgraded iPhone and/or a new computer and couldn't make a decision.  Ultimately, she decided this was a good compromise.  With this devise she could still be happy with her old 3G 4S iPhone, and could also benefit from the the bigger screen that a small PC or MacBook might offer.  I think it was a practical choice.

We arrived at Blackhawk Park mid-afternoon on Sunday and set up for our 5-night stay.  It is a nice park with large spacious sites and 50 amp service.  The park is on the banks of the Mississippi River with Iowa just across the river.  We watched recreational vessels and commercial barge traffic plying the waters.  It seems white 5th-wheel trailers were the RV of choice in this park.  Only a few, including us, were camping in something else.

A barge on the river

Our site at Blackhawk Park

See all the white trailers

Cool rig!  Our neighbor for 1 night.

We are camped on the banks of the mighty Mississippi River and on the "Great River Road".  The Great River Road is not a single road, but a series of state and local roads generally following the course of the Mississippi River through 10 states from Minnesota to Louisiana.  So we had to do an auto tour of the Great River road in this area.  We left our camp and traveled south on WI 35 and crossed into Iowa at Lansing IA.  We then turned north driving primarily on IA 26.  We stopped at practically every overlook and point of interest.  The locks and dams were very interesting.  Most of the area we passed through was in the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge, and there were many overlooks at refuge viewing sites.  We crossed back into Wisconsin at Winona MN and returned to camp on the east bank.

The Mississippi River bridge to Lansing Iowa

The Mississippi river bridge at Lansing Iowa

North into Minnesota

Minnesota loves canoes.  And we're not anywhere near Ely yet!

Historical monument marking the Iowa-Minnesota state line, 200 yards from the river

A view into the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge

The 9-foot Channel Navigation Project was built from 1930 to 1940 by the USA Corps of Engineers.  It formed a 9-deep channel for dependable navigation on the Upper Mississippi River, primarily by raising the river level using a series of dams.  Locks were necessary to enable river traffic to get around the dams.  Today, the Upper Mississippi River – Illinois Waterway Navigation System includes 37 locks and 1,200 miles of nine-foot deep navigable waterway in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

A barge in the lock.  Note that the barge extends past the gates of the lock.

Even the barge companies like canoes!

This photo shows the corners of four barge units cabled together

The locks are 700' long and the 15-barge rafts are 1200' long.  Do the math.  How does that work?  Well, the tug would place the raft into the lock and disconnect the forward 9 barges, back out of the lock while those locked through.  Then the tug and the remaining  6 barges would lock through.  We never watched the whole process, but it seemed complicated.  Transportation by barge is very economical.  A barge is able to carry one ton of cargo 576 miles per gallon of fuel compared to only 155 miles for a truck and 413 miles by rail.  A 15-barge raft can haul as much material as 870 semi-trailers.

Most rafts are three barges wide and 5 barges long, about 1200' total length

Lock and Dam No. 7

For canoe people Winona MN is famous as the home of We-No-Nah Canoes

We particularly wanted to visit the We-no-nah Canoe factory.  Unfortunately they did not give factory tours.   It was not a very impressive building.  Like most canoe companies, they now produce more kayaks than canoes.  I have always claimed that Minnesota was the last bastion of the traditional open canoe.   Maybe not so much.

The We-no-nah Canoe factory

Our Great River Road tour lasted all day and covered about 175 miles.  Thankfully we arrived back at camp in time for happy hour.  In 2007 we visited New Mexico and started drinking margaritas with nachos every evening.  It was appropriate for the region, and a tradition was born.  Life is still good.

Nachos and a margarita.   A typical happy hour serving.