Fastest Border Crossing Ever!

Yesterday morning, our friends Bill and Bonnie were getting up early to go get their solar installation done on their motorhome. They had a three hour drive to the appointment, so they woke us up as they were ready to go. It was only 5:40am, but we decided to stay up and get an early start.

A drive around Amish country

Bill and Bonnie took us for a drive to see the sights around the area. There is a large Amish population in this area and of course it's interesting to see this culture a little more up close. Sorry we don't have many pictures, but we didn't want to seem intrusive.

What a great day...

First, we had to get the drive over with. We tried to get an early start, and it was about 8:30am by the time we left Marquette.

Beautiful day in Marquette, Michigan!

When I had been doing some research about the places we were planning on stopping along this road trip, one of the things I found was that Marquette, Michigan was voted #1 on CNNMoney's list of the top 25 places to retire in the United States.

We went exploring yesterday, on a beautiful blue sky day, and we found out that Marquette (pop 22,000) is a nice little town!

Duluth, Minnesota to Marquette, Michigan

Hit the road yesterday morning around 8:30am. We were trying to make it to Marquette by 2:00pm, having planned a hike with our couchsurfing host Joy when we got there.

Had no problems making it out of Duluth on a Sunday morning. Hardly any traffic at all.

Toxic Tuesday

Toxic Tuesday? Well let me tell you a story about our first attempt to visit Duluth, Minnesota.

Back at the end of June 1992, Ruth and I took our young children (6 and 4 at the time) on a road trip from Ottawa to Fort Frances, Ontario. We took the American route through Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

And we never did make it to Duluth.

Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox

We tried to leave Grand Forks fairly early, but it was still around 9:30am by the time we got on the road. Said goodbye to our couchsurfing host Jasmine, and got on our way.

Back in the U.S.A.!

We were up early yesterday morning, and on the road before 9:00am. We were only 20 kms (12 miles) from the border crossing, so it wasn't long before we pulled over at the inspection and customs building.

This border crossing is one of a series of old and underutilized road crossings between the U.S. and Canada in the Saskatchewan and Manitoba area.

Excuse me...are you Kevin and Ruth?

This has to be one of the strangest questions that we have heard in our travels. It's when someone actually recognizes us because of this blog. It's only happened to us three or four times over the years, but it's so totally strange when it does.

And yesterday we had it happen again!

That was a long drive!

But we totally enjoyed it. I know, an 800 km (500 mile) drive is not the way we usually like to travel. We love road trips, but usually a long day for us is 200 kms (120 miles)!

We were up at 6:00am Tuesday morning, and driving out of the parking lot at the campground at 7:20am.