First, I threw away the baby bubble I was sewing. After thinking about it overnight, I decided it had too many errors for me to finish. Sigh. I will use a different pattern next time.
We left Ely on Sunday, driving to the Bemidji KOA. Nice enough place, but quite different than the privacy we had at Fall Lake. Then again, I have full hookups so we are doing laundry! We had dinner at a local bar and grill. I had fried bluegill, and it was great. Kevin’s brisket was so so, but at least the portions were big enough they covered dinner tonight too. We had a busy day driving the Lady Slipper Scenic Byway. It begins about 25 miles from the campground in the Chippewa National Forest, though it starts in the town of Cass Lake. Sadly the little museum in town was closed, but we got a view of the recreated logging camp across the street from the museum (housed in an old railway depot).
We continued into town to the old Forest Service Superintendent’s office, a spectacular log building that I didn’t get a picture of! I did take a picture of the plaque, a very poor second. The building was built by the “boys” at the Rabideau CCC camp that we visited later in the day.
We enjoyed an absolute riot of wildflowers along the route. Here are just a few pictures. Note the dragonfly and bees around the flowers.
There was a restored CCC camp, dubbed the most complete in the US. It got lucky because a few years after the CCC abandoned it, it was leased by a university as a field study site until the mid 70s. It then sat vacant (and vandalized) until the early 2000s when the restoration started. The “boys” at Camp Rabideau planted something like a half million trees in the first 3 years. They also built campgrounds and buildings all over the area.
We also drove over the Mississippi which is much, much smaller this far north!
We took a big detour to “The Lost 40”, a patch of old growth pines now preserved as a state protected area. They were amazing! Look at the video since there is no way I could get a picture showing the entire thing.
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Back at the campground we have discovered all the other motorhomes parked near parked near us are on their way to the FMCA rally too! I will end with a (poor) picture of Paul Bunyan and Babe, a requirement if in Bemidji. Tomorrow we head to the Bismarck KOA a couple of days before on to a COE campground at Lake Sakajawea in North Dakota.
