Day 27 Summer 2012 Road Trip

We slept in this morning and had breakfast, got the car loaded and we were on the road by 10:00 am.  We have a couple of roadside attractions to check out right here in Bemidji MN.

They are all located at the Paul Bunyan Park on the waterfront of Lake Bemidji.

  

As you might expect,  Paul Bunyan is here along with his ox Babe.

  

There are a couple of metal sculptures, a pow wow native dancer and a hockey player.

 

Nanobojo, Paul Bunyans “foe” is standing nearby.  He is in the style of the muffler man statues we see all across the USA.



The final roadside attraction is the Chief Bemidji statue.  He stands looking out over Lake Bemidji.



There was quite a thunderstorm that moved through this area last night, and as we head Eastward along Hwy 2 we see lots of storm damage in the form of trees knocked down.

  

We stop in Bena MN for another photo op with a roadside attraction.  This is a 65 ft long Muskie.  There is a picture of this “World Famous Landmark” in the opening credits of National Lampoon’s Vacation movie.

 

Oh No… it’s eating our car.



Moving Eastward, we come to another big fish in Deer River MN.  This is a Great Northern Pike.

 

All day our drive has been under cloudy skies… or at least what I thought were cloudy skies.  Perhaps those really aren’t clouds above us, but instead it is whatever this smoke stack is belching out.  It’s the same colour.

  

We never did figure out what they were producing to cause such pollution, the place was well hidden behind the trees.

This F101 Fighter Jet was sure flying low, skimming the tree tops.



We drove through the City of Duluth MN.  This is a large port on Lake Superior.

  

As soon as we leave Duluth we cross over the State line and we are now in Wisconsin.  We stop at the Visitor Center to gather information about Wisconsin.

 

We also stopped at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center.  This is a very impressive visitor center with all kinds of information and displays about this area.

  

We arrive in the town of Ashland Wisconsin where we are staying for the evening.   Upon entering the town we spot another roadside attraction..  another fish.   Fishing is a popular sport in this region.   This is a Giant Large Mouth Bass with a bass plug in its mouth.

 

We arrived at our hotel, this is a Best Western.  Right on the waterfront and our room overlooks Lake Superior.  There is a nice deck out in front of the hotel.

 

The view from our hotel room.  There is a small marina out front.

  

And the sunset this evening.

  

We are enjoying our visit to the South Shores of Lake Superior and have marked it on our list of places to come back to and explore further.

To see all of our photos from today, you can find them on our FLICKR site.