Friday, September 19, 2025
L:58 H:63
It was a rainy, gray morning, which was nice to catch up on a few things – emails, a little news, the blog, etc. Since the Apostle Islands Cruise was cancelled yesterday due to high winds, we had scheduled for today. However, it wasn’t looking so good for today either, so we rescheduled for Sunday.
We kept looking at our schedule. we might not even see this national park at this rate. We are supposed to leave on Wednesday for St. Croix National Scenic River. We considered cancelling that to give us more time here.
After lunch, we decided on two things we could do in the rain – the Maritime Museum and driving “The Fruit Loop.” Parking in Bayfield is a trick, but we are getting the hang of it. In front of the museum a man was building a small boat. A volunteer, he was very polite in telling us what he was doing, and he loves working with wood. It was like a boat museum in Newfoundland where volunteers built a boat every year, then auctioning it to raise money for the museum. The Bayfield volunteer said they haven’t caught onto that yet.
It was very cool inside, with displays of big and small ships and fishing boats. There was a display of the shipwrecks around Apostle Islands. I was fascinated by the display of sailboat rigging. Around the corner Martha worked on a hands-on display of knot tying. We might have stayed there for an hour, but others wanted to try it.
There were engine displays, both big and small. The one that intrigued me was an old Indian recording of how he built birchbark canoes. A real birchbark canoe was standing against the wall. I would like to listen to that again. He looked for a special birch tree and told how he stripped the bark, sealing the seams with pine pitch. The frame was made from a special northern white cedar. He said he only cut three of them down in his life.
On our way out, Martha put $20 in the contribution box. The man working the front thanked us with a smile and said, “Ring the bell.” After looking around, I pulled the string beside the door, ringing the bell. Outside was a big bell from a boat, so I gave that a ring too.
We walked over to the fish store. Most things had been sold because the weather had limited fishing. They did have some whitefish liver, which we had seen on the menu at Manypenny Bistro. The young lady behind the counter said she had never had it, but reports are that it is similar to chicken livers. “It’s a thing here.”
This area is big for fruit farms, and there is a drive that takes you past some of the farms that have shops, stores or roadside stands. Apples are big, but also blueberries, raspberries, grapes and more. It was raining pretty hard when we stopped at the first one, Apple Hill Orchards.
I thought he had an Aussie accent, but he was from England. A soccer player, he had traveled to many places, but he always liked this area the best, so he and his wife started this orchard. We bought a bag of Courtland apples on his recommendation, a candy apple and an apple crisp. He was a nice chap, and we enjoyed talking to him. We were going to the farmer’s market tomorrow, so there was no sense in stopping by more farms.
Missing one of our turns, we ended up driving by a lot of the farms, wondering what was being grown. We saw 24 turkeys on our 30-minute drive, plus a beautiful red fox dashing full speed across the road. Later I looked up what turkeys eat, since they seem to proliferate here. Acorns are a staple of a lot of wildlife, but turkeys are omnivores. They eat insects for protein, acorns, and they love fruit. They will eat apples on the ground and berries from bushes, but also clover, grass and other soft greens. No wonder they do well here.
We stopped at a tiny log house with a sign. We have passed it a number of times, but had other things to do. Interesting story.
Back at camp, we drove around a bit and found the closed visitor’s center had WIFI, but it is only strong at the building. I took my computer over and loaded pictures for the blog, We can get one bar of cell service in the Airstream, but our cell booster gives us one more. That’s enough to get messages and emails, but not enough to upload pictures, and surely not videos. Moving my phone around the trailer, I get one bar sitting at the table, two bars in the cabinet above the refrigerator and three bars up against the booster. I’ll try to find a way to hang the phone there.
Martha made a fine dinner of pork chops and mushrooms from the farmer’s market, cooked in butter with peas – very good.
