Destination Silver Bay, MN and beyond

Destination Silver Bay, MN and beyond - July 6, 2023

July 06, 2023

We left camp this morning and headed toward the north shore of Lake Superior. We took the scenic route again today and it was much more interesting than yesterday. We passed thru lots of small towns and by many small lakes. Minnesota is known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes and that description seems pretty accurate.

Lindsay asked last year, "What do you guys talk about when you are in the car for a long time?" We find ourselves asking all kinds of questions about what we see and as soon as we get a cell signal, we look things up.
Here are some interesting (and mostly useless) facts about Minnesota (in no particular order):

1. The town of Bovey, which we drove thru today, is the home of the picture "Grace". "Grace" was established as the state photograph in 2002 by an act of the Minnesota State Legislature. In case you are wondering, the picture is of an old man saying grace over a loaf of bread. You may not know the name, but you will recognize the picture. It was taken in 1918 in the town of Bovey, MN. You can read more about it here.

2. The most northerly latitude in the contiguous US is in the northwest angle of Minnesota (49 degrees 23 minutes north).We assumed it would have been somewhere in Maine. The closest community is Angle Inlet.

3. Minnesota provides most of the iron ore mined in the US. We passed by Hull Rust Mahoning Mine near Hibbing MN. It is one of the largest open pit mines in the world. Oh yes, and by the way, Hibbing is the hometown of Bob Dylan and Roger Maris.

4. Minnesota is home to 3M. Did you know that 3M stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing?

5. The state insect is the monarch butterfly. (We figured it was a mosquito!

6. The state grain is wild rice. Most of the wild rice found in stores is cultivated wild rice grown on a special farm in a rice paddy. Some wild rice is actually found in the wild and harvested. In order to harvest wild rice yourself, you have to have a "rice" license, much like a fishing license. You can read about a second-generation rice grower here, Click here to read about the history of wild rice, and here about getting a rice license.

7. The "Headwaters" of I-35 is in Duluth, Minnesota and we got on at the very beginning of this interstate. By way, I-35 runs thru Ardmore, OK, Rob's birthplace.

8. Duluth Trading Company is actually headquartered in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, NOT Duluth, MN.

Back to our travels.....
We drove along the north shore of Lake Superior. This particular end of the lake didn't seem quite so big because you could see across to Wisconsin. All the campgrounds in this area were full so we drove on thru Duluth, then found a campsite at Moose Lake State Park, about 30 miles south of Duluth.

North shore of Lake Superior at Silver Bay, MN

Marina at Silver Bay, MN

After we set up camp and had dinner, we took a short hike around the lake. TALL pines and paper birch trees surrounded us. Another useless fact - paper birch and aspen look almost identical and both grow in the area. The easiest way to tell them apart is the peeling bark on the paper birch tree.