The North Shore

After leaving Grand Marais we headed down the North Shore Scenic Drive to the nearby Cascade River State Park. At the visitor center we purchased a Minnesoda State Park's day pass for $5… $5! It's anywhere from $5-$8 per adult to enter a single state park in Texas. We then hiked the short trail to park's popular bridge over the river where you could see a series of 'cascading' waterfalls. Once we arrived at the bridge and looked at the river we were quite surprised:

It was kinda disturbing at first how the water was a dark brownish color and whenever it flowed over the falls it looked almost yellow in color, but it wasn't like there was a bunch of dirt in the water. It looked to me a lot like Bill Miller's tea with lots of bubbles, (for those of you who don't live in Texas, it looked similar to Rootbeer soda) the reason for this because the river's water comes from the marshes/bogs which are full of composting organic matter that leaves the water looking like tea. So we hiked a little further on the trail that stayed right by the river which had carved it's course through the rock creating a small canyon.

It was pretty foggy so we went back and I drove us to Temperance River State Park. For the next hour or two driving from state park to state park was by far the most foggy weather conditions I have ever been in. Lake Superior was never more than a quarter mile from the road but sometimes you could hardly see it. After parking we walked along the paved path until we could just barely see the Hidden Fall in the mini canyon because of the fog. So we turned around and walked to a bridge with some more mini waterfalls before the river flowed into the lake.

So I drove us down to Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, parked and went in to use the bathroom, came back to the car, and since it was super windy decided to go eat lunch in Beaver Bay first before going to see the Lighthouse. Lunch was good but expensive, and then we were back on our way to Split Rock. So I parked again and then we found out that it would cost $9 for each of us to see the Lighthouse and because the wind was still blowing so strongly Jacob wouldn't have been able to use his Glidecam… So, we've been to the Split Rock Lighthouse State Park twice, but haven't actually seen the lighthouse…

From there we went on to the last park of the day for us, Gooseberry Falls State Park. Gooseberry was my favorite Minnesoda State park we stopped at. It had the biggest falls and you were able to get right up next to them if you wished, but the water was still that funky brownish color. Here we did some long exposures which came out pretty nice:

We didn't really see anything else worth doing and we had a long way to go, therefore we got back into the car and headed to Wisconsin.

- John

-Next Stop: Indiana Dunes, Indiana.