Canada Fishing Trip -part 1- The trip up to Minnesota

This year was the big 6-0 birthday for Sandy and he has always wanted to go to Canada fishing so I arranged a trip to Camp Ontario on Rainy Lake in Ontario, Canada. I jokingly called it our "week on the island" because Camp Ontario is on a 25 acre island. I'm guessing that this small camp was started somewhere in the middle part of the last century. There are six cabins plus a house for the couple who own it. There is no running water in the cabins but each one has its own outhouse! The refrigerator, stove and lamps in each cabin are butane powered so it wasn't totally camping out. Improvements have been made over the years including the addition of a community shower room. The owners, Robert and Janet, have running water at their house and a generator so they have electricity. (In fact after we got there, I found out they have satellite Internet service so I was able to have a connection with the rest of the world and not have withdrawal pains!)

Rainy Lake is a 225,000 acre lake along the northeastern edge of Minnesota and on into Ontario, Canada. We spent 2.5 days driving the 1400 miles to International Falls, Minnesota. Most of our trip was on I-35 through Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Minnesota. It was the first time in Iowa and Minnesota for both of us and we enjoyed seeing new country. We took a little detour near Excelsior Springs, Missouri to visit the birthplace of Jesse James. It didn't look very interesting after we arrived and the admission price was $7.50 per person so we decided not to go in the small house/museum. We had passed several signs on our way to the museum saying there was a "huge sale" so we decided we'd drive by. The "huge sale" was a garage sale with about 4 tables of stuff outside and one large table inside the garage. But we stopped anyway just to stretch our legs.

We got to visiting with a couple there and they recommended we visit Watkins Mill which was just down the road a few miles from Jesse James' birthplace. It turns out that Watkins Mill is located in a state park and it was a beautiful park to drive through. Watkins Mill was the last fully equipped 19th century woolen mill in the United States.  The grounds were beautiful - here's some pics!  (These are the first pictures I took with my new Canon T1i so I have LOTS of pics!)

The path from the visitor's center to the mill.

The mill

 

Sandy peeking in the window!

We saw lots of beautiful country but didn't stop much to take pictures.  Here are some from a rest area in Minnesota.  Since we live in an area with very few trees, I am always in awe of places with lots of trees and vegetation.

 

We went slightly out of the way just so we could catch a view of Lake Superior in Duluth.  There was another rest area with an awesome view.

Disclaimer - I wrote this post two months ago but have tried numerous times to load pictures and Blogger hasn't cooperated.  My plan is to do three more posts about our trip but it make take me several weeks to do!