Trip to Azilum

On Saturday August 9 we went on a trip via the back roads to the site of Azilum. Bob had already left for Kalamazoo, MI for the World Disc Golf Tournament. This photo shows the Cottage from across the Susquehanna River. The field in the left center of the photo is the field below the Cottage which is in the upper left corner. The Susquehanna makes a big gooseneck curve from upper right across the center of the photo.

Azilum was the site of French loyalists in 1793. They fled the French Revolution and an enterprising group of Pennsylvanians who were sympathetic to them developed a site on a bend in the Susquehanna (why they located the town so far from Philadelphia, for people who were of the noble class is unclear). They assumed that the refugees would be coming with significant money and possessions. They didn't because their assets were seized by the French, so ultimately the site failed and the developers went bankrupt. However, they did lay out a 300 acre site for a town and about 30 houses were built, including a grand house (rumored to be the future home for Marie Antoinnette). The houses, though log cabins, had glass windows and there are a lot of artifacts in the area. The settlement lasted only about 10 years before most of the immigrants went back to New Orleans or Santo Domingo. In addition, Napoleon granted them amnesty, so some returned to France. There is nothing left of the site, though archaeological excavations are on-going. During its existence, it was visited by Louis Phillipe, the future king of France, Talleyrand and various others.

This house, owned by US Congressman John LaPorte (born in Azilum in 1898), built in 1836, has only had three owners. As a result it is in remarkable shape. The ceilings are painted, there is a lot of original furniture of the LaPorte's or from other people who lived in the area at the same time. The Azilum site, on a good weekend, sees 12 visitors. We happened to hit it during Descendant's Day when there is a reunion of descendants of the original inhabitants. I highly recommend this site, though the signage lacks a little clarity.

The Cottage from below the field (which is seen in the top photo) from our gravel road. We own down to the cut portion of the field (which is really about 2/5ths of the field). You can see the slight rise which is the dam for our pond.

Swimming in Tunkhannock

Just below the Cottage we have a half-acre pond. Unfortunately, it is only about 1/3 full due to leaks in the dam two years in a row. However, the leaks now seem to be fixed and the pond was full to the brim this spring. Even at 1/3 level, it's about 8' deep and wonderfully refreshing when it is hot and humid out. The Cottage has one shower and one bath tub and so we use the pond to clean up and get rid of the sweat (often several times a day). Oriana and Calder (with Andrew's assistance) searched for and caught frogs. Darwin pointed towards his frisbee which was in the water in the above photo. Bob had developed an 18-hole disc golf course which used the pond as a water hazard on three holes (and has lost three discs in the drink).

One afternoon during the Barn Raising we went over to Stoney Brook, where all Robinsons have swum for generations. However, Markus discovered a much better place to swim about 100' down stream from Stoney Brook. It consists of a wonderful 8' deep pool (on the left in the above photos) and carved chutes through the rocks that you can float down and one deep pool in the rocks. Andrew and Calder proceeded to build dams and divert water so that the flow was increased over the lip (Calder is trying it out in the above photo). The stream is surrounded by flat rocks on which to sun bathe and we were alone on a Friday afternoon. Heaven!

Tunkhannock Jobs

The Cottage was built by my grandfather, Louis Robinson, in 1910 on property that had been in his family for hundreds of years. When I was a child we used to come here every summer for two weeks. I had not been here since 1967, until Markus' 40th birthday 4 years ago. Our generation, with the addition of my mother, Andrew and Julia, and two cousins purchased the Cottage out of Louis' estate and Markus has been working on it ever since. Last summer was the first annual Barn Raising and we literally raised the Carriage House from the grave. Its roof had fallen in, the walls were splayed and only Markus could see that it could re resurrected. We got it level and put a new roof on it, though the installation of the corrugated tin had to be done by Markus after we left. This year there was another Barn Raising. Jobs included, installing the subfloor on the extension to the back of the Cottage that will eventually accomodate a bigger kitchen and a screened porch. Last year the foundations were poured and Markus put in the stringers. This year, Andrew, Bob and I installed the subfloor. I got good at using a drill to drive the screw every 8" into the stringers. Before this, you entered the kitchen via a gang plank (lots of fun with your arms full of groceries).

The other big job has been clearing the west field. Markus has spent two years with a brush hog removing all the junk trees that have grown up in the field. Andrew and Calder went out and cut down the trees while Markus followed with the chain saw to cut the useful portions into fuel for our wood-fired heater. The rest of us would gather the useless parts of the trees into big piles. We would do this every morning for about an hour (it's hot, hard work). The night before everyone left, Markus decided to burn all ten piles of wood. It was quite a spectacle and had an unintended consequence. When I drove my mother down to her B & B at the bottom of the hill, there were two fire engines at the intersection of N. Eaton Lane and various other cars. It turns out that someone across the valley called in the fires and thought that the Select Sires (source of bull semen for most of the Eastern US) was burning. When I got back the two cars were up at the Cottage and Markus was explaining what we were doing. The Fire Department (volunteer) was fine with the controlled burns but asked us to give them notice in the future. Markus made an apology to the Fire Chief the next day and offered to contribute $50 for the cost of the diesel, but they didn't accept it. We have continued to clear brush (particularly in the ditches next to our gravel road) each morning and today Markus and I finished the last of the ditch work and loaded all the cut wood from the trees Andres cut down. There are still about 50 trees to go and we'll be having another big bonfire before Bob and I leave.

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon

After spending a week in Guelph, Ontario with brother Beren, Arlene, Calder and Oriana, while Bob returned to Corvallis to help coordinate the transportation at North Pacific Yearly Meeting, we headed off in Snoopy for Tunkhannock, PA, the old family homestead. I had a delightful time with Beren, Arlene and family, though Beren was recovering from a broken hip which he got while riding his bike home in a driving rain storm. We went to the Mennonite market in St. Joseph, near Guelph. It is a huge indoor and outdoor market with produce, meat, cheese, crafts and many other things. We also took in the Guelph Saturday farmer's market which also boasts fresh produce and crafts of various varieties, quilt stores, a visit to Elora, wonderful food and family and chores. I helped Arlene and Beren weed, mulch and get their yard back in shape. The weather didn't cooperate as it was humid, hot and very rainy. Beren and Arlene had applied for special Nexus passes that let you get into the US without waiting in long lines. So, we separated at the NY border and they headed directly to Pennsylvania and we, as is our fashion, avoided the interstates and headed due south of Buffalo on country roads to Highway 6 in Pennsylvania. Highway 6 goes all the way from the East Coast to Long Beach, CA and was the first transcontinental highway, built in 1927. We stopped at the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon because it had a back-country campground in the state park. Unfortunately, though it was not advertised as closed to pets, it was. However, we took a walk any way. The Pennsylvania Grand Canyon is 800' deep at this point and gets 1,400' deep. The road on the left used to be a railway that has been turned into a multi-purpose trail. The river used to flow north, but during the last glacial age the terminal moraine was a little north of here and when the lake behind it melted, the direction of the river was reversed.

In addition to hiking around the point and looking at the views, we took a half-mile detour to this lovely, lace-like falls. As you can see, Darwin was hot and on his own volition sat down in the water at the base of the falls. From here we went to a commercial campground and arrived in Tunkhannock on Saturday about mid-day, in the first wave of Robinsons arriving for the 2008 Barn Raising.

Darwin and Olive (Andrew and Julia's blue and grey border terrier) in Andrew and Julia's back yard in Ann Arbor Michigan. Olive is a 10-month old ball of energy who tried everything to get Darwin to play with her (all unsuccessful). The best they would do was to tug on a frisbee together. Darwin was completely befuddled by Olive.

From Ann Arbor we crossed into Ontario, Canada at Sarnia/Fort Huron and proceeded up the east side of Lake Huron, stopping at Pinery Provincial Park for a swim and lunch. The water of Lake Huron is beautifully blue/green and clear. We continued all the way up to the end of Bruce Penninsula which sticks out between Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. We stayed in a nice campground in Tobermorey where it was quite windy and cool (had to pull out the long pants and fleece jackets again). The next morning we went down to the Bruce Penninsula National Park, a new (1987) national park to protect traditional Ontario forests, marshes, shallow lakes and wetlands. We took a lovely walk out to the coast of Georgian Bay along the cobbled beaches, up onto the cliffs and eventually to the Grotto (which is pictured above). The cliffs are about 30 meters high and go another 170 meters down into the water. There were lots of folks swimming, dogs, kids, etc. The Bruce Trail (780 km) goes along the Niagara Escarpment from Tobermorey to Niagara Falls and is a UN Heritage Site.

We then drove down to Guelph to visit my brother Beren, Arlene and their two kids, Calder and Oriana for about 10 days. Bob flew back to Corvallis this morning to attend and help with North Pacific Yearly Meeting and to check in on his mom, Victoria.

Michigan's Upper Penninsula

We headed from Wisconsin Rapids to Michigan's Upper Penninsula, spending the first night (July 5) at J.W. Wells State Park. Despite the holiday weekend, there were spots in the park right on the shores of Lake Michigan. The next morning we headed up to the Picture Rocks area on the shores of Lake Superior. The three photos above are of the Picture Rocks and a hike down from Miner's Castle Rock (immortilized in a Hiawatha story by Longfellow) to Miner's Beach along a tanin-colored river. We then headed back down to Lake Michigan and took US 2 to St. Ignace, across the Mighty Mac suspension bridge (500' longer than the Golden Gate), into a private RV park in Mackinaw. On the way we stopped to buy some smoked lake trout in an unassuming shop which, when we got inside, had a sign saying that it had been written up in Gourmet Magazine in 1994. The lady behind the counter told us they had had a TV crew in just that week to do a story. It was delicious.

A thunder storn came up over the Mighty Mac (barely visible in the above photo). The RV Park was the biggest rip off we've been to yet. It advertised wi-fi access, but it cost $3 for 1 hour or $5 for 8 hours and was very slow and basically useless. The view was great, but the waste recepticals were at the entrance (and the park was huge; 600 spaces), there were only pit toilets (though they were clean), the site only had 50W power and no adaptors for extension cords so we had to buy one for $10.25.

The next morning we drove back across the Mighty Mac so Bob and Darwin could play the only disc golf course on the U.P., located behind a locked gate in a ski area. It was a rugged course with lots of mosquitos. While they played the course, I took a jet boat to Mackinac Island to take a quicky visit to the historical sites there. The fort was originally built by the British and then was given to the US after the war of 1812. It has all been renovated and there are all sorts of historical events that occur inside the fort. There are several other historical buildings sprinkled among the fudge and ice cream stores, bike rental places, and tourist kitsch. One of the really interesting things is that the fort surgeon treated a man who was shot in the stomach. The wound healed with a permanent fistula so that he could observe how the stomach digested various things. He did over 250 experiments on the man, taking him with him as he was posted to different military installations.

Lanesboro & the Root River, MN

We left St. Paul on Sunday June 29, headed towards Lanesboro on the Root River. Bob had met a couple in Guatemala who spent their summers in Lanesboro and invited us to camp on their property. Bob had been trying to communicate with them by e-mail without success, forgetting that he had been using his Yahoo account in Canada. We headed down the Mississippi River, stopping at Frontenac State Park on Lake Pepin. We stopped to take a 2.7 mile hike along the top of the bluffs and down at riverside in an area that was famous with explorers for these bluffs. The rock formation at left was very important to the Native Americans in the area. In Winona we stopped to let Bob play 18 holes of disc golf while I caught up with family via telephone (including a talk with Beren in the hospital where he was recovering from surgery to repair a broken hip).

In Lanesboro we camped at the city park which was within walking distance of everything in Lanesboro. The first night a huge Monaco Coach parked next to us. The next night Roxie from the Twin Cities drove up in a Cadillac Escalade in which she sleeps and camps. She was getting a respite from caring for her husband who had acute kidney failure. She had the most amazing quantity of plastic boxes filled with things to camp (table, chairs, little fire pit, lights, etc.)

The first full day in Lanesboro we rented a 16' canoe and paddled down the Root River for 16 miles. The rental place drove us to the put in point after caravaning our cars to the take-out point. The Root River is really beautiful, good current, bluffs, cold water, and we saw two leatherback turtles. We paddled along, stopped twice to swim and eat lunch and after about four hours made it to the take-out point.

Lanesboro is the home of the Commonweal Theater, a regional professional theater. We got tickets for the Man of La Mancha Monday night. It was quite a good production. This is a musical and most of the voices were pretty good. The accompanyist, a pianist, was also an actor and there was the occasional accordion and percussion created with tin cups and plates.

On Tuesday we rented a CD for a self-guided tour of the Amish country near Harmony, which is just south of Lanesboro. The CD explained some things about Amish traditions and guided us to various farm stands and places were quilts, baskets, canned goods and other things were sold. I was initially annoyed at the fact that it was so focused on selling things, but it finally occurred to me that the only way the English (what the Amish refer to outsiders as) could come into a farm yard is if they are invited through the offers of things to buy. We bought some amazing baskets (which seem to be the specialties here), a large bunch of asparagus for $1, a beautiful head of broccoli for 75 cents, and some dill pickles. It was really quite interesting. At one farm a young man was cultivating the corn field with three large draft horses. The Amish plant their corn wider so that the horses can walk between the rows.

In the afternoon we went to Mystery Cave, a state park with the longest cave in Minnesota. There was a great tour which we went on with one other family with some very interested kids. This area is all limestone and in the area of the cave the Root River goes underground, through a terminal sink and flows through the rock to emerge at a place called Seven Springs.
As a result, the cave is very live with water. There are quite a few fossils in the cave of the predecessors of squids and beautiful ponds which are so clear they look only a few feet deep, when in fact they are 10' deep. When the river floods, or there is heavy rain upstream, the cave fills up. It did so only about 2 weeks before we were there. The floods were more severe than those in 2002. The formations are created by the water seeping through the limestone. Each time it floods, the floods erode some of the formations. We took the short one hour tour (though it actually lasted 1 1/2 hours). There are longer tours on the weekends and wild cave tours lasting 4 1/2 hours where you are outfitted with knee and elbow pads and helmets and LED head lamps (which have replace carbide lamps) to go into areas of the cave not on the tours. They are still mapping the cave.

We had intended to go out to dinner, but the restaurant was closed, so we bought a sirloin steak and BBQ'd it and had new potatoes and asparagus. Yummy! The next morning we went to the Pastry Shoppe, recommended by the guy in the Monaco Motor Coach. You go in and when you ask for a menu they tell you they have all the usual breakfast stuff and you just put together what you want. We ordered scrambled eggs (Bob runny, me well-done) and they came exactly as ordered. They were accompanied by delicious Danishes and caramel rolls. It's a definite must go and very inexpensive.

We hope to return to Lanesboro and can highly recommend it for people who like to bike (the 60 mile Root River trail), canoe or walk.
The other two photos are of the Root River and Darwin and I in the canoe (me sporting my dorky hat which does keep the sun off may face and neck.

James Hill & Summit Ave.

The reason we traveled relatively quickly across the Great Plains was that Bob wanted to compete in a disc golf tournament in St. Paul. On the day of the tournament, I dropped him off about 8 a.m. and Darwin and I headed into St. Paul. Because it was so early in the morning, none of the museums were open. To while away the time, we walked four about four miles along the Mississippi River. There were walkers and bikers and the view was sometimes pretty and sometimes reflected decaying industrial buildings. When 10 a.m. rolled around, I left Darwin in the back of the car in the parking structure and walked up the hill near St. Paul's Cathedral to Summit Avenue and the James Hill House and bought tickets for the house tour and an architectural tour of Summit Ave. I walked over to St. Paul's Cathedral to await the architectural tour. When I came out it was pouring rain and the tour was cancelled. Instead, I went on the James Hill house tour.

James Hill, born in Guelph, Ontario, came to St. Paul to work as a "mudder," unloading the barges that traveled up the Mississippi River to the falls in Minneapolis, where they had to be unloaded. He was careful with his money and with some backers began a transportation business. As a bachelor, he ate all his meals in a particular hotel where he met an Irish waitress, whom he married. She was a good Catholic and they had 10 children.

Hill and some different backers eventually purchased the almost bankrupt Northern Pacific RR and started to build it west into Canada. The Canadian government refused to let him continue into Canada, so he was forced to go west through Montana, eventually finding the lowest pass through the Rockies at the same place we drove through. The Northern Pacific and Hill were also trying to build railroads into southern BC, which caused Canadian companies to beat him at his game and construct the railroad that went through the Othello Quintette tunnels. Hill succeeded partly because he was a hands-on manager and was out supervising the actual construction of the railroad.

Ultimately he built the house, the back of a portion of which is shown in the top photo. The house is 36,000 square feet and was constructed between
1888 and 1891 and had all sorts of conveniences such as central heating, electric lights, etc. It was designed by a Boston firm and the central heating is still used (though the coal-fired boilers have been replaced with natural gas). The house includes an art room with a glass ceiling below which is hung a frame covered with fabric to protect the art from too much sun or to let additional sun in. That room also has a 1,600 rank organ (which was played by a volunteer organist since it was Saturday). The main hall alone is 2,000 square feet. The dining room ceiling is covered in gold leaf and had leather embossed "wallpaper" on the walls. It was actually not all that gaudy.

Hill, who knew to the penny how much he spent on the house, did not have a will (i.e. he died intestate). He died in 1916 and his wife continued to live in the house until her death in 1921. She also died intestate (no one knows why they didn't have wills given their emphasis on details elsewhere in their lives). After her death the kids tried to sell the house unsuccessfully and ultimately gave it to the Catholic Church which used it as a place to train nuns to teach in the parochial schools.

Eventually the Catholic Church got tired of the building and it was given to the Minnesota Historical Society. After the house tour, lunch at Cafe Latte, I returned to Summit Ave. too late for the tour. However, as I parked, I saw the group heading off down the street and Darwin and I joined in. Summit Ave, five miles in length, with the exception of about 40-60 houses, consists of original houses in various styles built between about 1855 and 1920. The docent-led tour was very informative. Summit Avenue, until about 15 years ago was a very run down area of town with a high crime rate and lousy schools. Many of these houses had been turned into apartments and the Catholic Church owned a whole bunch (which is probably what saved the neighborhood). A few brave urban pioneers began to buy up the houses dirt cheap and rehabilitate them. The other three photos are of some of the wonderful houses on Summit Avenue. The third photo of a duplex was built by two lawyers who were also partners in their law firm.

If you ever get to St. Paul, Summit Avenue is a must-see for anyone who loves old houses that have generally been painstakingly restored.

Badlands, SD

We approached the Badlands from the Black Hills by way of SD 44. This route goes between the north and south portions of the Badlands. The south portion is governed in cooperation with the Rosebud Sioux tribe. We got to Ceder Pass campground, a USFS campground near the visitor's center. It had flush toilets and water and places for people to camp, though there were few trees. Each picnic table had a sun and wind shelter (the wind comes predominantly from the south). This first photo is the view from the campground.

That night there was a ranger's talk. Things have changed since I was a child when the ranger sat around a campfire and gave a talk. Now they have screens with reverse projection of power point presentations. The temporary summer ranger, from Tennessee where he teaches school, gave a really interesting presentation on the Homestead Act of 1862. Lincoln proposed the act in order to have more persons sympathetic to the north populate the Louisiana Purchase. He waited until part way through the Civil War to suggest the act. Interestingly, only people who had taken up arms against the north were prohibited from participating.

That meant that women, blacks and foreigners could try to earn their 160 acres by improving 5 acres by farming for 5 years. In the Badlands 95% of the people failed because the land gets so little rain. In the middle of the talk it began to thunder and lightning and so it was cut short as we all ran towards our tents and trailers in the downpour.

The next morning Bob and I got up early to hike to the Notch, 1.2 miles round trip, before it got too hot. Since dogs are not permitted on any trail in a national park, we had to leave Darwin in the car. The trail was amazing, up through the formations, up a 40' ladder, across ledges and to a notch looking out on the White River. There was no one on the trail except us. The second phot is of the hike up the Notch.

The Badlands were formed from the broken down debris washed out of the Black Hills over millions of years. Eventually the land was covered with a shallow sea and when that disappeared about 500,000 years ago the rivers began to erode the land into the present formations.
They lose about 2" every year. After hiking to the Notch, we visited the Visitor's Center and headed out on the 31 mile road to Wall, SD. It had wonderful overlooks and the colors were amazing.

When we finally reached Wall we did not visit Wall Drug, but headed east on I-90 for about 125 miles before we headed off on blue highways to Hamilton Lake State Park on the SD-Minnesota border. It had a disc golf course.

Food on the Trail

This photo shows Bob's breakfast, also called the "Tower of Power." All of the food to the right of the bowls are what he has for breakfast: granola, almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, raisins, yogourt, milk or juice and fruit. To the left of the photo is my breakfast: musli with milk and fruit.

We have mainly eaten out of the trailer or at friends' houses. When we do eat out, we generally do so for breakfast. We have tried the following restaurants mentioned in "Road Food" by Jane and Michael Stern:

Stella's in Billings, MT (large cinnamon rolls and plate size pancakes)
Lange's Cafe in Pipeston, MN (gooey caramel rolls and the best sour cream raisin meringue pie)
Cafe Latte in St. Paul, MN (wonderful high class cafeteria food and amazing layer cakes)
Pie Company in Traverse City, MI (wonderful pies)

In addition, we have found a few gems ourselves:

La Tarasca in Centralia, WA (Michoacan food)
Blackbery Patch in Hungry Horse, MT (huckleberry pancakes)
Rock Cod Cafe in Cowichan, BC (yummy fish sandwiches)
Udder Guy in Cowichan, BC (amazing ice cream)
Old Vines Restaurant in Qualsgate Winery, Kelowna BC (very high class lunch, lamb burger, panini with chicken, goat cheese and pepino pesto)
Pastry Shoppe in Lanesboro, MN (breakfast without a menu, you simply tell them what you want, wonderful Danishes)

We're not suffering in the food department. We've also bought Cornish pasties in the Upper peninsula and smoked whitefish, artisinal cheese in the Okanagan, Wisconsin cheeses in Wisconsin.