Agates, Bucket List and Deep Water

What a crazy life I lead! I almost didn’t write because I feel too far behind. And I’m not sure if many read this anyway. But I’m amazed how often Matt and I refer to my blog posts, just to help us remember! So, here goes.

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After leaving Florida, we spent time with family. We camped with the grandkids and went to the Ark Encounter and The Creation Museum. These were two places I’ve wanted to visit.

I loved the artwork in the Ark. They even depicted one of Noah’s daughter-in-laws as an artist.

I liked the Ark Encounter and was amazed by the size and details, but I think I enjoyed the Creation Museum even more. So uplifting and faith building!

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A big thrill was being able to see our grandson, Aaron, declare his faith in Jesus as his Savior and be baptized by his dad, Jonathan!

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It was time to move on. Our big goal for the summer was to add North Dakota to our map of visited states. North Dakota just doesn’t seem to be a state that is on our usual path across the nation. I also wanted to see Lake Superior again. We had seen it briefly in 2014 (blog post from that time) and I wanted to spend more time there. But it was a bit of a drive and we had a couple stops first. I couldn’t find an RV park available for one of the stops, so I looked up a Harvest Host. Sure enough there was one, Chicagoland Skydiving Center. They would let us boondock on their property for free for a night. As we drove there, Matt said, “Do you suppose they could fit me in?!” You see, one of his all time bucket list items was to go skydiving! And you guessed it, they did! I captured this pic as he and his tandem jumper were coming in for a landing.

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But the photographer that jumped at the same time took this photo. Look at that grin!

As you can tell, Matt loved every single moment of that jump. And it was worth every penny for that smile. That’s another bucket list item checked off.

Next we headed to the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin. I wanted to take a boat tour and be out on Lake Superior, that deep, cold, mysterious lake. It was a gorgeous day and lovely scenery. The captain told fascinating stories about the islands. We also hiked to see the sea caves. It was incredibly hot for the area, 96 degrees. I thought heading north we would escape the heat. Lol.

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Then we were off to drive to Grand Marias, Minnesota. Funny thing, I was corresponding with a friend of things to do while at Grand Marias. I was so grateful for the helpful information. But after we got there, nothing was making sense. Nothing was where she explained it to be. I was quite confused and thought I was pretty dense for not figuring things out. All the sudden she wrote, “Wait! Are you in Minnesota?! I thought you were in Michigan!” Haha! I had no idea there is also a Grand Marias in Michigan! Glad we cleared that up. She didn’t have much info about Grand Marias, MN and I had to figure things out for myself. But it has made me want to go to the one in Michigan! We stayed at an RV park that had this for a view.

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I like collecting lighthouse sightings and determined that I would walk out to this one. I thought it would be land all the way out to the lighthouse, from what I had seen across the water.

The picture flattens out the steep slope of the break walls. And that railing was not secure. I usually do ok with heights, but I was feeling really badly. Vertigo, I guess. Scared to death! It was narrow and people kept coming the other way. But, with Matt’s help, I made it. That was not the fun thing that I thought it would be! Yikes! I was super happy to be back on land. The next photo captures a lot of what we did while in Minnesota.

We went to beach after beach digging through the stones looking for Lake Superior Agates. That day in the pic above, it was super cold and windy. Then it would get hot. Mercurial weather! Well, we didn’t fair that well with agates. We even went to a gravel road where supposedly people were finding them. We spent hours and hours. (Matt is a very determined person!) I found LOTS of other stones that I fell in love with and had to keep. And decided to go somewhere I knew I would find the agates. Now it is time for a Tale of Two Rock Shops.

There was a rock shop listed for Grand Marias and I was determined to go to it. Matt finished work and the shop was supposed to be open for another hour, according to Google. When we arrived, the sign outside said closed. We had to turn the truck around and as we were, I saw a woman outside. Now, I am not usually a bold person like this, but I decided to get out and ask her if the rock shop was open. By this time, she was behind the house at the car and a man was there too. I asked and she said, “Oh, the rock shop has been closed for over a year.” I thought it had probably been closed because of Covid. I turned to walk away and I heard the man, who had been silent, making a clicking sound. He motioned to his wife and that is when I noticed that he had a tracheotomy. He couldn’t speak but he let her know that he wanted to show us some agates. So, we had a lovely time visiting with Rich and Angie DeWitt. The rock shop was completely dismantled, but Rich invited us into the house and showed us many rock specimens. He wrote on a white board to teach us fascinating facts about the local stones. They had just returned from an emergency trip to the Mayo clinic and were exhausted. But they spent probably 2 hours with us and I felt we had made dear friends. We bought these beautiful Lake Superior Agates from them.

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I told Rich that we would pray that he would get better from his cancer. He wrote that no one recovers from what he has. Tears filled my eyes. Matt asked him if he knew Jesus and Rich said yes. I’m so glad I was bold and approached the woman by the car, Angie. They so blessed us and I hope we encouraged them.

Then the second rock shop. There is not a photo for this one. We drove to the next campsite and there was, again, a rock shop nearby. I was hoping to buy a Lake Superior Agate cabochon to wire wrap as a reminder of our trip. I didn’t wait for Matt this time, but decided to make it a fun event by myself. Sure enough, they had some lovely cabochons. We chatted about the stones and the man and woman behind the counter admired my jewelry. I even showed them photos of past stones that I have wirewrapped. It was all going so well, and I thought I would buy a cabochon, even though it was pricey. I explained that I wanted to look at the rest of the shop, but then I made a mistake of saying we were RVers. The guy running the shop hates RVers and made that known. He kept going on and on about them. How they park in his lot and take up too many spaces, they don’t know how drive or how to stop. He said people use to have kayaks with them but now they pull their house behind them. (Said in an angry tone.) Finally I said, “Well, sorry you don’t like us.” I thought that might make him realize that he was insulting me and that he would calm down. He didn’t back down but kept going. There was another customer in the shop and he looked shocked. The other customer tried to bring the owner down a notch, but the rock shop guy continued. So I left. I really wanted to buy that stone, but not from him. And I really wanted Matt to see some of the gorgeous stones in that shop, but we didn’t go back. What a difference between the two rock shops. One was a blessing and the other so upsetting that I got in the truck and just drove and drove until I found a spot to stop and calm down. It sure makes a difference in how we treat others.

We drove to Grand Portage to the state park there. You can see the border crossing into Canada as you enter the park. I waved to all my Canadian friends and wished that things were different so we could have crossed. But we had a lovely hike.

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On another hike, I took a quick pic. Couldn’t really see what I was doing in the bright sunshine. After we got home, I was shocked to see that my hubby might actually be an angel!

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Time to start traveling across towards our goal of North Dakota. We stopped at the headwaters of the Mississippi. So crazy that you can just walk over the Mississippi River.

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Next stop will be the long awaited North Dakota! Can’t believe we will get there! Until next time….adventure on!

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