Today was to be for driving. We leisurely packed up and drove east to the first local cafe we found, which was in Lake George. There we had typical cafe breakfasts, oatmeal and muffins for John and eggs and hash browns for me. Yum.
We continued east surrounded by forests and occasional lakes. At Grand Rapids we stopped at the Forest History Museum but decided not to go in. We've both been to the Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon and the Camp 18 restaurant near the Oregon Coast has old logging equipment and great photos. So we continued east into the Mesabi Iron Range where the Mesabi Trail was often visible from the highway.
We stopped at Nashwauk to check out the city campground but we didn't want to camp right out in the sun so we kept driving east toward the West Two Rivers campground near Mountain Iron. The GPS got us on the right road though not exactly to the right spot but the area looked great as we pulled into the office area. Well, a group had reserved the WHOLE campground. The clerk showed us a list of area campgrounds and phone numbers so we gave the cell phone a try. Not much luck getting the phone to respond in this area! Time to just drive to whatever we could find.
It was back west to Buhl for their municipal campground near a small lake. We found the campground, all seven sites with one port-a-potty, and some locals pulling in that convinced me to drive on. No way was I staying there. It was probably a good thing because the next day we stopped at the lake for a potty break, only to find the bathrooms locked and no water!
Back on the highway, traveling east again to the city of Virginia. I cursed the GPS for not having a link to the visitors' centers in each town, but fortunately found the correct address in the Mesabi Trail brochure. What is it about some visitors' center employees? They don't seem to know much about their towns? How hard is it to give a ballpark figure for hotel rates? I admit they did find us a campground with sites available in the next town of Gilbert.
With the address for the Gilbert city campground, Sherwood Forest, in the gps we headed off. $17 a night for a grassy site with some shade and clean bathrooms was a good deal. We signed up for two nights and then noticed that almost everyone else in the campground had ATVs. Apparently there was an ATV park right near the park. However, the campground had rules for ATVs and they were all left on their trailers or parked quietly. It was still dangerous to walk on the campground road because of elementary aged boys on fast bicycles! In spite of the Mesabi Trail right alongside the campground, we didn't see any other cyclists.
It was too late to go for a ride, so we walked into town to find something to eat. The main street was VERY quiet except for a dad and two kids, one driving an electric kid-sized ATV. There were a number of sleazy looking bars and one nice looking bar. A closer look at the nice bar showed a side door with nicely dressed people entering. A restaurant? Yes, so we headed in. Who would expect to find a nice Jamaican restaurant in Gilbert, MN - a mining town that had seen better days. The prices were a bit higher than we had planned on, but my Mediterranean Medley pasta was enough for two more servings the next night!
Oh, the campground was on Ore-be-gone, a large pit lake, so named because after mining, all the ore was gone! The whole area had a number of pit lakes with beautiful blue water contrasting with the reddish soil (think iron!) and the green forests.
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