New Year in Duluth

 

Monday-Tuesday, Sept. 6-7

We got up on Monday morning and packed up our camper, used the excellent KOA showers, and hit the road for a drive to Duluth, about 3 hours away. We had a reservation at a campground on the river (I didn't know WHAT river) so we could spend Rosh Hashanah in a place with decent phone reception. We planned to "go to services" via AEMT's livestream Monday evening and Tuesday morning.

We arrived without incident in the late afternoon at River Place Campground. It was, indeed, right smack on the Saint Louis River, only a few miles upstream from where it pours into Lake Superior and Dululth Harbor. Almost all the campers there were seasonal, with porches and lawn ornaments, and they had all the actual waterfront sites. But there was a pier with a table and chairs where I sat for a little while, admiring the serenity of the river. 

Saint Louis River along our campground

There was no one to be found at the office cum bait shop. My instructions had been to ask there for my site number. But there was a list posted on the door and I saw that we had Site 33, so we found it (very easy) and parked ourselves there. It was quiet--many of the seasonal campers were not there, and there was plenty of grass to walk Cassie, so we were very happy and settled ourselves in.

Dinner was early, because I wanted to catch the services at 6:30 central time (they were 7:30 at home.) I sat in the dinette with the laptop set up, and watched the whole thing, sang along with the prayers, etc. This was an improvement from previous years, when this technology was not utilized, but the one upside to Covid is that we can now participate in important events via Zoom, Livestream, or even YouTube (the services could be found on all three.)

Duluth Shipping Channel by Maritime Museum

Tuesday morning, I got myself going in time to catch late services (10:45 my time.) I had touched base with Aimee and Beth, and the three of us had a phone text group going as we all watched services together. That made it a bit more comforting, since I was missing being with family for the New Year. 

When services were over, Joey and I had some lunch. Then we drove to Duluth to be sightseers. My plan had been to take the North Shore Scenic Highway (another All America Road) for as long as we felt like driving. But I was not at all sure where or how to pick it up! I saw in my Duluth tourist book that there was a Maritime Museum run by the Army Corps of Engineers right by the Aerial Lift Bridge, Duluth's landmark. So I felt they could surely tell me where to go, and we'd visit the museum as well.

The Aerial Lift Bridge, built 1905, up to allow the tanker to pass underneath

Unfortunately, we seem to be on a streak of getting to places and finding them closed! The Museum is closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. However, the outdoors were open, and there were quite a few people enjoying a beautiful fresh sunny afternoon and watching the shipping lane, which ran in front of the Museum and under the adjacent lift bridge. Just as we arrived, the bridge started going up. We looked to see why, and saw a huge tanker in the harbor coming toward us. We watched as it turned hard to go through the shipping lane under the bridge. It was BIG!!

As it was passing, suddenly a woman came on a loudspeaker from the Museum, and told us all about the ship, which was called the Indiana Harbor. It was 1,000 feet long, 105 feet wide, and was carrying  78,900 tons of iron ore pellets from West Duluth (I didn't catch where the ship was headed.) It was fascinating watching it go past us just a few feet away. After it cleared the bridge, the roadway descended again, and we watched the cars go over. It was super cool.

The Aerial Bridge descending after the ship is through

The Museum might have been closed, but their gift shop was operating out of a trailer next to the building. So i picked up some postcards and magnets, and asked the lady how to find the North Shore highway. Then we got back in the Jeep and drove a few miles until we found Minnesota Highway 61. This tickled me, because Bob Dylan wrote a song called Highway 61 Revisited, and it starts out, "God said to Abraham, kill me a son," and kind of "reimagines" the story of the Akeda. Since we'd just heard that read a few hours earlier as the Torah portion of Rosh Hashanah, I thought it was fun that later in the day, I was on Highway 61. 61 happens to lead right to the North Shore drive. 

So we drove up the scenic road along Lake Superior listening to Bob Dylan on the radio (he grew up in Duluth and is sort of the "favorite son." I also snapped a photo of Bob Dylan Drive later in the day.) The Lake was simply gorgeous--a deep green/blue near the shore and darker farther out. We could see "our" ship, the Indiana Harbor, in the distance. At one point, we pulled over to a scenic overlook/historical marker, and just then a huge rainstorm came through, pelting us. We just sat in the car and waited until it passed over us, and then watched it sail out over the lake. There were actually quite a few rainstorms over the lake, and the clouds were amazing--sun in some places, and dark clouds with rain pouring out of them in others. 

After the rain, I got out to read the historical marker (it marked the site of Buchanan, a settlement in the mid-1800s which disappeared later), and realized that the rocks below allowed us to go down to the very edge of the lake. Our goal had been to find a place to do "tashlich" in Lake Superior. So Joe got out of the Jeep to join me, and we carefully climbed down the rocks and tossed our bread crumbs into the water. Hopefully our sins went with them. But if they did they will now plague a flock of seagulls, who appeared out of nowhere at the very first toss, and squawked and grabbed up all the crumbs as they hit the water's surface.

Lake Superior Shoreline with Storm clouds over Lake

Tashlich on Lake Superior

We continued up the shoreline after sitting in the sun and enjoying the water for a little while longer, but the road took us off the immediate shore at that point, and we decided maybe we should head back south toward home. When we got to the city again, we wanted to find a grocery--we needed a few things as usual. There was construction to foul us up more than once, and that meant we discovered that Duluth has a lakeview park which looks out on the lake and is spectacular! In face, the city really seemed delightful-- it is built much like San Francisco in that the hill it's on is VERY steep, and the higher you go, the better the harbor view. There were trendy shops in the area we found, and I would have loved to park someplace (there seemed to be nowhere to park, really) and walk in that park. Something else to come back for, I guess!

We finally found a Whole Foods Co-op store--much smaller than a regular Whole Foods, but with veggies (which we needed) and some other stuff as well. And after that, we were able to return to our RV.  We did get lost on our way home, and ended up going over a couple of large bridges. Only to discover that crossing the bridge took us back to Wisconsin! I didn't realize that the tip of Wisconsin was there, sharing the port with Duluth. The second bridge brought us back to Minnesota, and it was the GPS announcing "Welcome to Minnesota" which tipped me off! So it was a geography lesson as well.

All day the weather varied from bright and sunny autumn to brief rainy spells. Luckily, we timed our adventures to maximize the sun and not suffer much from the rain. We really enjoyed our afternoon, and felt it was a nice start to our New Year.

Alternative Rosh Hashanah

Cinder Cones on the Horizon

2019-09-30 Monday

Today was Rosh Hashanah. The only time I remember not being home on Rosh Hashanah for the past 35 years or so, was in 2007. That year was our first cross-country RV trip, and we spent Rosh Hashanah in Yosemite National Park. It was a wonderful experience, and we've never forgotten it. Today was memorable also, and a worthy addition to our "alternative Rosh Hashanah experiences".

The day started with us waking extra early and immediately checking our campground for snow--we'd heard it might snow an inch or so overnight. No such happening, however-- we'd had rain, but there was not a trace of snow. In fact, when I took Cassie out to walk, I thought it felt almost balmy, and the sky had signs of blue in it! But I did see when I looked at the mountains surrounding us that in fact, they did have a covering of white. It didn't seem to be threatening us, however, and we ignored it.

One thing we had discussed last night with Adam was whether there was any recycling center in Klamath Falls. We've been shlepping a lot of aluminum cans and plastic water bottles with us for weeks, unable to find anywhere to recycle them. Turned out there was something called the BottleDrop where we could bring our stuff. So that was our first stop--it was only 5 minutes away (all of Klamath Falls is less than 10 minutes from any other part of it-- it's not a large city.) We parked in the large parking lot of a Fred Meyer store right behind the BottleDrop, and dragged in two large bags of flattened plastic bottles, and a bag of squashed cans. Turned out the cans had deposits on them in Oregon, and we got $3.70 back for turning them in! What a deal--we'd have PAID to be able to drop this stuff off! We investigated and discovered they also took cardboard and glass, so back we went to the RV and brought in a lot of cardboard and a few glass containers. Voila! Suddenly our shower is not full of trash!

From there, we headed south to Lava Bed National Monument. It was only about an hour drive away, and to get there, we crossed the state line into California. It turns out that when you cross a state line on a back road, there's no colorful "Welcome to California" sign waiting for you :(  I thought that was very unfair. But soon I was distracted by unusual black mounds in the distance. They sure looked like volcano cones to me!

The landscape changed, and we found ourselves driving along a gorgeous lake, Lake Tule, which signs told us was a wildlife preserve. There were a lot of birds on the lake--I even saw some pelicans! On the other side of the road, the rocks were rising up around us. Soon the lake side turned to cultivated land, but the rocks became even more jagged and unusual. And then suddenly, as we arrived at Lava Beds National Monument, all we saw were black rocks of lava all around us.

The landscape reminded us very much of Craters of the Moon, which we visited in 2011. But it's very different in some ways. Craters of the Moon had much less vegetation growing on the surface--we saw a lot of sage, and especially beautiful Juniper trees (which are all loaded with berries right now.) And the volcanoes are visible on the surface--we climbed up one of the cinder cones. The volcano which created this area was a different kind than the other. The area was formed by the Medicine Lake Volcano. Rather than erupting in explosions, it was "gentler", and erupted through vents in the surface, causing the lava to flow and form what they say is a "shield-like profile.)

I had a hard time understanding the surface convolutions, but what I did understand was that the lava created tunnels as it came out, and those acted like "arteries" to guide the lava as it left the interior. The walls of the tunnels cooled first, creating a sort of "tube" where the lava continued to flow. When it stopped flowing, the walls were still there and they are now caves which open up on the surface. There are more than 700 lava tube caves in the Monument, and a couple of dozen have been opened up to access by the public.

Joey reading an information panel in Mushpot Cave

 We stopped at the visitor's center, where I got a pin for my new collection, and talked to the ranger. He gave me a map, a list of which caves were the easy ones (they are divided based on level of difficulty to explore), and a cave permit. The small interpretive area was very interesting, to say the least, also (more about that in a minute.) It was already about 3:00, so we were anxious to go into one of the caves. We chose the Mushpot Cave, which is the easiest-- it is lit, and has a concrete floor, and interpretive panels to show you features of the cave as you walk through it. Nevertheless, it was exciting and fascinating, not least because Joe and I were literally the only ones in the entire cave! We read about the different types of lava flow, the different markings on the walls and ceilings, and the animals which live in the cave (pack rats, bats, and icky things like centipedes and scorpions.) We brought extra flashlights (recommended), but we still both managed to hit our heads in one particularly low area. We loved it, and I would have liked to try another cave, but Joe was ready to call it a day. It was pretty late, so that made sense.

Looking Down through Mushpot Cave

Another thing which made the area in general so interesting was its settlement history. Originally the area was the territory of the Modoc Indians. When we were driving in, we stopped at an overlook which also marked the spot of the final battle between the Indians the the US Army, which was trying to move them out of the area. The war lasted a number of months, because the Indians knew the land so well that they could avoid the army. The end came when the Indians themselves became divided, and one group guided the army to the stronghold where the Indians were encamped. There were fewer than 200 left in the end, and they were relocated to Oklahoma and their culture was mostly lost. ("Another proud moment in American history," was my husband's wry comment.)

Juniper Tree with Berries

 In the interpretive center, we learned that much of the parks infrastructure had been built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, which lived at Gillem's Camp (which was near the National Monument entrance.) Sadly, during World War II, the camp was used as an interment camp for Japanese civilians. We also learned about that cultivated land we'd seen next to Lake Tule as we drove in. After WWI and WWII, the government had offered parcels of land to army veterans for farmland. The parcels were given out via lottery--which was held by drawing names of winners out of a large pickle jar! There was a replica of that in the interpretive center, along with other information about the settlement of the area around the National Monument. Much of that land had been wetlands, which were drained to create the farmland.

We decided to spend the night here, because it was too late to leave to drive toward Lassen National Volcanic Park, our next destination. Yes, we really are seeing a lot of volcanoes on this trip! The most interesting thing we learned-- until Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, the Medicine Lake Volcano erupted most recently of any in the lower 48 states-- it last erupted only 900 years ago! That's modern history! Scientists study the regrowth and changes at Lava Beds National Monument to learn what may happen in the future around Mount St. Helens. So each of these volcanoes is an ongoing learning experience.

Cassie contemplating the volcanic horizon

 Our Alternative Rosh Hashanah proved to be very interesting--we did not expect so much from this site. But we wished, in the end, that we'd gotten an early start to our day and gotten here earlier. There is a lot to see, and we plan to see a couple of more things on our way out tomorrow. Meanwhile, the campground is beautiful, with views of the surrounding area, and cost us a grand amount of $5.00. So you can't beat that for a lovely end to a lovely day.

Dodging the Weather

Snow on the Road

2019-09-29 Sunday

The big news out here in the west (and in the east) is that there has been a record snowfall in Montana and parts of other states where we have recently visited. In fact, the town of Browning, the center of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, where we spent a day several weeks ago, perspiring while our Jeep's brakes were getting repaired, received 40 inches of snow this weekend.

Our plans for last night, as I wrote already, were to go toward Klamath Falls via Mount Hood. But fear of snow at high elevations (and anxiety about the late hour) caused us to stop for the night down low, and consider our options. So this morning, we continued to discuss whether we should follow our original route or change it. We had heavy rain all night, and the idea that it might be snowing on the mountain tops sent us, reluctantly, to travel via the interstate, in order to have a wider, safer, and less snowy road.

Traveling the interstate means there's really nothing to talk about, but fortunately just south of Eugene, we turned off the I-5 and headed toward Klamath Falls to the southeast. The road was really pretty, running along a river most of the time, but soon we realized we seemed to be climbing again. As the signs on the road informed us that our altitude was going up 1,000 feet at a time, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe there was no mountain-free way to get to Klamath Falls. And indeed, we started seeing snow on trees in the distance.... and soon a bit closer.... and soon it was clear that we were going to be seeing snow up close and personal.

I looked again, more closely, at my maps, and sure enough. We were going over the Willamette Pass, a bit above 5,000 feet. And there had been snow! And it was in the trees next to us, in the woods, and a little bit along the roadside. In the distance we could see beautiful, snow-covered mountains, and we were passing ski resorts. Luckily, we encountered no weather on the ascent, the roads were dry, and we even stopped at several scenic pullouts so I could take photos of Diamond Peak and the Cascade Range in the distance. I also made a snowball, and threw it at the RV's windshield, just for fun.

Diamond Peak and the Cascades in the distance

 We switched drivers at the summit, and Joe drove down the mountain, encountering a very brief squall of frozen rain or something of the sort. But it didn't last long, and we had a safe and scenic ride down the other side. We continued south, passing the turn-off to Crater Lake (we did consider making the detour to visit it again, but I re-read my blog on the subject, and we decided we did NOT relish driving and pulling the Jeep along the curvy narrow roads at the rim of the crater. Been there, done that.)

We thought these clouds were spectacular

 So it was that we cruised into Klamath Falls, chose a KOA from the very sparse choices of overnight parking available to us, and met our godson Adam for an erev Rosh Hashanah dinner at the local Black Bear Diner. The visit was lovely, and certainly a high point of the week for us. And then we came back to our RV, and that was that for our day!

A Different Kind of Rosh Hashanah

After setting up our campsite, we spent about an hour just sitting and soaking up the reality that we had arrived at the most beautiful campsite in Yosemite. But at around 3 pm, I wanted to find out whether there was perchance any kind of “gathering” being set up anywhere in the park to welcome in the new year. We took the free valley shuttle bus from the campgrounds to the Visitor Center, but I totally stumped the ranger at the desk—she knew of no plans anywhere for Rosh Hashanah. I found myself to be disappointed—I had been so sure that someone would be doing something, somewhere, which would be known to the park administration. We decided we would simply have to do our own thing, for which purpose we had brought with us a shofar. Since the one mitzvah for RH is to hear the sound of the shofar, we had figured that we would fulfill that commandment, and find some other way to be appreciative to God for the gifts of life and the world we live in. Of course, in Yosemite, it is remarkably easy to do that!

So after watching a 23 minute film called “The Spirit of Yosemite”, we left the visitors center and went back to Mo. When it was getting dark, we took out our candles, our wine and grape juice (I’d specifically brought small bottles of both from home), and we made our brochot to welcome in the Yom Tov. After dinner, we decided to attend a ranger presentation called “Natural Parks in the Sky: Appreciating The Splendor of the Universe.” It seemed to us that the splendor of the universe was a good thing to appreciate in lieu of services at home.
The show was not bad—maybe not quite as good as one of Rabbi Miller’s high holiday sermons but with better slides, LOL! And then we walked back in the dark (the show was in an outdoor amphitheater in one of the other neighboring campgrounds) with our flashlights, looking at the stars. We had actually had reason the night before to note that the stars were simply incredible out here; we never see stars like that in New Jersey, for sure.

Yesterday morning we slept late, and were happy to get a call from Beth just as we were waking up. We ate breakfast and then set out to find a place to blow the shofar. I had given this much thought, because although I’d had the idea that Joey ought to be blowing it every morning throughout our trip, as per halachah (and to afford him some practice), it was obvious as soon as we started travelling that blowing a shofar in the close quarters of a campground, or even in a Flying J parking lot, might be more noise and disturbance than one would like to cause! We’d also talked about blowing it on top of a mountain—but of course, we are down in the valley; the mountains are about 5,000 feet above our heads!

So I decided we ought to head for El Capitan Meadow. El Capitan is the largest granite monolith in the world (3 times taller than the Empire State Building) and the meadow which stretches out at its foot is quite large. I thought that if we were in the center of the meadow, it would be a suitable spot, and one which was unlikely to disturb anyone else. So we took the shuttle bus again and wandered into the meadow. There were a few people around, but no one was really near us. We said the brocho, and then Joey blew all the different shofar calls for us. It was very cool!

El Capitan

After that, we simply wandered through the meadow, down to the river, and through the trees, slowly and appreciatively. That part of the park is simply lovely, and despite the fact that there are many visitors here, we were alone most of the time. We took so many photos that we actually used up the disk (it holds 128 photos, but we’d forgotten to download those from the day before.) We could see some mountain climbers on the face of El Capitan; even using my 10x zoom lens, they looked like ants.

Can you see the climbers in the center of the photo?

After wandering and taking photos for several hours, we went back to the shuttle stop, and took the bus to the Village Store. We needed “eggs, milk, and ice”. Well, we managed to buy a lot more groceries than that! The Yosemite Village Store has a little grocery which is probably one of the most amazing stores for its size. It had gourmet and specialty foods of every description, ethnic choices from Mexican to Thai (even kosher hot dogs!), wine (and wine glasses, God forbid you hadn’t brought any!), organic yummies, and lots of great ice cream! We had to skip the latter since we were at the mercy of the shuttle, but we bought a lot more than I should have allowed poor Joe to shlep back (of course he wouldn’t let me help), but I did buy something called a Starbucks Mud Pie, and enjoyed it as we left. Also outside the store as we left was a young buck, grazing along as if for the sheer pleasure in posing for photos.

Joe outdid himself creating burritos for dinner (or were they enchiladas? I’m not sure), and he went to bed early. But I sat up for a while reading my book…. And that was our Rosh Hashanah day. From the moment the sun went down and we could look at the stars, until the next sundown, the day typified the quote from Psalms: “This is the day the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” A really special Rosh Hashanah that we will remember for a very long time.