15, 233 Miles
This is just a recap of the quick drive across the country back to Cohasset. We spent little time visiting anywhere on the way back after Fort Peck and actually stayed in some of the same areas as on the way west.
From Fort Peck we drove straight through along US 2 to Minot, ND, only getting lost a bit going through Williston. It has grown immensely since we passed through going west on our first trip to Glacier and all the roads are new and some are still under construction. The whole city seems new, the result of being the center of the Bakken oil boom within the last ten years.
Once we got to Minot, we stopped at the water treatment lagoons to check on the birds there. There were large flocks but less diversity than on the way west, mostly Franklin's Gulls, a large group of Dowitchers and a smattering of ducks.
We ended the day back at the municipal campground in Currey, ND, where we had stayed on the westward leg of this trip. The weather continued to be warm and humid, a bit unexpected in late September, so we were happy to have an electric hookup.
Wednesday morning we left Currey quite early in order to drive to Rugby, ND, the geographical center of North America, for breakfast. We had attempted to stop at the Coffee Cottage on the way out, but it was closed for Memorial Day weekend. It is a local restaurant with good breakfasts and good-looking pies. We had a good breakfast but, once again, passed on the pie.
We had stopped here on our way west in 2011, also for breakfast, and lamented that it was too early for pie. My friend, Garry, reminded me that there was never a bad time for pie. We had that advice in mind when we stopped this time, but breakfast was just a bit too filling, so no pie this time either.
It was then back onto US 2 where we blasted through the rest of North Dakota and and about halfway through Minnesota. We tried to stop at Kellys Slough NWR outside of Grand Forks, but the GPS mis-routed us onto a muddy back road, which we did not take, and we just couldn't find the refuge.
From there, we drove non-stop to Cohasset...Cohasset, Minnesota, that is. We spent the night at a small Corps of Engineers campground at Pokegama Dam, right on the Mississippi River. Here, the Mississippi is narrow enough that it takes less than a minute to walk across it on the footbridge over the dam.
Thursday found us driving almost non-stop through the rest of Minnesota, all of Wisconsin and well into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We attempted to stop at one campgrounds in the Pictured Rocks National Seashore, but they were all completely filled.
Due to a bit of mis-communication when we got to Grand Marais at the eastern end of the park, we passed up the big lakeside municipal campground with showers and nearby restaurants for a half-hour, twilight ride to the town of Seney and its town campground on the Fox River. It supposedly also had new bathrooms. Their interpretation of new bathrooms is new outhouses. At least they had electricity as it was another hot and sticky night. There were no eating places nearby.
We got another early start on Friday morning, stopping about 20 miles down the road at the Triangle Restaurant in McMillan, MI. It was another small local place with a decent breakfast and a group of old guys sitting around yakking. From there we were off to Sault Ste. Marie and back into Canada. We made it about halfway across Ontario on Trans-Canada 17, stopping fairly early at the Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park which was right off the highway. We didn't want to repeat our late arrival of last night.
It is a relatively small park and, even in late September, was nearly full on Friday night. This might have had something to do with half of the campground being closed. All that were available were electric sites, expensive electric sites, but it was still warm and sticky so we made use of the electricity.
Another early start on Saturday and another local restaurant breakfast. This time is was Myrt's Family Restaurant in Mattawa for another decent, inexpensive breakfast. Then we were back on the road for the push back into the USA.
The night before, I'd looked at the various options for the shortest route home from Ontario and it turned out that the route we had taken through the Adirondacks in May was within 9 minutes (according to Google Maps) of the shortest route I could find. So that is the way we went. We figured that we could get at least to the area of Lake George. From there we could decide if we wanted to continue as the routing then took us onto I-87, then around Albany and onto I-90 (the Mass Pike) and home.
We made it to the border at Ogdensburg, NY about 1:30pm and I-87 at about 5pm. At this point, I figured we could make it to the Mass Pike and, if too tired, stop at one of the service plazas. We stopped at the Lee Plaza at about 7:30 for dinner and decided we could continue on. By the time we passed the Charlton Plaza near Sturbridge, it was obvious that we could make it to Cohasset tonight...Cohasset, Massachusetts, this time.
There was relatively little traffic on 128 and Route 3 and we turned onto Howe Road at 10:20pm. After 126 days and 15,233 miles we were home....almost. Someone was parked in our front yard parking space. We left Speedy on the street, opened the front door, turned the water back on and collapsed on our nice big, comfortable queen-sized bed...the one in the bedroom with the brand new bathroom and shower right next to it, unshared with anyone else.
We were home.
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