The Trip: 1969
Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
July 5, 1969 - July 26, 1969

We picked up Bob from camp and found out we had a Star scout! He already had one merit badge, surveying, and he earned four at camp: swimming, canoeing, first aid, and astronomy. We were most delighted with him!

We brought him home and while we washed his clothes and dried them at Aunt Seeta Mayne's and ate fresh peach cobbler, Ray cut his hair. So much for a glorious Fourth!

Bill had hoped we would leave by 7:30, but it was eight before we got away. We breezed along well, reading our first book, Corbett's Tree House Island, until just on the northern outskirts of Dallas. The car gave a horrible screech, and Bill Jr. pulled it off the expressway. In a few minutes a broken fan belt fell off the car. Low blow! It was just 12:00. We pulled in to a very friendly cooperative and convenient Mobile and found we had hot only lost a fan belt, but found a broken water pump.

Three hours and thirty-six dollars later, we were leaving with a heavy broken water pump in a box in the back seat. As we were pulling out, I asked Bill if we couldn't leave it at the station and pick it up on our way back. This is what we decided to do.

So on we went -- crossed the Red River, moved through Oklahoma,  and suppered at seven in Tulsa at a fine Piccadilly Cafeteria in a beautiful, new air conditioned mall where art students had recently competed with each other in painting with tempura paints on Opal Kadetts. There were about 5 painted (completely -- all windows and tires included) cars, and they were pretty wild.

Bob made a purchase at Woolco and we continued north along the fine pay-turnpike highway toward Joplin, Mo., and our night's lodging. We got there at 9:30. Bob was the only one with ooomph enough to swim.

We fell, exhausted, into bed.

After having stopped at Stuckey's for some pecan-cinnamon rolls that turned out to be quite lousy, the rest of breakfast (orange juice, milk, vienna sausage sandwiches) was O.K.

We enjoyed especially going under the lily pads and looking up at their growing roots and the duckweed and the fishes. I don't believe I've ever seen a fish swimming from under it before.

While we were at the gardens (Shaw's Gardens, they used to be), we took a ride on the "flower wagon", a tour of the area. This was fun.

Then we drove through St. Louis to the Jefferson Memorial Expansion Arch, with the Mississippi flooding six feet of the water front, and took a unique ride in a five passenger capsule to the top of the arch -- 630 feet or so above the city. The view from there was great.

We had a most sumptuous Heritage House smorgasbord here, too.

We were under a tornado alert here until 9:00. Couldn't get too excited about it, though.

Tried to see Mission Impossible on TV, but it was too staticy. All in bed and asleep by 10:20

This morning the streets are dry, but the day is overcast.

We left our motel at eight. This motel was a good one, but we were too hot with the air conditioning off, and it was pretty noisy when it was on. However, we sleep no matter. Bill Jr. constructed a couple of snake cages and decided on his science fair project while he was working on digesting his monstrous meal of last night, he told us, and the commode threw me a couple of times, but that just makes for chuckles.

We ate breakfast at a pancake house before going out to look over New Salem State Park. For breakfast we had cherry flips (Bill), Hawaiian delight (Barb), junior order (2 pancakes, scrambled egg, bacon -- Bill and I), and buttermilk pancakes (Bob). Bob tried all the syrups -- he liked blueberry, blackberry, and strawberry best.

New Salem State Park is a reconstructed village of Lincoln's time. We saw Abe's store, Dr. Regnier's combination office and home, and several other homes and stores of 130 years ago. It made us delighted to live now!

We finally left Springfield and headed for the Chicago area. We stopped for sandwich material and then, about 1:30 we stopped in beautiful Gebhardt Woods State Park and ate a chilly picnic around a beautiful little lake.

Then we drove to our trailer stop and spent a couple of hours getting hooked up.

We then bought groceries and pulled the trailer to a KOA campground at Frankfort, Ill., got set up, and had our first evening meal in our little trailer.

That sounds and looks innocent enough -- that last sentence above, but let me say it took several hours of hard labor on our part to accomplish this. We went through the steps as given us by the trailer man on putting the trailer up, and we did fine -- but it took time. We have a feeling going down will be the same way. Bill Jr. said about half way through putting the thing up, "Well, I'm glad we're not doing it in the rain, anyway."

We had a supper of soup, chili and beans, and bread and butter -- not fancy, but filling and fine for the moment.

There's lots of floor space -- more than in our travel trailer -- but there is no hide away storage space and everything is just 'there' around you. Oh, well, we'll rough it and then enjoy that much more getting home.

We had no trouble going to sleep. 'Twas great sleeping to the sound of the rain outside.

We went right to the Museum of Natural History and saw what we wanted to. We got together and had lunch with each other; then we went our own ways again for a couple of hours. Barb and I mostly stayed together and did the natural history and gems. Bill Jr. worked alone, and Bob and dad went together.

Finally, we left the museum and went to the Shedd Aquarium. This was beautiful. We had seen this similar type of exhibit in California last year, but we enjoyed it over again.

When the aquarium closed, we went to Jack Diamond's Steak House for a giant steak supper.

Then came the highlight of the Chicago trip to me -- we went to see the musical'You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown'. It was great -- many chuckles. We thought all six performers, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, and Patty were good, but Snoopy was best.

I drove back to camp, got home about 11:00 and fell, exhausted, into bed. Oh, before we went to the show, we tried to call the Harold Whites. We found a phone in the Norton Salt Building and a very helpful off duty Chicago policeman who was moonlighting as a night watchman, but we couldn't get the Whites.

We were to meet at the south entrance when the zoo closed. We did and walked very slowly to the car. My feet cried a lot. I think I have blisters on the bottom of both my feet.

We drove to an 'all you can eat' smorgasbord place, but some one had already eaten them out of business; so we ate at a Holliway House cafeteria. We came home, washed and went to bed.

July 10, 1969 Thursday
Today we wanted a good, early, start; so we got up at six, but after breakfast and lowering the trailer, it was nine before we got away. That would have been all right, but we hit horrible traffic that tied us up an hour. Then we got to Kalamazoo in time, but there are two universities side by side and we got on the wrong campus! However, we finally found Linda Jones, saw her dorm, and saw her white rat and one of her classrooms.

All this put us eating lunch at 2:30 -- we were ravenous by then. Had hamburgers and malts.

Then we went out to Battle Creek and toured the Kellogg Plant. It was an interesting tour. We had a delightful little tour guide who showed us all around. When we left, everyone got a 'request pack' of cereals. Bill Jr. moaned and said, "Now I know what we'll be having for breakfast!"

We had a bit of bad luck here. First we headed back to Kalamazoo on the expressway and next we had a flat tire on the trailer. All of this made us late getting to Detroit and late finding a place to stay. We dined at 9 p.m.

We ate at 'The Egg and I' on Michigan Ave. and were at the Ford Motor Plant in time for the 9:30 tour. It was great. We saw the hot old steel being made into sheets, and then we saw the last hour of a 16 hour assembling process that ended with one new car every 53 seconds coming off the assembly line. We saw them making Cougars and Mustangs -- 1056 cars are made a day! This was a fascinating show.

From there we went to the Ford Museum, spent three enjoyable hours. This was a display of old things. We had a good lunch there, too.

And then we decided against the old restored town and choose instead to go to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the University of Michigan's Natural History Museum. This was one of the finest museums I have seen. It was beautifully displayed, I thought.

Bill Jr. got to go into the herp study section of the museum to look around; so he got a treat, too.

When we got back to Detroit, we went to a fine cafeteria, ate, and came back to camp. On the way we picked up our trailer tire we hoped was being fixed, but it was beyond fixing; so now we must, tomorrow, do something about that.

We came back to camp, left Bob and Barb, and Bill and I -- the two Bills and I, went to wash clothes. We found a nice, empty place just a block from camp.

About eight it was over and the sun was shining beautifully. We went in to eat pancakes and see about the trailer tire. We weren't able to buy a new one where we had been directed, and so we went back to camp, lowered the tent, and started for a nearby Wards where we were told we might be able to get one. They (at Wards) told us they would try to fix it (How we hope they can!) And that is what is happening right now as I write. We shall see -- in about fifteen minutes.

They patched it! That's good. As we headed north, we finished Moyes's Helter Skelter. It was a good story.

We liked the rest stops in Michigan on the Interstate. They are pretty, clean, cool, and informative about the area.

We ate lunch in a little town park and met a group of trailers who were into Canada; so Bill just checked the map and decided to do it.

We crossed the Mackirac Bridge and found a fine campground in Hiawatha National Forest. We had a supper prepared by Barbara and I read a while. Then we went to bed. Slept 10 hours!

July 13, 1969 Sunday

It was a bit longer than we expected, but it was a fine walk interspersed with some toads, one ribbon snake, and a leopard frog. It was fun because Bill Jr. caught them all and took pictures of them.

The wild flowers were gorgeous. Orange, yellow, red, white, and blue. We could identify Shasta daisies, black-eyed susans, blue bells, and iris, but there were many more.

Lake Huron was huge when we got to the sandy beach that bordered it, and when we got back, we found that we had only been to St. Martin Bay, a very small area of Huron. The walk back to our trailer seemed shorter than the walk to the lake -- in one place Barb and I had lagged behind and were discussing 'toeing in' like Indians, when all of a sudden Bob jumped up with a roar from the ferns by the side of the trail. Barb and I both nearly flipped. He really scared us that time!

We left the campground and headed north. The weather is beautiful, but the sun is getting a bit hot.

We arrived at Sault Ste. Marie around two and immediately ate lunch. Then we visited and watched a boat go through the Soo Locks. Then at three in the afternoon we crossed over to the Canadian side of the river, passed quickly through customs, and were in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.

We drove along enjoying very terrific views of Lake Superior and heavenly forested areas. We ate lunch in another providential park. And learned that we should keep a receipt from each park because it will allow us to enter any other park in the providence until two—time enough for lunch. Anyway, the little park ranger was good to us and let us come in his park when we told him where we spent the night.

This was a lovely park on another beautiful lake. The kids swam for a while after lunch, and then we moved on, after buying a few groceries, to Port Arthur, Ontario, where they have a beautiful city park, Trowbridge Falls Camp Ground, for campers—with a river for swimming, hot showers and a movie on Monday nights. Bill Sr., Barb and I took advantage of the showers while Bill Jr. and Bob worked the river over. Bob later went swimming with dad looking on while Barb and I got a supper of soup, wieners and beans, corn, bread and butter.

At nine, we went up to the movie. We got ice cream, played around, talked a while, and at 10:15 it was almost dark enough to see a movie. Bill Jr. and I left after the first cartoon; Bob, and Barb left during the second movie about the Indians of the St. Lawrence. Wise Bill didn’t go at all.

At 11:15 when Bill Jr. and I were walking home, it was still so light, that we didn’t need flashlights at all.

We slept like logs.

We awoke to sodden skies and dripping trees. I had bill move the stove back outside, and I started fixing pancakes. It started raining again; so we ate breakfast inside.

It was 11:30 before we broke camp and left. This was a fine campground with wild strawberries all over. They were small and seedy, but delicious.

We drove through Port Arthur, enjoying the electric buses, Canadian flags and people. We checked our Canadian money and used it all up on gas. Then we drove on to the Canadian border.

We must have honest faces—going into the U.S. was as easy as going into Canada—just a few questions and drive on.

We’re in Minnesota now, and it is beautiful. However, it is also raining cats and dogs and it is making us more and more dubious of taking off on a canoe trip. Do we have nerve enough? I really don’t know.

The first outfitter we talked to just didn’t impress us at all; so we were even less interested in going. However, the second one proved to be a junior at the University of Texas; so we got interested in talking to him and talked ourselves into going. We will go to the Isle Royale tomorrow and leave the next day for three days of canoeing—we’ll make a base camp and stay in one spot but go out from it and fish and explore.

After we got the arrangements made, we washed, had some ice cream, and came out to our fine evening campsite. It was beautiful. We had a good supper, walked a bit, and went to bed.

After bacon and eggs, we put down our tent and pulled it to the take off point for Isle Royale. This is Grand Portage, and night before last the main stockade was hit by lightning and burned to the ground—totally and completely. Today there were some men out digging in the debris, but other than a chimney, there’s nothing left. I understand they had a concessions booth and some artifacts from the area and a rather nice painting or two. It’s a real loss.

The boat started at 9:30 right after we heard that our astronauts were successfully launched in their trip to the moon.

Isle Royale was beautiful. We got over just in time to eat lunch, take a nature walk, and go with a Ranger naturalist to hear about the interesting wolf-moose ecology of the area. We were only on the island about three hours, but it makes us want to stay longer—but off we went at three, back to our boat.

The boat ride itself was fun—over sparkling blue waters and sea gulls over us.

The captain would make announcements periodically about things around us—a lighthouse—a sunken ship—a church and school on the mainland. All in all it was a fine trip. The fact that impresses me the most was that if the ship happened to sink, we would last in the cold water only about five minutes before hypothermia set in.

When we got back, we tore into Grand Marias to consult with our outfitters for the canoe trip. Our pile of things was on the floor, and it looked mountainous—four big packs and a huge, heavy, shiny, metal grub box. We got two waterproof bags for our personal gear, decided on a place where we could meet tomorrow to get the gear and canoes to the water. Then we went to our evening camp.

The least said about this camp, the better. Both at supper and at breakfast the next morning, the “no-see-ems” nearly drove us nuts. No-see-ems are tiny little biting gnats that get all over your face and hands and into your food. They’re most annoying, and all of us were thinking the same thing, I believe, that three days of them on a canoe trip would really do us in.

We were ready and rolling through beautiful forested gravel roads, turning and twisting, ‘til we finally got to Homer Lake.

Moving our gear to the water was really something. That stuff is heavy! But we finally made it, were packed into the canoes, and with Barb in front and Bill Sr. behind in the more heavily gear packed canoe and Bill Jr. in front, Bob in the middle and me in the back of the other canoe—off we started!

I’m sure we all had different feelings as we started off on this great new unknown adventure, but I for one had a great thrill. This was exciting.

About half way across Homer Lake all five of us were forced to admit a most humiliating fact—I’m no steersman. I can wield an oar (paddle) all right, but I can’t guide worth a darn. Sooooo after we stopped on a point to examine one of our first camp sites, we decided to let Bill Jr. get in the back, and our zig zag course changes to a relatively straight course on across the lake to our first portage. Our first portage! This, too, was something. We started out, each carrying what he felt capable of managing (Where were the hats?) and started up the trail. But—the trail became 12” of water. So—we reloaded the canoes, poled and waded them across (the two Bills’ jobs) while Barb, Bob, and I scrambled over the boulders and evergreens as best we could. When we got to Whack Lake, we loaded up and paddled on. We didn’t know it then, but this was OUR lake. This was to be home base. We found a beautiful little windy point in the middle of Whack that we felt would make a fine campsite; so we started unloading.

Opening our packs was great ‘cause we got to see all the stuff we were given: ground covers, fine zippered tents, five good sleeping bags, air mattresses, and even a 'blower-upper' for the mattresses that croaked like an old bull frog when you stepped on it. These were among our first discoveries. Then came looking over the food and finding our first noon meal. The food was packaged by meals and was most plentiful. Our first meal consisted of bread (we had four huge loaves for three days), stick-or rather ring baloney, dried fruit, Wylers lemonade, and a can of orange juice for dad. We had mentioned that Bill was diabetic and, bless those outfitters’ hearts; they thought of him every meal with unsweetened orange juice and diet packed fruit.

Of course, after camp was set up and lunch out of the way, we had to start paddling. We went from our Whack Lake to Vern Lake to East Pipe Lake and to portage to Main Pipe, but we didn’t go in. Now, each of these changes of lakes requires a portage, but they proved to be short and not too difficult although, let’s face it, you’re huffing and puffing and ready for some restful 'lily-dipping' when you get into the next lake.

We soon discovered that, except for size and shape, each lake looks about alike, but the fun is simply in moving into unknown territory. Sometimes part of the lake would be covered with lilies, sometimes with long streams of grass that would make interesting tiny whoosh-whoosh sounds on the bows of the aluminum canoes.

The beautiful forest grows right down to the shoreline and presents a solid green ring-pointing to the sky border on the lake that is mirrored in the lake itself.

We were fortunate to have a beautiful, balmy day with wispy clouds and good warm sunlight. The canoeing was fine.

Bill Jr. caught two fish today – northern pike. One was a little fellow about twelve inches. The other one was 221/2 inches long—a great one. Pike look a little like a prehistoric fish—gar-like in appearance.

This morning for breakfast I fixed bacon, pancakes, and had Tang and dried fruit. A word about the food—terrific.

There’s an ample amount and it’s delicious. Last night we had a very good dehydrated soup to start out with, fresh pork chops—big, meaty things, mashed potatoes, green peas, and applesauce. We ate much and enjoyed all.

After breakfast we took camera, lunch, and fishing poles and started in a different direction. We went to Vern Lake and then turned up it and went from there. Today everyone caught fish—Bill Jr. is now ahead with five, Barb has caught four, Bob, three, and Dad, two. I paddled. I didn’t get a license because I knew I wouldn’t want to fish. I enjoyed watching the others catch, though. We were about paddled out when we got to an island for lunch. We ate under tall pines on a thick carpet of lichens and moss. We had chicken spread sandwiches, Tang, dried fruit, orange juice for dad. Boy, it tasted good—big old hungry slaps of bread with nothing on it except the spread. We’d turn up our noses at that at home, but after half a day of paddling, it was great.

In the afternoon it began to cloud up; so we came home and had a good supper of beef stew, corn, and carrots before the rain started.

It rained, lightly, all night. We slept well.

Our drinking water comes from the lake. It is brown, but, we’re told, is quite pure. It tastes fine; so I don’t mind. We use lake water to cook with and wash with, too. The camp utensils are fine—heavy aluminum. We have a grill, coffeepot, and two different sized pots with handles. We have one other flat pan, too, but I haven’t used it.

The only minor complaint I have with the outfitters is that there’s no dishcloth. I have two pieces of flannel, but I’ve been keeping them as drying clothes; so I have none actually to wash with. Barb saved the day by giving me the frayed end of a rope she had. It washes just fine. The only soap besides a bar of ivory we have is a piece of brown bar soap. I thought it was strictly for soaping the bottom of pans, but I found out I was wrong. It’s the soap, period. It is, however, proving quite adequate. I moan over my smoked-up pots and pans, but it can’t be helped. An open fire just does that.

Anyway, before breakfast was over, we were out of our ponchos and before the dishes were done, the sun was shining. However, the clouds are still with us, and we may not be through with the rain yet.

This morning we just goofed around the camp. Bill Jr. and Bob went fishing a while, while Barb and I washed the dishes and Bill Sr. chopped wood. We’ve used the wood supply that was here; so we chopped some more. It isn’t as neat a stack as was here, but it’s just as big.

I scrubbed my pots and pans, too. They were terrible.

Barb and Bob went out to fish a little. Bob caught one with Bill this morning, but that’s all they got.

This lake, Whack, is fairly small, but how beautiful. I call it our own private lake because all the time we’ve been here, no one has come through. Yesterday morning a loon circled the whole lake giving its loony call and then settled at the south end of the lake.

It is most peaceful and pleasant here. You feel very much in the wilderness and far away from people. Today because it is rather cloudy we’ve been a little chilly, but mostly it has been warm to cool and nice.

When Charley Ott put us in a week ago - two weeks ago - only the day before yesterday? Impossible, anyway, he told us the loon was Minnesota’s state bird and because they’re plentiful, the wood tick could be the state animal; so then they could be called loony-ticks.

Some funny things have happened—one, Bill Jr., led by Barb, was carrying a canoe alone—no easy trick in itself—and they got off the trail of the portage. Bill Jr. said he became suspicious of this fact when he came to a waist high fallen tree to step over. Anyway, the kids tried to turn around and come back, and the canoe got stuck in the trees. It took the whole family to get it unstuck, and we couldn’t help thinking how embarrassing it would be if we had to go back to the outfitters and tell them they would have to get their canoe—out of the trees!

Another is my left foot—it keeps falling into things. At the beginning of one small unnamed lake dividing a portage, I stepped in black, very smelly muck up to my ankle. At the end of the portage—a rather high put in drop for the canoes, I stepped into an animal hole up to my knee. We decided to name the lake 'Foot-in-the-Hole Lake'.

Barb also caught a pike this morning. We ate Bill’s first two for breakfast Friday, but since then we’ve just caught and turned them loose.

We ate lunch at our good old camp on Whack Lake and then we packed up and moved back toward our landing point tomorrow. I hate to leave. This was a near perfect camp, I felt.

The portage from Whack to Homer is a rough one—half of it is under water- deep enough to float a loaded boat but no passengers. The two Bills lined the canoes through while Bob, Barb and I scrambled over the sides of a cliff to the dry portage part. Then we made our next-to-the-last carry to Homer Lake.

We canoed on to an island in Homer and found an even lovelier campsite than Whack! It’s on an island and has fine, level places for both tents (the kids have a three man tent; we’re in a two man). Tonight we got smart and zippered our sleeping bags together.

We pitched camp and had a fine meal of beef and gravy, peas, tomatoes, and peaches. We were supposed to have potatoes, but we used them all up the first night. Also, we ate our tonight’s dehydrated Italian vegetable soup for lunch, but we had an adequate meal and went quickly to bed because a big thunderstorm looked eminent. We got a few big, cold drops of rain just as I was finishing the dishes, but then it stopped. Before we woke in the morning our astronauts are to have landed on the moon. I wish them well!

Incidentally, the astronauts are still orbiting the moon. They hope to land this afternoon sometime.

Ely seemed much more a tourist town than Grand Marias. We bought lunch here and drove on and ate in a roadside park.

We were at Itasca State Park, Minnesota, by six or so, and what a lovely spot this is! The trees are tall and regal; the lake is beautiful, and the people are many. However, there are restrooms with hot and cold running water and hot showers!

After supper, Barb and I washed our hair and took luscious hot showers. We learned later that the men had only cold water. Sorry about that.

We slept long and hard.

We got up once last night to a rustling outside and discovered raccoons in out icebox. They got half a pound of margarine and three candy bars before we got the box inside. They left only a Hershey almond and Babe Ruth bar (both nutty) and ate the two Nestle crunch and plain Hershey bars—much to Bob’s dismay. He doesn’t like nuts, either. Tough.

Today is a beautiful, sunny, cool day. This park is even more beautiful by morning light. It has an interesting name. Since this is the headwaters of the great Mississippi River, Henry R. Schoolcraft, who led a government research expedition here in 1832, named it from the Latin for 'true head', veritas capu. He took the end of the first word, the beginning of the second, and came up with Itasca. Here you can step across the Mississippi. Needless to say, the whole family did just that.

We left Itasca State Park reluctantly because it was so beautiful and drove an extra 100 miles this afternoon just so we could say we had been to North Dakota. We got out, bought Dairy Queen cones, and had our picture taken at the state line sign. Then we drove back across the beautiful state of Minnesota. During the drive from east to west and west to east, we have finished two books we’ve been reading: L’Ingel’s, Arm of the Starfish and North’s, Rascal. We enjoyed them both very much. Rascal got one more point in the voting. These made our sixth and seventh books on the trip.

Tonight we are in an interstate park—divided by the St. Croix River. We’re in the Minnesota part, but across the river is the Wisconsin part. It’s a fine area, and we have a site right on the river. After supper we went up and viewed the dells. Now ‘tis time for sleep. G’night.

For the first thirty of forty miles we drove along the St. Croix River, which has been designated as one of the newest scenic waterways with our National Park Service.

We got to Minneapolis and dropped the three men off at the University of Minnesota to see the Natural History Museum. With Barb as a very competent map reader (well, we made it, didn’t we?), I drove over to St. Paul to the General Mills-Betty Crocker Test Kitchens. We didn’t have reservations, and the tours were on the hour every hour. We got there at 9:10, and there wasn’t enough room on the 10 o’clock tour for us. However, we did get to see the test kitchens with the nine o’clock group. It was most interesting.

Barb and I, after the tour, drove back to the University of Minnesota campus and after maneuvering somewhat we got everyone picked up and drove on. We were driving along the Mississippi River most of today.

It’s nothing to step across now, I’ll tell you. We drove across the Mississippi and into Iowa for a few minutes, just so we could add Iowa for our list. Actually, Iowa and North Dakota got very little from us this time!

We got to House on the Rock about six and spent a most delightful hour here drooling over a sculptor’s beautiful house that built itself. It is literally built on and around a huge rock and trees up on the side of a huge bluff overlooking the river. It’s quite unbelievable and pretty indescribable, but we really wanted very much to stay and live a while in it ourselves.

By the time we got to Devil’s Hole Camp Ground, it was full. The ranger told Bill he had more people waiting at 8 o’clock this morning than he had spaces vacated; so our being late didn’t keep us from getting a spot. We got a good commercial spot, however, and had a good supper and sleep.

As we drove to the Dells, we finished the book we started yesterday, Sperry’s Thunder Country. It was pretty good. At least, it moved fast.

We got to the Dells at ten and took the ride on the lower Dells first. It was good, but we discovered after the Upper Dells trip that it was the better of the two. There were three thirty minute walk stops—two up canyons and one on a cliff where we saw a dog jump from standing rock and back.

‘Twas a fine trip. We then went back to the car and discovered that we’d left the lights on and the battery was down! There was a slight delay while we got a filling station to come and give us a start.

This, unfortunately, put us behind schedule; so when we got to the University of Wisconsin almost everything had shut down. However, Bill and the kids saw what they could while I napped in the car.

When they came back, we shopped, washed clothes, bought Kentucky Fried Chicken (yep, in Wisconsin), and went home to eat, set up, shower, and go to bed.

Then we started on toward the Chicago area and Marango where we got the trailer—at the KOA Campground.

We stopped in Ridgefield for groceries and the car started cutting up. Whether it was vapor lock or what we don’t know, but it died on us several times, and we had quite a time.

When we got to the campground, Bill left us with the trailer to clean up and he took the car in to be fixed--$64.00 worth of adjustments. We cleaned the trailer, fixed supper, and went to bed—after doing some packing.

Today was simply a driving, riding, reading day. Soon after lunch we finished Andre Norton’s, At Sword’s Point.

We finished our day at Joplin, Missouri, and got a fine motel with (of course) a swimming pool. We ate at an old well known restaurant called Wilders. The kids swam, and we fell into bed.

By the time we were in Oklahoma, we had finished Fred Gibson’s, Old Yeller.

This left us with half a day’s travel and nothing to read. Then we remembered the herpetologist’s biography that Bill Sr. gave to Bill Jr. It was on Karl Schmidt; so we read that (only about 100 pages) and still had time left.

In desperation we stopped and I got a Mignon Eberhardt murder mystery. We read on it but it didn’t really send anyone.

By the time we got to Austin, it was supper time; so we stopped at a Night Hawk and had Friscos, french fries, onion rings, and tossed salad.

We drove into San Antonio about 7:30, bought groceries at the new HEB that opened on the corner of West Ave. and Loop 410 while we were gone, and came home. Mother, Jean, and Dan were all there to greet us. We learned that sis and Ray were at Huntsville State Park at the Lawless reunion and Aunt Alice, Prisci, Penny, and John Thomas were all due tomorrow. A great homecoming! In fact, that’s almost the best part of the trip.

And here the journal ends.

Here’s how we voted on the “specials” of the trip:

• Bill Sr., Nona, Barb, and Bob said the best was the canoe trip.
• Bill Jr. liked the University of Michigan Museum the best because he got to go “behind the scenes” and see their herpetological study section.
• Then the stage play, 'You’re a Good Man Charley Brown' got five checks from us. (We each chose the one thing we liked best and checked four other things.)
• The Chicago Field Museum and House on a Rock got four checks,
• Isle Royale and the Ford factory tour got two,
• The Milwaukee Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, and Betty Crocker kitchen all got one.

Quite a varied array, wasn’t it?

Books Read:

• Tree House Island, Corbett, Scott
• North Wards Whammy, Davis, Clyde
• The Thread That Runs So True, Selwart, Jesse
• Helter Skelter, Mayes, Patricia
• Who Rides in the Dark, Meade, Stephen
• The Arm of the Starfish, L'Engle, Madeline
• Rascal, North, Sterling
• Thunder Country, Sperry, Armstrong
• As Sward's Paints, Norton, Andre
• Old Yeller, Gibson, Fred
• In The Steps Of The Great American Herpetologist, Karl Patterson Schmidt, Wright, Gilbert

1969	Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Loaded up Foley Creek Camp Michigan
	Vern Lake Michigan
	The kid's canoe Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Rest stop Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	A wet Portage Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Our Camp Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Bill Jr. First fish in Boundary Waters !
	Mom blowing up an air mattress Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Family cooking Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Mom cooking Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Family dinner Boundary Waters Canoe Trip
	Bob, Barbara & Nona Brooks along with Paul Bunyon and Babe the blue Ox
	Brooks Family Was this ship named 'Nona' ?
	Brooks Family Headwaters of the Mississippi
	Bob, Bill Jr. and Bill Sr.  Straddling the Mississippi
	Nona & Barb Crossing the Mississippi
	Brooks Family Kellogg's Cereal Plant
	Postcard from the trip.