Voyageurs - Ash River

 

Our big summer trip this year was to Voyagers National Park in northern Minnesota.  We picked this location for a few reasons:

1. It is within our "8 hours from home" drive time - which makes it perfect for a week long trip.
2. A National Park we haven't yet been to - another stamp in our book!
3. It's one of the least visited parks - a much needed reprieve after Yellowstone 2 years ago
4. It's a dark sky park - so we're really hoping to catch the Northern Lights (seems unlikely given the weather this week but we can try!)

We left Friday after work and made it about half way to Voyagers, near Eau Claire, Wisconsin where we tested out a new way to book campsites - Harvest Host.  Basically you pay a flat fee for the year ($100) and you can camp at their campsites for the entire year for that one time fee.  The sites are all private home/property owners who allow Harvest Host members to camp on their property.  The idea is that many of them are also businesses (wineries, breweries, farms etc.) and that you'll visit their stores etc. and spend some money with the business while you are there.  The location we picked was really just some families farm. It was beautiful and quiet. They sold honey so we grabbed two jars while we were there.  

Overall, it was a good first experience and I think we'll try to find another weekend or two this year just to see if its something we want to do year over year.   

Saturday we arrived at Ash River, the eastern part of Voyagers where we camped until Monday.  Saturday it was pretty cool and rainy but we made the most of it where we could!  We'd rented a pontoon boat for Sunday, which turned out to be maybe the best day (weather wise) of the entire trip - we'll see we're still on vacation as I write this :)  Saturday we visited the visitors center (to get our stamp), played some games in the camper, painted some rocks for hiding, watched Men in Black and just hung out with our friends.

Making memories while jamming all 9 of us into Mom and Dad's camper to escape the rain and the mosquitos.  It was tight but we'll all remember that dinner!

We did a little pier fishing in the drizzle - they caught one walleye.  Not ideal but the kids had fun practicing using their new poles.  Both girls are actually pretty good at casting now!

S'more wars to pass the evening!

Sunday we lucked out with the weather.  The sun came out, it warmed up and we spent the day exploring the park by water.  We took our pontoon all the way to Kettle Falls where there's an old hotel nicknamed the 'Tilton Hilton because of the huge slope in the floor.  

The slope is really hard to capture in photos but I think this one (above) is the best one.  Notice the base of the pool table.  You can see how extreme the slope is to just get it level enough to play pool.  

We tossed our lines in more than once to try fishing but didn't catch anything (isn't that how it always goes).  After being on the boat for probably 6 hours we heard a tiny bit of thunder.  Luckily Dan checked his phone and saw a big storm headed our way.  We docked, unloaded and made it into our campers just in time for a huge rain storm.  We got lucky we had as much fun in the sun as we did!

Monday we packed up camp and headed to our third campsite of the trip - at Kabetogama.  We're still camping right inside the national park but on another part of the lake, further west.  We hope the weather will hold out so we can get back out on the water and explore parts of the park that we haven't seen yet.  More soon!