Grand Marais, Grand Portage, International Falls, back to Bemidji August 13-15

I left GooseberryFalls heading to Grand Marias thinking I would find a Minute Clinic along the way and get treatment for the UTI I was sure I had.  But there are no such thing in the Upper Lake Superior Area so I had to go to the hospital clinic in Grand Marais.  They gave me an appointment that afternoon and since it looked on the map about a mile away,I decided to bike there.  It seemed like a biking community with the Gitchi Gami Trail running along the lake.  Little did I know that the last half mile would be straight up so the receptionist saw me get off the bike and immediately doubted that I was sick enough to be there. It became a big joke among them since apparently they don’t have many patients who arrive on bicycle.  Turned out I did have a UTI and was given an antibiotic which was filled by the one pharmacy in town.  I quickly got better so was glad to have that done.
I enjoyed the town of Grand Marais and had a nice dinner at a local brewery one evening.  My campsite was uncomfortable because it wasn’t level so I felt like I was rolling out of bed all night but there was nothing to be done about it.  Not a particularly friendly group of campers either which took some of the pleasure out of it.  It was good to spend some time resting and recovering.  It was cool enough to have a fire which was fun.
I particularly enjoyed going to Grand Portage and learning about the community that developed in the upper Lake Superior area because of the West Indies fur graders.  They’ve recreated the community and it’s quite informative and interesting.  It hard to imagine the group of Indians that carried the boats and supplies over a 12 miles area to avoid water falls.  The community relocated to Thunder Bay in Canada following the revolutionary war because the owners were British and the USA claimed the Lake Superior area.  Apparently there’s another recreated community in Thunder Bay but I didn’t go there.  Instead I drove through the canoe areas to International Falls to see VoyageursNational Park.  Once there I realized that without a boat I couldn’t see much and they have lost the funding for the boat groups they have done in the past.  So somewhat discouraged I drove to Bemidji and got a hotel room to spend some time using the WiFi so I could get a better handle on what comes next.  I didn’t find the Lake Superior area particularly fun.  It was pretty and interesting in its history but fairly touristy.  You’ll see some pictures below of one scene that caught my eye on the roadway.
The sun reflected all this colorful glass and there is a hodgepodge of mannequins, trinkets etc.  I don’t think the pictures do it justice.  A man was working on it when I stopped to photo it.  He was taking dirt out of the rear of a Prius and placing it strategically or so it seemed.  When I asked about it, he said that he had time constraints and couldn’t take the time to explain to me.  I checked the internet for some sort of art installation or contest along the highway but came up with nothing.  Very interesting.