Adventures with Big Blue

[campfire]

I drive like a crazy man, all the time. I am also working on that. I also do an average of 50-60mph to and from work. With a camper in the back, I would be forced to drive a little more responsible. Therefore resulting in a small decrease.

And yes, the CCLB would be the one making any overlanding trips.

Well, you would be welcome to tag along, but a loooong and tall truck will be grabbing more branches and tree trunks than we were. If it's not hugging the cab roof it will be impacting trees. Keep that in mind when selecting the camper. Length-wise, I think the run up to the cliff would be less fun in a long rig. But you could still do it, you just wouldn't be able to fit into some of the prime parking spots.

 

[GWeakland620]

It won't be very tall. I bet overall height would be shorter than Dave and Luke. And I ain't skeered of tight quarters

 

[campfire]

It won't be very tall. I bet overall height would be shorter than Dave and Luke. And I ain't skeered of tight quarters

Then you are a perfect candidate for adventures like this.

 

[campfire]

I drive like a crazy man, all the time. I am also working on that. I also do an average of 50-60mph to and from work. With a camper in the back, I would be forced to drive a little more responsible. Therefore resulting in a small decrease.

You are the only one I know who thinks that adding a camper will help with mileage or driver responsibility.

 

[GWeakland620]

Yep, but if you knew my driving style, it would all make sense.

 

[Blue85]

somehow the non-slow trucks don't like waiting for me to catch up.

Weird, I don't remember going past 1/2 throttle on the roads.

Well, you would be welcome to tag along, but a loooong and tall truck will be grabbing more branches and tree trunks than we were. If it's not hugging the cab roof it will be impacting trees. Keep that in mind when selecting the camper. Length-wise, I think the run up to the cliff would be less fun in a long rig. But you could still do it, you just wouldn't be able to fit into some of the prime parking spots.

My rig is over 7' tall at the topper and closer to 8' with the cargo on top. I would be surprised if the quad cab didn't rattle right to the top. You just have to pay attention to what's "brush" and what's more solid up there.

 

[campfire]

Weird, I don't remember going past 1/2 throttle on the roads.

If I had to leave a stop sign and turn up a hill (which happens all the time), I would be floored and I wouldn't always be keeping up with your 1/2 throttle. 1/4-mile starts are not my truck's forte. Like I said at the time, the truck holds 75MPH fine, but getting there takes a while. And at 55MPH (1375RPM), I haven't hit my power band yet. Holding 55 on a steep hill will often require a downshift. At 75 downshifts are completely unneeded. This is all due to gearing (3.08s + overdrive is not the CK5 way of doing things), but I'm happy with the truck. You guys can gripe all you want, but I don't think my slow truck had a tangible impact on our overall highway cruising speed. Offroad was another matter, but that wasn't because of power.

 

[76zimmer]

your truck did great Ethan....I didn't notice highway speeds being a problem for you as they were for me...I'm guessing I was in the 2300-2500 rpm range doing 55 or so, but it was mostly the rattling in the double that had me concerned.

 

[blazinzuk]

Shoot I pretty much floor my burb everywhere I go.

Of course it accelerates a bit slower than molasses runnin uphill on a goll dang January day.

But yah mine loses a bit of speed on decent hills but 80mph sustained is no problem but I have 3.73s

 

[campfire]

your truck did great Ethan....I didn't notice highway speeds being a problem for you as they were for me...I'm guessing I was in the 2300-2500 rpm range doing 55 or so, but it was mostly the rattling in the double that had me concerned.

Thanks. The truck handles the road beautifully, it's a great ride compared to other (old) rigs I've tried. Much more comfortable on the road than off of it.

 

[campfire]

I'm gonna go ahead and post up the rest of my 2013 pictures. Next up is our Lake Superior circle tour. We started in Northern Wisconsin and were bound for a wedding in Houghton. But rather than simply drive the 2 hours there, we decided to spend 5.5 days driving 1300 miles around the lake. And we decided to drive Big Blue for the fun of it.

First off we headed WNW toward Duluth. We came armed with bikes, camping gear, passports, and dual fuel tanks.









Met up with Lake Superior near Ashland, Wisconsin.




Camping gear not wrapped up on this blue-sky day.



Ashland's pier.




And the remains of a much larger one. This town was once an ore dock, but it's now a quiet recreation/fishing town.




The town & their power plant.




And leaving Ashland behind, we took US-2 toward Duluth.

 

[campfire]

I don't feel like much of a photographer, but my recent pictures are a whole lot nicer than these old ones. Picture quality, interestingness, and particularly glare are all better now. Maybe I am learning stuff after all.

Here's a map of Superior from Ashland. We're heading to the far West end of the lake.

 

[campfire]

Rolling into Superior. These pictures will look familiar if you read through the first section of this thread (same place). First thing we see when rolling into town is the covered railway that brings ore to the loading docks along the lake shore.








Crummy shot, but here is one of the active docks, with rail cars up on the top. I remember winding around a few blocks looking for a better view and not getting one. Oh well, we'll hafta go back there sometime.



And here is a retired dock. This looks so much like the retired dock in Marquette that I initially did a double take when I met that one. It's freaky meeting nearly the same thing in a different place & time.






In addition to hosting lots of small boats, Duluth/Superior is also home to much freighter maintenance.




The bridge between Superior (WI) and Duluth (MN)





Heading over the bridge.






View of downtown Duluth. The harbor is isolated from Lake Superior by a long, skinny piece of land. The lift bridge allows vessels through a break in the land mass (while allowing vehicles onto the isthmus).





Big industrial port. Except for Thunder Bay (Ontario), there's nothing else like it on Superior. A 400 mile drive to Sault Ste. Marie gets you to another port town, but it's much smaller. Duluth is the end of the line for the St. Lawrence Seaway. The furthest inland port with ocean access.

 

[campfire]

Duluth has a weird traffic pattern that I found memorable. After cutting through a couple of tunnels I-35 suddenly stops at a red light. There is a warning sign, but it caught me off guard to have a freeway suddenly dumping into residential streets.





you follow that road to the left and suddenly come upon the stoplight. As we are following the lake, we're taking MN-61 up the North Shore.



And what a shore it is.



Coming through Two Harbors we found this police car abandoned in the ditch. We stopped and were told that the police car tried to drive through the swampy ditch and got ingloriously stuck. That's nicer than many of the reasons folks wind up in the ditch, but I did wonder why the officer didn't simply drive around to the road access a couple hundred feet away.




Our target for this evening was Gooseberry Falls State Park, where we had been a few times before. On this day their campground was already full, so we drove past it until we arrived at this place (photographed the next morning).

@yellowK20, does this look familiar?




Minnesota's North shore is a pretty special place. Rivers, waterfalls, and Superior sparkles in a way that I haven't seen on the Michigan side of things. I think we'll be back up here at some point.








This never gets old.

 

[Big Ray]

It was a blast. Yous guys should come up here next time, eh?

I told my grandson he had to be good for 2 years straight! (he's 6) He had that "it's impossible" look. I reckin it'll take me that long to get my truck trail worthy.

It'll keep him on his toes....

 

[campfire]

In the morning we got up and continued up the coast toward Canadia.








Roadside waterfall. Don't remember where. This area has a bunch of them.





Random poser shot.



This sign I found humorous, given the historical connection between liquor and the temperance movement.




Pretty blue.





Grand Marais.




And more water on the far side.




And the ever-present Lake Superior Circle Tour sign.




We missed a whole lot of landmarks along this drive. Not least of which was the Split Rock Lighthouse, which sits between the coast road and the coast. Part of me wonders how we managed to miss such an iconic landmark, but it was actually pretty easy.

 

[campfire]

I told my grandson he had to be good for 2 years straight! (he's 6) He had that "it's impossible" look. I reckin it'll take me that long to get my truck trail worthy.

It'll keep him on his toes....

Yeah, it sure would. You don't hafta bring a trail-worthy rig, just a reliable one. Big Blue is bone-stock on 29" tires and was just fine (though I did skip the one rock climb). Even if you show up in a Saturn, you may be able to bum a seat off of someone. Coordinate it ahead of time and we can probably fit you in if you can get yourself to Michigan.

 

[campfire]

We stopped rather whimsically at Grand Portage to see what there was to see.





Turns out that Grand Portage was an important trading post during the fur trapping days. American Indians and French trappers alike used this area to portage their canoes inland to access the furry bounty of the boundary waters. The furs would be sold at the trading post and the cycle of trapping would restart. The trading post continued operation until the land was ceded from France to the United States. The US didn't have trading treaties in place with the tribal groups, so the trading post closed. According to the guides there, if the land had been ceded to Canada instead of the USA the post may have stayed open longer. The post is within 5 miles of the Canadian border.










Outside the visitors center I found Saskatoons!



And a beautiful international view.

 

[campfire]

Looking around the stockade. Lots of cool historical stuff.
















Typical Lake Superior warning sign.




We hit the road and recorded this milestone in the short distance between Grand Portage and the border.

 

[campfire]

Found this neat overlook. Here's what it looks like at the top of the world.










I filled up my tank and then we crossed the border into Canadia. Good bye, Minnesota.





Where, despite being in the Western half of the Central Time Zone, they observe Eastern Time.



Here the speed limit numbers take a jump.