Duluth, Minnesota

We stopped earlier today just because we were wiped out. Yesterday's travel was very long and stressful and we had a lot of thunderstorms overnight so no one slept well. Well, I slept better than the others, but still not that great. Better to pull off and get to bed early tonight rather than try to push on when we are over tired. The upper peninsula of Michigan and upper Wisconsin were BEAUTIFUL! Sparsely populated, beautiful scenery, pleasant travel. So far Minnesota isn't much fun, but we just went over the border and straight to the campground. We haven't even flushed the anti-freeze out of the camper water system yet so we're working on that as I type. We stopped at a KOA with a bunch of amenities including coming to your site with the honey wagon to clean it out, so we're just running water right now to clear the anti-freeze. Every day we work out a new wrinkle in this camper thing, hoping to have it down pat by the time we hit less traveled areas.

I didn't get to say much about our visit with my uncle yesterday because we were so late. It was an awesome visit. He's such an interesting character and every time I see him, I learn something new about him. He is one of those people who has done so much in life that you'll never learn it all in one sitting. I always thought I got my energy and mathematical mind from my dad, but I guess it comes from both sides (he's my mom's brother). I got him talking a little bit about some of the work he's done in the past including stories of talking with Buzz Aldrin regarding the pictures he took on the moon. My uncle was supposed to measure the stuff in the photos that came back but Buzz wasn't familiar with the camera used or the techniques used for photographic surveying (what my uncle used to do) so they had to use other means to figure out sizes (a boot in one photo, part of the landing gear in another.) I never knew he'd done that. I knew he used to fly a lot doing aerial surveying, but never knew about some of the other little details.

Anyway, I'd best get off to organizing, figuring out where to go from here, preparing for our crossing into Canada, getting Andrei's computer ready for internet access, etc. I'll hope to update again tomorrow, but we'll see what the day brings! Thankfully today was a little more relaxed than yesterday! I do have some pictures but I'm too tired to upload them today. It may have to wait until we get settled in Alaska. This isn't exactly a pleasure trip, though I'm glad we've had the sense to slow down and forget the schedule.