A foggy day in Bayfield County

After an errand-filled trip to Ashland today, we played tourist on our way home, driving through Washburn and on up to Bayfield on the peninsula.  Besides seeing what we could see, we had one intentional stop in Bayfield--going to the Apostle Island Booksellers book store.  They had a 20% off coupon in the summer issue of Grapevine, the newspaper for the Chequamegon Food Co-op in Ashland.  Leann bought the newest Nevada Barr mystery, Destroyer Angel.  Her books usually take place in a U.S. national park since Anna Pigeon, main character, is a U.S. Park ranger.  This time, though, she is on vacation in the Minnesota Iron Range!

We knew there would be a detour on the road back to Cornucopia going around some construction sites, so we went up the hill to all the apple orchards on our way to our favorite backroad tour back through the woods.

The warm front to the south of our area, which was causing some dangerous weather near the town of Siren, was meeting up with the still-chilly temps coming off Lake Superior, creating some really cool fog around the edges.  Lots of lupines everywhere!

The sign below is located at a key intersection up on the top of the hill.  We especially like the bottom sign, "Still lost? Consider letting someone else drive."  Imagine hundreds of cars of people in and around Apple Festival weekend in Bayfield (first weekend in October), all driving this maze of roads going to all the apple orchards.  I'm sure there are a LOT of lost people up on those roads!

Go left and you go back to Bayfield; go right and where you end up depends on how many turns you take.  And that was our problem the first time we chose the right turn.  Our blacktop road became gravel which became a dirt road, but about 20 miles later we found ourselves right outside of Cornucopia!  Since that first trip, it's become a favorite drive of ours - Star Route Drive.

 When we got back home, we realized this was the first delivery day for our Chequamegon CSA.  We drove to the pickup point and retrieved our box for this week which included: Swiss chard, rhubarb, Bibb lettuce, chives, and a jar of mixed berry jam.  They always include a newsletter with recipes so we already tried the recipe for chive vinaigrette.

Swiss chard and CSAs have become a joke for us.  Younger Daughter was just telling me that she belonged to a CSA when she lived in South Bend and got tired of all the Swiss chard every week.  We'll see if this becomes an every week thing!

By the way, lots of things around here have taken the Chequamegon name, probably because of the huge Chequamegon-Nicollet National Forest here in this area.  It's pronounced as "she-wa-me-gon."  Q is silent.  Took me YEARS to learn how to spell it!