13th – 14th June: Days 96-97
Eventually our time in Copper Harbor came to an end. We extracted ourselves from our woodland troll site and drove south again leaving the Keewenaw Peninsula. On our way back through Houghton we had another trip to ‘Loads Of Fun’ laundry, had our lunch in the camper in the carpark, and then headed off to our next stop: a single night in a small town called Baraga. It was a dreary day. Exactly the same weather as the day we had arrived in this area. Rain more like mist, and cold. 53 degrees was the maximum of the day (11.5 deg C). For. Crying. Out. Loud.
Baraga was not far away at all and was just a stop-off on our way to Iron River, our next planned destination. Our camp was a state park campsite. These are usually a bit more basic than the private camps, but often beautifully located with large sites. Baraga State Park was all these things, and we had a site overlooking the lake. Unfortunately the main highway ran between the lake and the park and turned out to be an arterial truck route. Not so peaceful. Hey ho. At least there were no trains.
After a mediocre night’s sleep we woke to a blue sky sunny warm day. Welcome back summer. We got on the road and drove the short distance south of town to Baraga’s main attraction, the enormous statue of Bishop Baraga, for whom the town is named. He was a missionary from Slovenia and spent many years in the area converting the natives and tending his flock. He walked thousands of miles, often in snowshoes in the winter, earning himself the title of The Snowshoe Priest. He has recently be deemed Venerable, the first step on the path to sainthood.
As you can see the statue is enormous, and just a little bit kitch, what with the ‘hovering on a cloud supported by arches, with teepee bases’ presentation.
The statue is situated on a private piece of land, with a garden, a catholic memorabilia gift shop and a cafe (of sorts) that sells pasties and home made ice cream. The whole place is owned by an fantastically effusive nun, Sister Maria who runs it with a style to be best described as happy borderline chaos. We spent an amusing hour listening to her stories, trying not to talk Trump-onian politics as she is a Trump cheerleader, eating a pasty and ice-cream with a coffee for lunch, and collecting the handfuls of catholic literature she kept passing to us.
We were not converted, to either catholicism or Trumponianism, but she made an excellent cup of coffee and was officially our most entertaining human interaction in the USA to date. If Bishop Baraga is made a Saint she will be sitting on a goldmine.