Thursday 9-20 Judge C.R. Magney State Park

We woke up to brisk cool morning, it was in the 50s and a little wind. The forecast said that rain was coming this afternoon.

We were going to take the day off and give our legs a rest but we decided to hake a trail before the rain. We hiked the Devil’s Kettle Trail, about 2 miles. The trail’s terrain was steep with packed dirt, stairs and rocky. We hiked along the Brule River and saw beautiful sites of the river. The trail took us through canopies of trees and over roots. There were two sets of falls; Upper Falls and Devil’s Kettle. We climbed down 175 stairs to where the Upper Falls were. In order to get a closer look of the Upper Falls we had to hike down another 27 metal grate stairs. The Upper Falls were very nice. Once we climbed back up the metal stairs we hiked a bit further to Devil’s Kettle. There were two observation points. The first one was a great view of Devil’s Kettle, it was very dramatic, part of the fall disappeared into a giant hole. The second observation point looked over Devil’s Kettle and isn’t marked at all. You have to look through trees to see Devil’s Kettle. The hike was well worth the challenge. After taking pictures it was time to climb back up the 175 stairs and take the trail back. As we were hiking back we saw a few other people hiking the trail. We had a great hike and a good cardo workout climbing the stairs.

Brule River from the bridge before the hiking trail

Upper Falls

Devil’s Kettle

A bit later we took the computer and walked  about a 1/4 mile to a park building where they have WIFI. We were able to upload yesterdays blog, check the mail and get the weather report. Up until a couple of years ago we traveled with no cell/internet service, we would find a McDonalds every week or so to check our email and upload my blog, today not having cell service is a big hinderance, Larry uses the web to find our next campsite and lots of times to find things we want to see. Before cell service Larry spent weeks getting information sent to us from all the states and places we thought we might be traveling to. He would bring a box full of stuff. Today we normally try to have a road map for each state and if we pass an information center we will stop and gather a bit of local information, everything else Larry finds via cell service and the web.

In the early afternoon we took showers and I walked around for a half hour to get my steps in. Since the campground does not have electrical service Larry dug out our Wave 3 heater, it hooks up to our propane and while it is not as good as electric heat it is terrific. Over the years we have probably camped without power more often than with, the Wave 3 has been used a lot. We spent the rest of the day in the Minnie and keeping warm. The rain arrived at 4:00 and continued through out the night.