2014 North American Road Trip Update – Week 1

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Greetings from Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba!

I’ve been on the trip now for a full week, have driven over 1,300 miles and have visited 3 national parks:

  • Isle Royale, Michigan
  • Voyageurs, Minnesota
  • Riding Mountain, Manitoba

The theme of the first week has been water. Water in the form of Lake Superior, water in the lakes of Voyageurs, water in the flooding the region has experienced and the water in Clear Lake in Riding Mountain NP.

Where there is water in the north, mosquitoes are also not far behind. I made a stop in southern Manitoba near Lake of the Woods where I found the mosquitoes to be the worst I think I have ever experienced, both in size and quantity.

My car hit 150,000 miles outside of Winnipeg
I’ll be talking about each of the parks individually in later posts, but I will say that given the water nature of the parks, the first two I visited this trip were the two I was most worried about. Not that I was overly concerned, but scheduling boat trips just added an extra element of something to worry about.

The other thing I was worried about, the border crossing into Canada, also went shockingly smooth. My last several land crossing into Canada were not pleasant. This one was the easiest thing in the world. I think my passport impressed the border agent :)

The photography this week has been OK. Several really good photos from Voyageurs and Isle Royale. All the driving time has prevented me from taking more. Tomorrow I’m going out to photograph bison at sunrise in Riding Mountain.

Next week will be a fair amount of driving as I go from Manitoba, through Saskatchewan, to Alberta. I’ll visit 2 parks next week: Grasslands NP and Waterton Lakes NP.

Until I upload all my photos, here are some Instagram photos from the week to hold you over.