"upnorth"

Dan and I have been "upnorth" for the past four days, arriving home LATE last night! We left early Friday morning to spend two nights in a cabin in Beaver Bay, MN, with Dan's family, and then spent an additional night in a hotel (the luxury! no tent required!) in Grand Marais, MN. I think the north shore might be one of our favorite places on Earth.

The last four days have been filled with lots of hiking, a little biking, (we now have a bike rack for the car! Woo! Thanks Sandy and Pat!), great meals, giant ice cream cones, pie, quality time with family, beautiful scenery, waterfalls, fog and mist, shopping, reading, visits to four state parks, a smattering of food network watching, and plenty of relaxing.

Enjoy the photos!




































During the trip, I had a chance to pop in the bulk foods store in Beaver Bay, the Cook County Co-op, and a few other cool places in Grand Marais. Treats from the north shore will be featured next!

Time to start the laundry. Does anyone else experience the phenomenon that vacations generate twice as much laundry as time at home? Strange.

too short of a weekend

Dan and I were out of town again this past weekend -- he had a gig on Saturday night in Duluth, so we decided to make a mini-trip out of it, stay in a hotel, and take our time getting back to the cities on Sunday.

We had originally planned on taking a three-day weekend and heading up to Grand Marais, but Dan couldn't get today off from work. So, we made made the best of what time we had!

Sunday morning, we got up and decided to take a walk along Lake Superior. This lighthouse caught our eye, so we walked out towards it:

The famous Duluth "lift bridge:"

The lighthouse, up close:

Weak sun, dreary day:

As we were standing around the lighthouse, looking out into the water, we saw this in the distance:

And decided to brave the cold and wind and drizzle and wait for it to come in:

Going under the lift bridge (which lifts up for ships to pass under -- clever name, eh?)

After watching the ship come in, we walked along the lakeshore more, and listened to big waves rattle the rocks on the shoreline:



Cold and damp and hungry, we decided it was finally time for breakfast. We shared an omelette, hash browns, and some fruit at a favorite Duluth cafe/bakery -- Amazing Grace.

After debating our options for the afternoon, we decided to drive 40 miles north along the shore, check out the "fall colors," (since it was peak weekend, after all -- no wonder we had such a hard time making a hotel reservation!), and visit one of our favorite places on the North Shore -- Gooseberry Falls State Park.

The fall colors were, indeed, out in full force! We tried the Gitchi Gummi trail this time, new to both of us:









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Although I think we are both glad to be back in town and not driving around in the car any more, (AND glad we're NOT travelling this coming weekend!), Dan and I were sad to leave the North Shore -- weekends are way too short! We still had lots of things we wanted to check out in Duluth that we just didn't have time for. We're already talking about taking a week next summer and fully enjoying the North Shore. Until then, we'll have to be satisfied by our mini-vacation!