Weekend in Duluth

So the plan for this weekend is that after having to wait 6 weeks for a slot both of us take us our driving tests at lunch-time then we head off to Duluth to see the peak colours of Autumn - but as we shall see, the best laid plans of lice and hen....

The first spanner in the works was that I had a v.important meeting rescheduled to the same time as our driving tests, so I was not a popular bunny when I told Andy and we had to reschedule, for early November :-(

Then later in the day the meeting was rescheduled again, this time to 3pm which meant we could have done our driving tests and also we'd be late in setting off on holiday - this went down like a cup of sick with Andy but I really needed to go to the meeting. Fortunately the meeting went really well and all the work I'd been putting in for the last few months got the go-ahead! It's now all systems go on the work front so rather confusingly I headed into the Autumn weekend full of the joys of Spring.

The weather forecast (and this is October mind you) is for a sunny 85 degrees in the twin cities (which if you haven't been paying attention are Minneapolis and St. Paul) - Duluth is 160 miles to the north, surely pretty much the same weather. We got to Duluth late Friday night stopping at Moose Lake for a bite to eat. We had originally planned to stop in Moose Lake itself as Duluth was pretty much full and the only places available were in a hotel which was a 'bit spendy' for my liking (a bit spendy is a popular Minnesota saying which I quite like - try it at home and we'll see if it catches on by the time we move back). but in the end I relented as Moose Lake is 43 miles from Duluth and the biggest attractions are an Agate 'museum' (read shed) and a correctional facility (nice). Food was good but we weren't really in the mood to be murdered so we quickly headed off to our hotel in Duluth. Weather lousy in Duluth, but kids happy jumping from bed to bed in the hotel room. Looking forward to lots of sunshine in the morning as it was misty, cold and rainy when we arrived.

Good weather was obviously involved in a collision with a deer on its way up as it is still cold, rainy and misty on Saturday. Far too tight to get breakfast in the hotel so we headed into town (one of the top 10 towns in the US apparently). We are obviously in the more salubrious part of the town as we walk past a 24 hour casino, strip club, and various rather run down establishments, the kids are getting colder and its all looking a bit grim. In an effort to get some cash out so we don't annoy anyone who tries to mug us we discover the skywalks - these run around the city centres and take you from place to place so you don't die from exposure in the winters (not even joking). As you can see, it is still misty and unpleasant out.

This was taken at 9am from inside a skywalk!

This was an hour later from the skywalk, brightening up a bit!

Not to be deterred by the weather we decide to head up the North shore of Lake Superior (of which more later). We stopped for a while at Two Harbors (American spelling as its a proper noun) where we went out onto the spit, it was not pleasant and the kids were not amused.

As the saying goes 'when your kids go blue, back in the car for you' so we did and they thawed out in no time - thereby reminding us of the corollary to the previous saying 'if your kids move again get them out in the rain'. So we headed up the shore some more to Gooseberry falls. When we got there we had a quick look at the big waves.


Difficult to keep hold of Dan, he kept rushing off.

But he eventually froze on the spot allowing us to take this photo.

So the thing is that even when you know the water in the photos behind us is a lake, its difficult to believe, but it is, Lake Superior is bigger than the next three biggest great lakes put together and is so large that if it froze over (which has happened twice in recorded history) there would be enough room for everyone on the planet to spread out a 12ftx12ft picnic blanket and have a picnic (whoever worked that out hadn't taken into account the lack of parking spaces).

Gooseberry Falls
Pictures will tell it better than words, the only thing they won't tell you was how much Dan was intent on jumping from rock to rock near the falls.
The views were pretty limited on the whole given the weather so the best shot we got on the colours was from Splitrock Lighthouse car park - we didn't even go into the lighthouse as we wouldn't have been able to see anything.
In the evening we headed into a very misty and sinister looking Duluth town centre - so far we're not sure why you'd ever want to come here. Didn't get any photos but imagine Gotham City.

The next day was just as misty, we went to the lakefront playground to let the kids run off their breakfast (I relented and stayed in the hotel but I made sure we got our money's worth)
The weather was no clearer but a little warmer so we decided to do a bit of the lakefront walk.

Kids overjoyed to be in the rose garden at Duluth


Me hanging out with Leif Erickson the so called discoverer of America (haven't they heard of Christopher Columbus)

After a while of lakeshore frolicks we headed down South again and decided to see some more sights rather than heading straight home. We went East a bit and ended up in Wilsconsin at St Croix park. Dan tried his hand at photography

And so did Andy - we'll let you be the judge of who should be allowed behind the camera :-)

Being as this is the Cheese State I even managed to get both children to say 'Cheese' at the same time - this one is worth blowing up as behind Dan and Becky you can see a rather splendid view.
There were also some sinkholes here (where a swirling mass of water has ground a circular hole in the ground)

The weather here was completely different to Duluth, where it was 56F , in Wilconsin it was 83 at 4 in the afternoon!We had a nice walk in the woods

Followed by a paddle in the lake
Dan thought I said 'let's have a nice battle in the lake'

Becky pretended not to hear me say 'let's not get too wet'

And at pm we headed back home, having not seen as much of the Autumn colours as we might have liked but having had a fantastic weekend nonetheless.