Winter Visitors

Not too many brave souls venture into Minnesota during the winter but Guy and Donna (for those of you who don't know, Guy was my best man at our wedding) flew over for 8 days. Just so they got into the swing as soon as they arrived I met them at the airport and 2 hours later we hit the slopes for some serious sledging.
As they arrived within about 36 hours of us getting back from Vegas we weren't as organized as usual (which is not very anyway) but we got really spoiled as they shopped and cooked for us most nights, here they are hard at work while Andy looks on smugly.
One of the things I've wanted to do was to see the North Shore of Lake Superior in the winter which fitted nicely into Guy and Donna's plans to do some skiing. I took a long weekend off and Guy (who managed to get the only decent hire car I've ever seen) sped us up there in record time, avoiding the police but stopping at some of our favourite sights along the way.
One of my favourite sights wasn't even the scenery, it was Guy providing a comic moment trying to get down some really slippery steps, see if you can spot the moment his SLR hits his head (I'm only laughing because I fell over about 60 times when we were skiing and Guy didn't fall over once).







Gooseberry Falls
Not the sort of sight you'd see in a UK petrol station

Temperance Falls





One of the Lutsen hotel provides deckchairs on the beach next to the lake - not getting a huge amount of the use at the moment. The lake is 350 miles long and 160 miles wide at its widest point so you can imagine how cold it must be for it to freeze over like this.
We managed to book a 3 man chalet style hotel at the ski area just outside Lutsen, which is the biggest resort in the state. Minnesota doesn't really have mountains so it was pretty tame by serious skiers standards but had 92 runs to keep us amused for the weekend, plus almost nobody else there and great views over Lake Superior.

Also check out these 2 back to back cribbage games we had, you'll have to click on the picture to see it which, if you're into cribbage will be well worth your while, but if you're not then I've wasted enough of your time just babbling on about it, skip to the next picture with snow in it immediately. If you're still reading then either you are interested or can't follow instructions, if its the former then all I have to say is game over in 6 rounds!!!! If its the latter then I have nothing to say that will make the slightest difference.

Skiing in Lutsen - highly recommended. I was actually snowboarding which meant most of the time I was lying on my back looking up at the sky while Guy and Donna zoomed off. Still, lovely place to just take in the views of the lake.

See how packed it is, you could barely move

The lake is in the background cunningly disguised as a frozen ocean.
Some great snow and ice formation by the rivers.


When we got back it turned out that we weren't the only people improving our skiing; Dan had got lessons for his birthday that he started. Unsurprisingly he loved it, here he is coming down the hill near our house, he is the small dot in the middle of the picture.

Becky wanted to get in on the act too..

And Andy went one btter and booked us both in for lessons, here she is going on the chair lift with Dan. After a traumatic teenage skiing experience Andy got 1-1 tuition for the princely sum of $10/session including ski hire and pass and having been told she was a natural by the instructor she finally has something to look forward to in the winter (previously she really looked forward to climbing into a box of straw with a wholesale box of chocolate, closing the lid and setting the alarm for Spring.