Up North

We drove all the way from Colorado to the North Shore of Lake Superior!  And, well,...let's not do that again.  Plus...$hit, we still have to go back home.  In the meantime, we might as well enjoy the adventure in this new, unique place.  

First off, we chose to stay in beautiful Lutsen which is almost to Canada, eh, and cell service was frustratingly hit and miss.  BUT, this is the view of Lake Superior from our expensive, rustic cabin (which was also an easy hike to Cascade Falls).  

AND... this is what it looks like if you walk fifteen feet across Highway 61.

Secondly, quiet and quaint Grand Marais is just up the street.  

Looking from the Harbor toward the East Bay

We rode bikes around the blissfully empty town while we waited for laundry.

The Harbor

The trade-off for quiet and empty?  The World's Best Donut shop was closed!

oh my heart...no donuts

So we played games and sipped the seasonal IPA at Voyager Brewery (root beer for the kids).  

The Voyager Taphouse was comfy, warm, and low-key.  We could have spent every evening here.  In fact, I wish I was at the Voyager Taphouse with a brew and a picnic board right now.

We camped for a few nights at Temperance River State Park with yet another spectacular view.

Almost every place that we went had a waterfall dumping "root beer" colored water from 10,000 swampy inland lakes and bogs into immense Lake Superior which keeps 10% of the world's fresh water.  Unlike Mille Lacs, the North Shore is rocky with trees, grass and sandy soil (and bugs)...a little like some parts of the Rockies.

Walking, biking and skiing trails criss-cross the North Shore, taking you from State Park to State Park.  We rode up and down the Gitchi-Gami State Trail but the Superior Hiking Trail can take you all three hundred miles between Duluth and the Canadian Border.

Add a three hundred mile hike to our bucket list of future adventures!

Finally, of our many adventures around the United States and Canada, we found some of the best coffee and treats at Fika Coffee.  Clearly they are roaster first, coffee shop second (so this is not a place to hang out and work) but, well, the picture says it all...

Endless miles of trails, quaint towns, great coffee, craft brews, many, many waterfalls...so maybe the long haul from Colorado was worth it. 

Grand Portage

Grand Portage is as far North as the Northern-most tip of Maine, but in Minnesota. 

We expected this National Monument to focus on the eight mile trek between Lake Superior and Fort Charlotte: the great carrying place where men carried 90 pound packs between the big lake and the inland waterways to avoid rapids.  

And it did, but Grand Portage is much more important than that trek.  It was the great rendezvous point for settlers coming across the ocean from the East to meet and conduct commerce with natives and traders already working the new land.

When we visited, the Stockade and Great Hall were closed but the Heritage Center was open and we learned about the Ojibwe, their lives during the harsh winters and how they used the waterways in the beautiful summer months.  

All of this was incredibly relevant to learnings from our trip to Mount Vernon, and Washington, D.C.  Kenedy's 5th grade curriculum on the Revolutionary War.  

I was awed and inspired by the leadership of the women in the Tribes at the trading post. I'm not sure any of us could imagine what it must have been like to paddle across huge, windy and wild Lake Superior in a canoe.

People were tough back then and are tough in different ways now.  After a quick visit to find out how we might visit Isle Royal (no dice), we were happy to head back to our comfy, warm sleeping bags and tent.

Lindholm Service Station

Being buildings-people in Northern Minnesota, we made a quick stop through Frank Lloyd Wright's Lindholm Service Station.   

The roof, gutters and trim elements are copper, the structure of the walls is concrete block and the windows and doors are single pane with aluminum frames (brrr).  I wonder how he would have used current building materials. 

The interior has an all-glass, second story attendant-lookout which, I think, is the most beautiful and functional (for the 1930s) element of the design. 

But the huge cantilevered carport coupled with the all-glass lookout makes me think the whole building could, at any minute, tip over.   

Mille Lacs

A beautiful drive North through the rolling green hills of Southwestern Minnesota brought us to Mille Lacs State Park where it rained most of the night and morning. 

The rain let up long enough for a bike ride to the Visitor's Center and a nature walk through swampy, overgrown forest.

Like Colorado, Mille Lacs has been home to humans for 9,000 years.  But we found this place so different from Colorado: wet and full of growth and bugs.  The ancient people of Minnesota had very different challenges than the ancient people of Colorado.

It's hard to experience the full extent of Mille Lacs Lake without a boat...and oh how I wish we had one but the playground at the Visitor's Center was deserted; as was the Visitor's Center looking out on a small piece of the lake.  Once again, our great traveling companion and friend, the American White Pelican, joined our adventure. 

Kris tried very hard to produce the wingspan of a Bald Eagle at the Visitor's Center. Good try.

Sioux Falls

Badlands to Sioux Falls is full of construction along a long, flat highway. The view from the car was primarily farm. We arrived late at the hotel with a large, rowdy wedding reception.  Fortunately all that was left for us to do was pass out after a great day hiking the Badlands.

The next morning... what a pleasant surprise! We detached the bikes from the car and explored many amazing bike trails in Sioux Falls.

Nicely done, Sioux Falls!

Paved Paradise on a mountain bike.  We ended up at busy Falls Park.

And then said an impressed goodbye to the City of Sioux Falls.  Thanks for being such a great host to this family of Coloradans!

Badlands

End of the year soccer tournaments...check. Band concert...check. Balloon launch....check.  5th grade continuation....check. 

And it was TIME TO GO.  So off we went...headed up north as far as we could in just a few days.  First stop: Badlands.  We'd never stopped here before despite the short-ish drive, but consider that remedied. We will definitely be back even if just for the dark and quiet.

We lucked out and snagged a room in the park at Cedar Pass Lodge.  The room/cabin had a deck with a rocking chair, two huge beds and a view!  We were deeply satisfied in the dark quiet after a whole lot of end-of-school-year chaos.  Om.  Let that shit go.

We tackled the Medicine Root-Castle loop from Saddle Pass trailhead.  And then we landed on another planet...

Fortunately we came back to Earth for the golden hour.  

 And could not resist climbing the crumbly hills.

Which the ranger said is totally fine.  Junior Ranger badges...check.

Alas, wanderlust got the best of us and our quick pass through the Badlands came to an early end. We had to GO!  (But not before a quick but overwhelming stop in Wall.)