Duluth Adventure

I have driven a lot of I-35 during the last couple of days. On Sunday I drove down to north central Iowa for a family reunion. I came back on Sunday night and then packed up for a trip to Duluth on Monday morning. I "enjoyed" one of Minnesota's seasons during this drive, the one called "road construction." I came to Duluth for a bit of fun and small amount of work.

The drive to Duluth is through a forested area for much of the last hour. Then one comes up over the hill and the Duluth harbor spreads out below.

This photo is taken from the Thompson Hill Travel Information Center. I took time to read some information there and learned, for the first time, that Lake Superior is the result of volcano explosion, but not the way one might think. Instead this area formed after a collection of lava that is estimated to have have been 20 kilometers high (and yes, that is the number I found in the information, it's not a typo!). This weight collapsed the earth's crust creating the depression that was filled when the glacial waters melted. Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world, and hold about 10% of all the fresh water in the world. It is a mighty lake!

What is basalt? It is everywhere around the Duluth area. Here's one photo from a landscaped area.

I drove to the condo where my Fulbrigher friends live and we had a lovely lunch looking out on the lake. They live on Beacon Point and their condo is right on the lake shore. I think perhaps we have the two best places in Minnesota--there's by the lake shore and mine right by the Mississippi River.

After lunch we drove up to Enger Tower. The late spring flowers were in full bloom. It was very beautiful sitting up there high in the hills overlooking the harbor. Sorry no photos to back up this claim. I had foolishly left my camera in my car!

Later in the afternoon I checked into my hotel and then started on the walk in the area. Canal Park is now a tourist destination. One hundred years ago this area was cheap housing for seaman, largely immigrants from Finland, and definitely not an area where an unaccompanied woman would have been walking in the evening. Now it is beautiful and fun.

I enjoyed some of the art installations in this area. Here's the Fountain of the Winds.

In another area I found a huge copper boulder that had been pulled out of the lake in the 1950s. Cooper mining took place along the south shore of the lake, largely in the area bounded by Michigan during the late 19th and early 20th century.

And another view along the lake showing what a lovely summer evening it was!

 By this time I had walked far enough to get a view of the Lift Bridge, the icon image of Duluth.

The road bed of this bridge lifts to allow boats to proceed from the lake into the Harbor. The boats approach this through a canal that is about 500 meters long -- hence the name Canal Park.

By the Lift Bridge there is a Maritime Museum. I noted on the computer screen that a barge was due to arrive in the evening.  I had never seen a lake barge before, and this is so unusual that the people working in the museum were anticipating it too, for they had never been a barge either.

About 7:30 in the evening the Spartan arrived.

This barge was pushed by a tow boat. (Isn't English fun?? Pushed by a tow boat).

After the boat had cleared the canal and bridge I walked to the nearby Grandma's Saloon for a sandwich Grandma's is rather the icon restaurant for Duluth, making its fame by being the sponsor for Grandma's Marathon which goes from Two Harbors to Canal Park. This marathon will be run for the 35th time on the weekend of June 18.-19.

Walking back to my hotel on the lake shore board walk I came across guests at a nearby hotel outside making S'Mores.

If anyone is curious about S'Mores, please add a comment and I'll explain.

Coming to Duluth for these two days turned out to be a good decision for another reason. I was wondering along the lake wearing a light jacket -- weather I much prefer to sweltering in the unusual hot weather of the Twin Cities where it as over 90 degrees (32C for my European friends).