Long Long Way From Home

Day 10:

Day Ten finds us at Gooseberry Falls State Park on Lake Superior. This will be as far as we get away from home. It was a long day's drive so we didn't do much more than set up camp, take a short hike to the falls and then break camp. As we were setting up camp, the twenty-somethings in the next site came over to see if their music was too loud. The proper response would have been to tell them that it was okay as long as they switched to Pink Floyd at the 10pm quiet time, but all I could get out was "no, you're fine."

In the morning, we decided we'd hit the road early to try to find a local diner for breakfast. We broke camp about 9am and headed toward Duluth to start looking. After being disappointed that we flew by Betty's Pies (I had eyed this as a possible place to eat on the way in) we settled on a place called Judy's Cafe in a one-street town called Two Harbors.

Judy's wasn't that small, but we took up about half of the place after seating two adult tables and a kids table. The fare was solid diner breakfast food: eggs, toast, sausages. It was what I expected from a small town diner. At 9:30, the farmers had long gone and the remaining patrons were retirees and a table of table of seven widows near the front window and who were debriefing about the weekend. The waitress who served us had that very charming Minnesota accent.

The breakfast was a good eggs/sausage/hotcakes one, only I substituted the cakes for some local delicacy: caramel rolls topped with pecans. The sausage patties got my vote for top item and the kids all finished their meals - a good sign of good eats.

The one thing we wanted to do on the way to Duluth was to take a picture of the kids with Paul Bunyan and Babe the Big Blue Ox. We knew that it was near the lake, but took some pretty bad guesses as to where this might be located. Who'd have thought it would be a place called the Paul Bunyan Amusement Park? "Amusement Park" was a very generous given what this phrase implies in most of the country. In addition to the required pictures, we also took a short walk up the lakefront to a park where they were holding a Swedish festival. The Norwegian part of the contingent (most of it) was very big on visiting and it had everything you'd think it would from traditional dress to walleye.

The final stop was at the Maritime Center on Lake Superior. I know it has a real name, but I'm too lazy to look it up now. It was really hot, really humid and we were just killing time until lunch. From there, we had a nice view of the lift bridge and a short walk to the old lighthouse.

The kids have been traveling in the big RV with their cousins. Although I miss having them in the car to show them things as they go by, I will happily have the spend all this time with their cousins. This is the kind of thing that I did with my cousins and I think of them to this day as extra brothers and sisters. Thanks for asking, Emory. Everyone's having a wonderful time, even with the bugs and the dirt and all the making and breaking of camp.

Highlights:
1. Fireflies! I've never seen one in my life.
2. Checked something off my list: I ate at Taco John's, the Midwest equivalent of Taco Bell. The Bell has better Tacos but TJ's serves a squished tater tot contrivance that was pretty good.
3. My first caramel/pecan roll. I highly recommend these.
4. The lodge where we'll be spending the next four nights is awesome! (http://www.grandcottages.com/lodge.htm)

Quirks:
1. They're serious about their recycling here. I only had garbage to throw away but when I got there I was confronted with different bins for aluminum, metal, plastic, green glass, clear glass and brown glass.
2. There was a woman in her sixties working at Taco John's. I don't think we see this very much in the Bay Area.
3. Saw my first carts/corner stands selling walleye and cheese curds. It was 10am, unfortunately, and I wasn't in the mood to eat.