August, 2008
I really loved camping, as I write about here. We spent two nights in Wisconsin’s Copper Falls State Park, on the way spotting this great concrete sculpture park I wish we’d planned on stopping at. At one point, we drove a bit of the highway detailed in this Cinematic Road Trip. And, yes, we are from Minnesota, but we don’t talk like the movie Fargo. We don’t really know anyone who talks like that that isn’t from Canada.
This was the second trip we took specifically to Wisconsin this year. Rob surprised me with a winter weekend in Door County and it is a beautiful state for outdoor recreation. Usually we just drive through there on trips to Minnesota.
Copper Falls State Park itself features one trail with three waterfalls and a second trail with yet another waterfall. The first trail is a more picturesque walk with lots of hills and perhaps more dramatic falls. The Red Granite Waterfall, though, is a bit less crowded and the falls themselves smaller and more accessible. Fellow campers recommended we make the 12 mile drive north to Potato Falls, and they were also very accessible and a shorter hike. My requirements for our camp site were that they not be too rustic but also far from civilization and have a lot of hills. Chicago feels really flat to me, so I’m always looking for hills on our vacations. This site delivered what I wanted!
From Wisconsin, we drove another 2.5 hours to Duluth, Minnesota, via lots of curvy country roads. I hadn’t been to Duluth in at least ten years, and had never really explored it. Our b&b, Solglimt, was in an area called Canal Park. This is a strip that juts out into Lake Superior, connected to a little neighborhood full of galleries and restaurants via a bridge. I chose it for the water access and because it was a little more modern. The house is modern-feeling and simply decorated and the food was excellent. It was nice to have this stop after camping because we could clean up and enjoy a non-campfire dinner out at The Lake Avenue Cafe. Afterwards, we walked for a long time in the dark on the beach right there by our b&b. Again, even though we have this lake in Chicago, it’s just not the same as a quiet beach.
In the morning after breakfast, I went for another walk while Rob packed. What a guy! We walked through the Canal Park neighborhood looking at galleries and then took a tour of the S.S. William A. Irvine- an ore boat decommissioned in the seventies. We followed this up with a shared basket of walleye fish and chips at Hell’s Kitchen. Even if you don’t like theme restaurants, this was great food and a nice atmosphere to break up all the cute galleries.
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