North Shore 2010

On our second family trip up north, we stayed at the same place as last year: Gooseberry Park Cabins on Lake Superior. We got cabin #3, which was completely remodeled and had a huge deck overlooking the lake.

On our way up we went to Blackwoods in Duluth for lunch, and afterward made the traditional stop at Brighton Beach.


Finally arrived and took a walk down by the lake. Our cabin is in the background.


Amazingly, the kids did a great job at avoiding all of the puddles, which is more than I can say for myself!


After we got settled, we headed a couple miles down the road to Gooseberry Falls and hiked around awhile.




Got back, ate dinner, and made S'mores on the shore.


Yum!


Elsa and Lila played in the puddles until dark. Elsa was a chef and stirred them like they were bowls of soup. Lila was more like the bus girl, and washed the rocks with an old hand wipe the entire time.


Elsa and D.


We ate breakfast across the street at the Rustic Inn. The kids ate a ton of pancakes and OJ, and seemed excited to start the day.


By the time we cleaned up the cabin and headed to a morning walk at Silver Creek Cliff, those pancakes hit bottom. It was only 10 a.m. and they were too tired to walk! We made it to the top of the hill and then headed back to the car.


Elsa sat very carefully on this rock. Straight down was a cliff to the lake.


On our way home, we stopped in Two Harbors so I could take a couple photos of some icons.


This is Pierre, the Pants-less Voyageur. Elsa posed happily with him, while Lila cried and held on to my legs and said she didn't want to get eaten by the giant. We had to Google him when we got back because Elsa was very curious to know why he was there, what he used to be holding onto, etc. We learned a lot of interesting facts, but we still don't know why he doesn't have pants.


Tim had been wanting to stop at this Smoked Fish place for a long time, so we finally did. It smelled so bad I almost felt queasy. But it was cool old place, with a really great old-school bar that seemed untouched by time.


There was even an autographed photo of Andrew Zimmern!


We went to Tom's Logging Camp and took a history tour of - what else? - an old logging camp. We stayed for lunch at their new cafe and it lived up to the hype.


When we got back, we had a birthday party for Auntie Emma. Happy Birthday, Emma! This is the card Elsa made.