We had a nice vacation last week. Mom, Sammy, Stella and I headed up to Superior Shores in Two Harbors for some Lake Superior time. We had a nice room on the first floor - a Lodge Suite. It had a kitchen, living room with fold out couch, bedroom with king size bed (for me, Mom and Stella) and a bathroom with a jacuzzi. The room had a walkout to a patio with a grill and it faced the beach. We were a little vexed that you couldn't open it with the keycard from the outside, so when Stella fell and scraped up her arms and legs on the asphalt path, we had to carry her screaming around the hotel and through an (unoccupied) banquet room, so we could get inside. So then we just parked the table in front of the door to prevent Stella from taking off through the door.
Monday Sammy and I were going to conquer the geocache at Silver Bay marina (check out the link to see the gallery - lots of cool pictures from other, braver and with more upper body strength, cachers), which called for climbing up a 20 foot cliff on a rope after hopping on boulders to get to the island, but Sammy's leg was bothering her, so we scrapped that and Stella and I found a relatively easy cache near Cove Point Lodge. We then hit Silver Bay and got some pictures of Rocky Taconite, the Silver Bay weird looking mascot.
Monday night, we headed toward the pier and lighthouse of Two Harbors and I tried and failed to find some caches with everyone. Ended up leading everyone on a wide looping trail through the woods where we got very, very close to deer. I was walking ahead with Stella and saw a doe with two fawns. The fawns scampered away, but the doe turned and looked at me like, "Nu-huh, Lady..." When Sammy and Mom caught up, we saw more deer on the other side of the trail - one was probably about 10 feet from us, calmly eating grass. And yeah, no camera then. Boo. Monday night, the Lake was kind of choppy and we all sat on the beach at the hotel watching the waves roll in.
Very pretty - Stella didn't like the roar of the waves, though.
Tuesday was our Tourist Day. We went to Duluth to take a Harbor Cruise on the Vista King. I remember doing that when I was little - and L and I did a dinner cruise a few years ago. One of the perks is you get to go under the Aerial Bridge - they raise it with the horns and the bells and everything.
Stella did very well on the 1 1/2 hour cruise.
Here's some arty type pics from the boat
I was a smart cookie and pre-registered online, so all we needed to do is pick up our boarding pass and get on. We had beautiful weather. I misjudged Duluth - or global warming has hit the Zenith City - and had the girls wear long pants and bring jackets. We were hot! The cruise was very cool and I got some really nifty pictures from the back of the boat. After the cruise, we hit Park Point, but we were hot and crabby, so that didn't last long. Looking for chow, we decided to go to Sammy's Pizza in Lakeside 
(down the street from where my Aunt Florence lived) and got a medium pepperoni and a cold 6 pack of coke - we went to a wayside, just past Brighton Beach, and inhaled the pizza. Man, that was good stuff. We went up Scenic 61 and hit the Two Harbors gift shop right by the depot, where Stella bought a little teddy bear from "Tootsie" the elderly shopkeeper. Outside of the Depot Gift Shop - we saw this inspired graffiti, which cracked us up.
Later that evening, Stella and Sammy and I went caching at a site within walking distance from the hotel and we ran into another cacher - a first for us. After dark, Mom got Stella ready for bed and Sammy and I took a blanket and went to the beach as it was so dark and the sky was carpeted with stars. It's amazing to look low in the horizon and see constellations that you never see at home. We saw a couple shooting stars and satellites as well. It was nice just hanging out with Sammy in the solitude.
Wednesday was our head back day - we were out of the hotel by 8:30 - Sammy wrote in the room's guestbook:
and took a couple photo-ops at the Voyageur Motel dude with no paddle
(whose dead eyes and giant height really freaked out Stella) and another at the Giant Rooster. We went to the Rooster Gift Shop
(Weldon's - check this link out for an awesome story), which was Beanie Baby Bonanza. Holy cow, this store was full of Beanie Babies.We stopped by Mickey D's and got breakfast, which Stella was not interested in, and then headed back home. The portable DVD player was a godsend - it allowed Sammy to have a little peace from the sibling warfare.
And of course, you know what greeted us when we came home....
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