Into the Woods

Last Saturday, we packed the girls and half the house into the Acadia and headed north to Duluth, MN about 2.5 hours away. The girls were really excited and asked the obligatory "Are we there yet?" approximately 97,000 times on the way there. We went straight into Canal Park right on Lake Superior.

When I was a kid, my dad would take me camping near Duluth every summer. I loved it! We always went into Duluth to see the "up and down" bridge as I called it, otherwise known as as the Aerial Bridge. There are great rocks for skipping in the lake and climbing around on. I remember there being little popcorn stands and whatnot. All of that was still there, even 20 years later. However, now they also have a little shopping section with a few touristy shops like you might see in many little vacation towns (like Minocqua/Woodruff, WI or Nisswa, MN). We had to literally draaag the girls out of the toy shop there. It was huge! And they couldn't get enough of it!




The girls liked watching the bridge move and the boats cruise through. We saw a tourist ferry boat and several sailboats go through. Every time they heard the bell ring for the bridge to go up, they would run over to see what was sailing under it. We had a great time throwing rocks in the water and then indulged in fun junk food from the various carts: popcorn, slushies, mini-donuts (Mmmm....my favorite!) and hot dogs. We had our old half-broken digital camera with us and Ella was enjoying taking photos with it. Ella took all the pictures below:


(That would be me pigging out on my de-licious mini donuts!)

(I think that popcorn cart has been there for 30 years!)


After having a great time at Canal Park, we headed to Indian Point Campground and found our site. After a little initial disappointment in the campground (The sites were a little closer together than we anticipated. And there was no playground and fishing from the dock as advertised), we made ourselves at home and set out exploring. We tried fishing off the dock but there were a ton of lily pads which made fishing a bit difficult. Although, the girls had fun making Andrew try and "catch" the lily pads.


After fishing, we headed back to the camp site to make pudgie pie pizzas and grilled cheese sandwiches over the campfire.

(Those are marshmellows stuffed into the girls' mouths. Oh and by the way, the girls put those matching t-shirts on themselves. I had nothing to do with that. :-)

After s'mores we walked along the waterfront path that goes all the way around the campground. That was a definite positive note! We also found some campsites that were off the beaten path and more woodsy. We really enjoyed our walk around the campground. We decided if we stayed there again these would be much more fun! We saw a deer sitting about 10 feet from the path which was cool! Lily spotted him first. We also stopped at the dock again and enjoyed watching the sunset.


We headed back to our camp site, just in time to hear some rustling from the woods! We had heard it earlier in the evening, but couldn't figure out what it was. Turns out it was a skunk! Apparently, a skunk family lives in the woods near the campground. Why not? I mean, they have a ready supply of food and crumbs just waiting for them! There was a note on the campground office door saying the skunk family lives in the woods and they can't do anything about it, because it's the woods. Oh really, because I thought we were camping in the city. Jeez, who goes camping and doesn't expect to see some wildlife? Anyhoo, we had fun trying to keep track of the skunk. Andrew was in the tent with Ella and Lily putting them to bed and every time he had to come out to get something, Lily would say to him, "Watch out for the skunk Daddy." It was very cute.

We woke up Sunday morning and made eggs and sausage and then cleaned up the site and packed up the car. We headed over to Jay Cooke State Park to explore a bit more. We decided we're going to stay at this park next time. I stayed here with my dad all the time as a kid. The sites are a little more in the woods and you're not looking in your neighbor's tent or RV from your camp fire. I chose Indian Point for this year because I was worried about the kids getting scared being in the woods and also wanted to be right near a restroom for them. The playground was supposed to be an added bonus. But in hindsight, I think they would have done fine at Jay Cooke. Live and learn anyway.

So we spent the morning walking around the trails by the St. Louis River. There is shale rock all along the banks to climb over. And a little rock "beach" so to speak where the kids had great fun throwing rocks into the water. Another family also pointed out to us where we could catch crawfish, so we captured one in a container and looked at it for a bit. Then we returned it to its family in the water. We also attempted to find a geocache hidden in the park but couldn't get our GPS device to work properly (It was our GPS from the car; you're supposed to be able to use it as a pedestrian too, but it wasn't registering properly). Needless to say, we didn't find the cache. Maybe next time. After exploring at Jay Cooke, we headed back home in the car. We needed to be back in time for Andrew and I to get all gussied up to go to the First Annual Vikings Blitz Charity Dinner. More on that in the next post.....coming your way soon!

All in all, despite some disappointments and annoyances, we really had a great time getting away from the house and Eden Prairie, and more importantly, the computers, television and Andrew's work! We really enjoyed our family outing and can't wait to do it again next year, especially now that we have ideas for improving our experience!

PS. We only have pictures through waking up on Sunday, then the battery died on our old, half-broken camera. :-) It was killing me to not take pictures at Jay Cooke. Oh well, there's always next year.