Trip Update

Howdy from up nort'

We arrived around 6:30 pm EDST Tuesday, just in time for the Minneapolis rush hour traffic. It's not really all that bad around here compared to Chicago, though. The trip over was pretty uneventful except for a couple rain storms that only lasted a short time. We got here in just over 9 hours including 3 stops.

Wednesday we were pretty much involved in getting Mark and Erin ready for their canoe trip with Ben and Melissa Pancoast in the Boundary Waters area in northern MN.

Originally Ben and Melissa were going to drive here to Champlin and then the 4 of them would drive north. Instead the plans changed to meeting at Duluth cause it would make the trip a couple hours shorter for Ben and Mis. The problem with that plan was that Mark would need to find a place to leave his car until they got back from the canoe trip. So... we ended up taking Mark and Erin to Duluth yesterday.

At first I wasn't excited to drive to Duluth and back but we decided we could cause neither Judy nor I had ever been there. Duluth is about 140 miles or so from Champlin. It was a bit of a drive, but not that hard to do. The area around Duluth is very hilly. In fact the drive in from the south just before entering the city is down a long hilly stretch of I-35. It's not unlike coming into Grand Rapids from the south west on I-196, just a lot more of a drop in elevation. There is quite a view overlooking the city as you drive down the grade. I would estimate it is probably a 1000' foot drop in elevation.

It was very hot in Duluth, probably 85-90 degrees, and very sunny. It was actually a beautiful day for the tourists. Duluth is a very attractive city, with lots of the usual touristy stuff. Judy and I toured the Maritime Museum (free) after the 4 adventurers departed for Ely, MN. A bit later a great lakes freighter approached the canal and passed by under the lift bridge into the bay. It was empty and coming in to load up with coal. Pretty impressive ship, 1000 feet long and 105 feet wide.

We left there in the early evening and stopped for a quick supper at the BK on the way back to Champlin. I thought I would be smart and take a different route back and see if we could shorten the time of the drive back. It ended up taking longer in the end, but the scenery was more interesting. The drive up to Duluth is very similar to driving to upper Michigan.

Not a lot of plans yet for today. Westin is sleeping right now. We got him to bed really late last evening so he is pretty tired. He is such a good little guy and fun to care for.

That's the post for today.

Ron and Judy.

Added at 10:00 PM 7/10/08:

Click on the picture to see more photos of our trip to Minnesota... Ron

July 08 MN Trip