A Little Vacation

Earlier this week my husband and I made a little trip up to Duluth, Minnesota on the north shore of Lake Superior.  Since we live in central Minnesota, this was only a little over a 3 hour drive for us.  I'm ashamed to say that I have lived in central Minnesota for nearly 17 years and this is the first trip we have made up to the Duluth area.  Now I am wondering why we waited so long.

The first day we drove up about 45 minutes north of Duluth to Split Rock Lighthouse.  The lighthouse served to guide ships through Lake Superior.  It served the area from 1910 to 1969.

It's location is dramatically beautiful, perched high on a rocky cliff with the vastness of Lake Superior below.

We first went up onto the cliff where the lighthouse stands.  The view from up there was stunning.

The lighthouse itself was open and we were able to go inside.  My husband made the trek to the top of these stairs to see the lamp.  I got about 6 steps up and decided that it was not a good idea for me to climb all the way up.  I could just see myself having a panic attack on the way back down.  Spiral staircases have always freaked me out, and these, well... you can see why I hesitated.

After exploring the lighthouse itself we walked down, down, down, down, down the path to the water itself.  The shore was rocky and rugged.  No sandy beach here.  It was amazing to just sit and watch the water, it was a little choppy that day and the waves were splashing against the rocks.

When the lighthouse was first built, there were no roads in that part of Minnesota.  The only way to get there was by boat.  When supplies came for the lighthouse, as you can imagine, it was quite a trek to get them up to the top of the cliff.  A tramway was built from the shore up to the lighthouse to help move supplies more easily.  The old tramway is no longer there, only the cement pilasters remain, but there is a stairway that follows the same route.  This stairway consists of 171 steps.  This, my friends, was definitely the hardest part of the day... but I made it. Luckily there are a few places to stop and enjoy the view along the way, otherwise I'd probably be dead.

After a beautiful day at the lighthouse, we drove back south again to the city of Duluth.  We stayed at the South Pier Inn which is right next to the famous lift bridge.  Our room faced the canal and the bridge. This shot was taken from the deck of our hotel room.

On the second day, it so happens that I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep, so I got up and went out into the little living room area of our suite.  I got there just in time to hear the horn that signifies that the bridge is going up and a ship is about to come through the canal.  I went to the window and watched as a HUGE ship came through from the lake into the harbor.  I watched in awe as the Arthur M Anderson made its way under the bridge.  Unfortunately I didn't have time to grab my camera and take a picture, but it was still dark anyway and the picture probably would not have turned out well.

I did a little research on the ship, just to see if I could find out anything about it.  As it turns out, the ship is quite old and is known for being the last ship to have been in contact with the Edmund Fitzgerald before it sank in 1975 with all 29 crewmen on board.  They weathered the storm only a few miles apart from each other.  The Arthur M Anderson made it to Whitefish Bay, but the Edmund Fitzgerald did not.  The ship I watched go under the bridge is a piece of history, still in operation after all these years.  If that ship could talk, oh the stories it could tell.

The rest of that day was spent shopping in shops and walking along the edge of the lake before heading home mid afternoon.

It was really nice to just be able to get out of the house for a couple of days and do something that we have wanted to do for years.

I am off of work for the rest of the week and I hope to get some sewing accomplished while I am home.  I just printed off a new pattern to sew up a test muslin.  I'll be hoping to get rolling on that pattern before long, if the muslin goes ok. :)

Until next time, Happy Sewing!