Duluth

From July 31-Aug 3, we took a last minute trip up North to a city called Duluth, Minnesota. Thursday night, we stayed in Minneapolis in a fancy hotel paid by Hormel because Jeremy had special meetings Friday morning. Then we continued up to Duluth on Friday afternoon. 

The city is a port that sits right on Superior Lake. We learned a LOT about the Great Lakes, boats, bridges, and all the exports and imports that come into that area (things I probably should have learned in 5th grade geography, but who cares about the great lakes when you live in Colorado?) It was all very educational, and extremely beautiful. Aside from a few arguments about what to do, it was also very fun!

We found a really interesting restaruant called Duluth Grill. 

The restuarant looked and felt like an old diner in the middle of Wyoming, but the food looked and tasted like a hipster place in downtown Portland. I drank beet lemonade. Yes, you read that right. BEET lemonade. Jeremy dipped his organic, locally grown french fries into homemade ketchup from organic, locally grown tomatoes and honey. We also tried hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage that was deep fried. Then we had a pasty pie, which is a traditional dish that the local miners would eat during their shifts in the mines. It's like a hot pocket, but without the diarrhea. So it was good! 

Dallin really liked the beet lemonade.

Tanner LOVED the ketchup!

Cute dessert.

We saw the real Thomas the Train! Tanner was so excited to see the train from our parking spot. We waved and got some pictures, but Tanner never said anything about riding on the train, so we just acted like that was all there was to it. We got back in the car and went on our way without any complaint from Tanner. We were thrilled that we didn't have to spend a bunch of money to ride a train that we did't really want to. I love it when children our so easily pleased!

The Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge was so cool! It is one of the main bridges leading to the harbor. We hung out around Canal Park.

Every time that the big boats need to go under the bridge, it rises. I don't mean rise like split open from the middle. I mean the entire thing rises like an elevator! We saw it go up and down several times. There is lots of horns and bells and beeps to communicate to cars, pedestrians, and the boats what all is going on. The boys especially loved it.

Look at this cute sailor boy! The building behind Dallin is the Lake Superior Maritime Visitors Center and Museum. For a free museum, we were super impressed. This is where we learned a ton about the Great Lakes and Duluth. 

Fun Fact: Did you know that a good portion of the steel used today comes from Minnesota? There is a low grade iron ore called taconite that is mined in Minnesota. It goes on these huge ships out of Duluth and across the Great Lakes to places like Indiana and Ohio, where it is melted into steel. Cool! 

We rode on these cool surrey bikes! Even though there are tons of these in Huntington Beach and SoCal, we never rode them while we lived there. So we were really excited to do try it in Duluth.

During our bike ride, we stopped along the lake to throw rocks. You can see the Aerial Bridge behind us.

Also during the weekend,we played on this cool playground!  

Here's a cool fountain that we passed several times near the Aerial Bridge.

We are so glad that we got to see a little bit of this beautiful area in Minnesota. We found plenty of things for us to do the next time we come!!