14 fox, 8 deer, 1 bear, 1 groundhog, and a dead bird...

After Jill got off work on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, we piled in the car and headed north. A family vacation was well overdue, and we knew that the good old North Shore would treat us right. We left town with the sun shining and the weather being pretty decent. Our first stop was Pine City, for our friend, Monica’s birthday party. It was good to catch up with her, Heather, and Jason.

From Pine City we hit the road and went up to Duluth, where we stayed with our dear Gram. She prepared a tasty meal for us, which is always a treat. That evening, we received a few calls in response to the storms in the metro and we heard of the losses that many families experienced. Hearing of the troubles weighed on our hearts and it reminded us about how blessed we were to be safe and to be with loved ones. We spent the evening talking about the tragedy, catching up, and enjoying a nice fire in the fireplace.

On Monday, we went and got some of the best pancakes in the world for brunch, and then went to the Depot to see the trains and for a ride (thanks to Santa!!!). Brevin was scared of going inside the engines, which is par for the course with him right now, but he enjoyed looking at them. After the ride, we took off up the shore. We did not really have a particular destination, and no reservations anywhere, so we just stopped along the way and checked out a few places. We didn’t find anything that was appealing, so we soon found ourselves in Grand Marais. We decided to grab a bite to eat and discuss our plan. In the end, we landed at the Gunflint Lodge along the trail.

Over the course of the couple of days that we were there, we had many adventures, like rhinoceros hunting (aka-moose hunting in the car), a pontoon ride, and a great hike through an area that was burned up last year in the fire. While driving around and hiking we managed to see a decent amount of wildlife… 14 fox, 8 deer, 1 bear, 1 groundhog, and a dead bird. The dead bird, we did see alive, for about 15 seconds, before it became affixed to our grill on the front of our car. I was ready to pull it out, but Jill was concerned that I would come down with the Ebola virus, so she insisted I use a stick instead, which only pushed it in to the point that I was not able to remove it until I had a socket wrench to remove part of the under carriage. So, our friend, the dead crow, was with us for the remainder of our adventure.

It was great to get away together and have some good quality time to simply unwind and checkout from the norm of our day-to-day life for a while. And, we even got a souvenir on the way…

Heath