Vacation is over

We got back late/early Sunday night/Monday morning. It was a wonderful 2 weeks. We spent a week with Joel, Renee and Joshua in Grand Marais and then went back to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to spend a week with Ryan (our 22 year old son).

Here is a summary of week one (week two later...):
Ryan and I spent three days backpacking on the Superior Hiking Trail, covering about 35 miles from Lutsen Ski Area to Grand Marais. It was beautiful rugged country, but dry. I haven't seen it that dry there since I was a kid. It did rain the first night, a nice solid rain that made everything wet for packing up the next morning. We camped on a river (more like a creek), so the mosquitoes weren't too bad. The second day turned out to be longer than we had planned, since the campsite we had chosen was full. 16 miles of up and down on granite can make a long day; but the views were beautiful and the weather hot. We ended up camping on a beaver pond with a full complement of mosquitoes but no bullfrogs. I was looking forward to an evening concert from them, but there weren't any.

The third day was more level terrain, running through some boggy areas where we saw plenty of Moose tracks but no Moose. We walked on top of a 183 foot beaver dam, longest one I have ever crossed. Eventually we came out on an overlook above Grand Marais. It was a beautiful view of the town and lake. Descending that, we came to the Gunflint Trail and walked a mile along it to Joel & Renee's, 3 days and 35 miles behind us and a most welcome shower in front of us :)

If you like rugged trails, I would highly recommend the Superior Hiking Trail. You can break it down into day hike portions if you wish. I have walked portions of the Appalachian Trail and backpacked quite a bit in the Rockies (north and south). It compares very favorably to those. In fact, I preferred it over the Appalachians, but I like granite better than sandstone.

Saturday all of us (Joel, Renee, Joshua, Debbie, Ryan and I) took a day hike on the Superior Hiking Trail from the Devil Track River to Pincushion Mountain (5 miles of relatively easy trail). I carried Joshua (our 16 month old grandchild) in the backcarrier and fed him raspberries. He was cute; I would pick the raspberries (and thimbleberries) and hand them to him to eat. If I wasn't fast enough for him, he would tap my shoulder to remind me to give him more. We could have picked buckets of them, but didn't bring any buckets, just our stomachs.

Sunday we spent renewing acquaintances at the Baptist church in Grand Marais and getting to know the people in Joel & Renee's evening fellowship group. It was a wonderful day of blessed fellowship in the Lord.

Week two will come later...now I have to continue to unbury my inbox :)