Weekend Recap 6/13/09

It's been quite some time since I've recapped a weekend... aw hell, who am I kidding - I've done it like twice, just really not my thing, but I know a lot of people do it, so here I go again.  It's really going to be more of a blog about Saturday at Gooseberry Falls.  I'll start with Friday though...

Friday I had to wake up and go clean for my gma, no big deal, but I would have much rather been sleeping.  The summer daylight hours are really screwing up my 9 o'clock bedtime!  I do my thing and then make my way to a park nearby.  Originally I wanted to snap a shot of this park for 'something wood' on the scavenger hunt, but I ended up with something different for that, so I figured it would fit well under 'a park'.  I take a quick walk around there, snap a few shots and end up with a few more items crossed off then planned :) always a good thing!  From there I head to downtown Minneapolis which, as you are probably learning, is one of my favorite places!  I knew of a few things I wanted pictures of for the scavenger hunt - parked by the river and snapped a shot of the Grain Belt sign, stopped at the Library, and took a short walk down Nicollet Mall.  At this time it's around 1pm and I've been able to cross like 5 things off my list... awesome!  Then... I remember that a bridge in Nordeast is going to be imploded on Father's Day, so I think 2 things: 1. I need to find a spot to be when it goes down to get some pictures and B. I need to get some pictures of it still standing! - I head to the bridge.  I posted this picture on my daily photo blog back in April and I do have some alright shots from that day.  I get there and see that a lot of it has already begun to come down, the entire 'road' part of it is gone and there are construction workers all around.. I'm kind of sad, but I suppose it's gotta come down somehow.  I didn't get many pictures and I'm pretty sure going to the implosion would be a waste of time, maybe not; I've never seen an implosion of anything... 

Anyhow - I make my way home and do some picture organization and try to play catch up on Tivo.  I then make my way to the grocery store to buy food to make dinner for Steve, poor guy has been working so much OT, he deserves a nice dinner on a Friday night.  It was a really low key evening - I may have ended up with a decent buzz that night :)

Saturday was the big day to head up to Gooseberry Falls!!!  I have never been there in my life and have wanted to go for years, since high school.  Steven promised me we would go this summer... and boy did we! We got kind of a late start and ended up getting up there around 2pm.  Our friends, Jess and Tim, met up with us and off we went.  Normally I don't share my pictures on my blog unless they are for the scavenger hunt or they are of friends and silly stuff, but since I'm so behind on uploading to Shutterfly and I was absolutely blown away by the North Shore... you get a special (private) sneak peek!

Please note that NONE of these pictures are post processed!  Click any image to enlarge.

This is the Middle Falls

Beautiful view on the way to Agate Beach

Looking out to Lake Superior from Agate Beach

Lake Superior (look at how clear the water is!)

Upper Falls through the trees

A cute little waterfall, I call it Mini Gooseberry

We had to do lots of rock walking, especially if we wanted good photos... here is Tim walking the rocks

Afterwards we went up to Split Rock Lighthouse, with only a little time before the park closed, we were able to go up inside of the lighthouse and see some amazing views of Lake Superior.

Looking down into the lake, again NOT post processed... this is just how beautiful it is!!

Looking North, Lake Superior

We sure do have some GREAT LAKES in this beautiful country of ours... I hope you appreciate the place you call home!

After all of our picture taking, and some of us not planning ahead to bring anything to eat, we make our way back to Duluth for dinner, around 7pm.  We eat at Little Angie's Cantina & Grill, which was delicious.. but gave me one of the biggest food babies I have EVER had!  The plan was to stop at PortLand Malt Shoppe afterwards for malts... my plan was to get a malt knowing full well I was going to have a food baby, however, once it came time I just couldn't, so I tried everyone else's instead - BOMB malts... if you're ever in Duluth... make it a point to stop!  

With malts in hand the 4 of us go sit on the shore of Lake Superior, the sun had pretty much just set over the hill behind us and there was a lightening storm just up the shore... it was such a surreal moment for me.  Minus the winter, I would love to have a place in Duluth, it's amazing up there!  Beautiful weather, great friends, a huge lake... perfect moment.  I was in awe.

By the time we got on the road to make the 2 hours drive home, we debated getting a hotel room but figured there would be nothing in Duluth available on a Saturday night.  We were exhausted.  Just outside of Duluth is Black Bear Casino... we decided a room was the right decision over falling asleep at the wheel or, even worse, hitting a deer and damaging a Laser Red Bi Turbo Audi S4 (follow all that?)... If you've ever wondered... Black Bear has concrete mattresses and bricks for pillows.  It was awesome... NOT!

Sunday was spent mostly driving and unpacking camping equipment from last weekend and washing it and letting it dry since it was all wet and muddy from the rain we had.  Cleaning from the weekend before feels good to catch up on, but its pretty lame to be dealing with all the stuff a week later.  It is also not a fun chore to do alone, as setting up tents and trying to move them around is not easy.

On a side note, I learned this weekend that I am not very good at skipping rocks :(