Quick trip to the Minnesota North Shore with Maggie

Sunsetting on the Caribou Trail

Simply wanted to get out of town for a couple of days and it has been another year with very little snow, so I thought I would head up north to see what snow there was.

If you want to jump to it, click here to watch the short video.

This was also an excuse to take the new Ford Maverick on a road trip.

On the Monday drive up I saw at least 4 bald eagles - two soaring along I-35 and two perched in trees along Highway 61. Also, had a pheasant fly all the way over all four lanes of I-35 right in front of me!

Maggie and I stayed at Solbakken Resort in Lutsen, again. This is where we stayed last year with Bud. It is convenient to get to places and is right on Lake Superior.

After we checked in, I drove up the Caribou Trail hoping to see owls. The news had mentioned that there were lots of owls along the north shore earlier in March and February. Unfortunately, I did not see any other than the plastic ones that are put on the tops of telephone poles.

Tuesday, drove into Grand Marais to have coffee at Java Moose Cafe. The owner, Sarah, is an Instagram crush of mine. The day's adventure was a hike in Cascade State Park to the top of Lookout Mountain. I have never stopped at this park.

Lake Superior meets the sky

The hike was challenging as there was not so much snow but a lot of ice. And I had Maggie in her backpack which meant I really could not afford to fall. We did make it to the top and the views of Lake Superior are fantastic.

Coming down was even more treacherous and I made a miss-calculation on the trail and ended up on Highway 61 for a tiny bit.

Had a late lunch at Cascade Lodge Restaurant.

Wednesday morning on the way home, I had breakfast with an old boss from Nash Finch. I have not seen her in a long time. She and her husband live outside of Grand Marais. I really appreciated that she took the time to get together.

Wednesday was a stormy day. Not so much snow on the North Shore as wind. I stopped at Tettegouche State Park to take a break and watch the waves on the lake. I saw two Golden Eagles between Two Harbors and Duluth. They are amazingly big!

A friend met me in Duluth for lunch. This was a nice break and also allowed time for the snowstorm in the Twin Cities to move on. By the time I left Duluth, the roads were pretty clear and so was the sky.

The Ford Maverick was very comfortable and handled the roads and weather well. I think I got a little over 32 mpg. The bad thing was while nearly home a dumpster truck threw a stone and hit my windshield. The windshield now has about a 10" crack which means I will be replacing the windshield...and I didn't even have 1,000 miles on the thing 🙁

Link to video.

St. Croix Bluffs Regional Park

It was a balmy day for December in the low 20's so I visited a new park for me, St. Croix Bluffs. If there had been more snow on the trails, my regular hiking boots would not have been adequate. I was glad I packed the handwarmers, too. Taking photos meant removing my gloves and my hands (fingers) really cannot handle the cold.

Here are a few of the photos. To get to the St. Croix River meant going down-down-down which the park's name would have given you a clue. And hiking down means you have to hike back up. It was a good workout.

Lots of deer tracks and as you will see, beaver action. There were also lots of birds including song birds, woodpeckers and mallard ducks.

I got to walk on the frozen river. It is always exciting and a bit un-nerving walking out on a large body of frozen water.

This tree wasn't in the park. It was in a field but was so beautiful I had to stop to photo.

Hoarfrost on everything.

More hoarfrost.

Some serious beaver action.

The view down on the river.

I love symmetry and I love trees.

"THE LOOKOUT" I found this on my hike up from the river.

The pretty part of spring snowstorm (now an official blizzard)

Was getting a bit of cabin fever so went for a walk down to the chain of lakes during the snowstorm.

Walked over to Isles Bun and Coffee for a coffee cake energy boost. From there walked down to Lake of the Isles. Could make out one of the islands but could not see across the lake.

Lake of the Isles

Snow piling up

Lake of the Isles toward the Lagoon

Headed over to Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun) through the tunnel. The snow was pretty deep with all the wind piling it up. Some robins were taking refuge in a little leafless bush. Visibility was probably only about 50 yards.

The stacks of boats, canoes and kayaks gave a hint to warmer weather.

Optimistic boats at Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun)

The Lagoon

Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun)

Four robins taking refuge

Starbuck optimism

Officially a blizzard now

April snow storm

I'll try to take a series of pictures today. The first one is my walk to the bus stop. It is kind of blurry because I was walking and it is cold.

The second picture is the office building I work in. Right after I took this there was a flash if lightening and a ling rumble of thunder.

Friday and the snow continues. Third photo is from the backyard patio. Mrs. Rabbit was out and about in the snow.

Up north adventures

Spent a great three-day weekend with Jenny at her and Andrews cabin in northern Minnesota.  It is a five hour drive from Minneapolis and I wanted to get up to the cabin early and especially in daylight. I woke up Friday at 3:30am and decided it was go now or fall asleep and end up leaving late in the morning. I called Jenny at 4am and asked if she'd be ready in half an hour. She agreed and we got started out of Minneapolis by 5am.  Best of all we made it to the cabin by 10am and had the entire day ahead of us.

There was a great deal of controversy about the plowing (or not) of the Gust Lake road where Jenny and Andrew's cabin is located. I won't go into all of that but Jeff, the plow guy, had just arrived the same time we did.  Jenny and I parked on the main road and started the trek down the un-plowed road to the cabin.

Jenny and I got the cabin open, fire started, solar panels turned on, and water pump on.  We headed back to the truck to load up our stuff on the sled to drag in. Plowman Jeff had a good portion of the road already cleared but we didn't want to wait. We got our supplies loaded and sledded back to the cabin.

Jenny prepared her tasty sopa de lima soup while we waited for Jeff to finish clearing the road.  Once Jeff finished we thanked him. Jenny offered him hot chocolate or a soda but he declined as he had other private roads to clear.

We put on snowshoes and trekked into the woods.  Jenny and Andrew keep a critter cam way back in their property. We headed up the hill to the camera to switch out the memory card and so we could look at what had been caught on it.

The snow was not super deep but it had been several weeks and snows since anyone had been on the trail. We were snowshoeing through all fresh snow. It was a good workout.

Back at the cabin we had the soup and some not so good red wine that I brought. It was still light out so we drove down to Lake Crescent for some more snowshoeing.  Even after a super early start and all the exercise, we were up until 10pm talking.

Saturday we went downhill skiing at Lutsen Ski Resort. It is just a few miles from the cabin. We dodged a speeding ticket on the Caribou Trail road.. There is more to that story.

On the way we saw an enormous bird in the distance. Using Jenny's telephoto camera we could see that it was a really big owl. We put on the snowshoes thinking we could get closer. The owl was long gone by the time we got the shoes on. We decided to trek in anyways.

The skiing was fantastic. We skied all the mountain trails. There were no long lines. The temperature was mid 20's and no wind. The sun came out near the end making the views of Lake Superior even more amazing.

From Lutsen we drove to Grand Marais. It was about 5pm and neither of us were that hungry. We had excellent hot chocolate and bread pudding at the Blue Cove Cafe. Then back to the cabin. We were hoping to see a moose. With our luck on the ticket and the fantastic skiing and the owl sighting, we were feeling pretty good about seeing a moose...we didn't. It was still such a wonderful day.

Sunday we did some more snowshoeing behind the cabin before heading home.   I cannot thank Jenny and Andrew enough for sharing their cabin with me.

The truck demonstrating the snowdrift height.

Jenny and I snowshoeing at Crescent Lake.

Jenny, the stylish snowshoer.

A snow filled walk to the bus

We had another Alberta clipper come through last night. Picked up a few more inches of snow. This was a very heavy wet snow sticking to all the trees and bushes. The sun is bright and the sky mostly clear so the walk to the bus was enchanted.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Snow Finally

It has been a long time since our last measurable snowfall. Yesterday it started out as rain, sleet and ice pellets. Fortunately it quickly changed.over to all snow otherwise it could have been a bigger mess.

There was enough snow to shovel and it is the wet, sticky kind so the trees and bushes are beautifully covered.

Much more snow

The forecast was for 3-5 then 5-8 then 8-12. I think we've gotten more like 15.

9:45am

5:00pm

 

Let it snow. Let it snow. Let it snow.

Our first real snow if the season.  Forecast is now for 9-15 inches.
It is a wet heavy snow and so so pretty.

Christine and Brew
 

Not in b&w.