North Shore Getaway

Split Rock Lighthouse Split Rock Lighthouse is the North Shore's best known landmark.
© 1999. Minnesota Office of Tourism. Courtesy of www.byways.org.

Scott and I had a chance to get away for a little weekend retreat without the girls last weekend. Scott's parents came up to watch the girls. I'm not sure who got more of a treat, us or them. They absolutely adore all their granddaughters and relish every opportunity to spend time with them. Its so easy to leave your kids when you know that the people watching them love them as much as you do. Anyway, we didn't really have a plan. Well, we HAD a plan to go to Las Vegas but then the whole cancer thing with Attley happened and Vegas went out the window. So we were left without a plan.

We decided on Friday to head north, Scott called and got us a reservation for that evening at Bluefin Bay in Tofte on the north shore. We took off from home around 2:00 and headed north (after Ken and Cheryl almost kicked us out the door). We stopped for some ice cream on the way up and headed for Pizza Luce in Duluth for dinner. Mmmm. We had already decided that we didn't want to drive the rest of the way to Tofte that night (we wanted to keep drinking beer) so we moved the reservation to Saturday night and booked a room at the Hampton Inn in Canal Park. We stayed at Luce for a bit then walked around Canal Park looking for a fun bar but somehow decided to just buy more beer and drink it in the room. We were having a really great time just talking and laughing (plus we were fed up with the smoke - we are getting SO old!!).

Saturday morning we got up (late!!) and ate the continental breakfast before heading out to shop. Scott usually hates shopping unless its for outdoor-type stuff or for antiques. So that's where we shopped. But he was very accomodating if I wanted to go into another store. We walked around Duluth's skyway system and came upon some curling matches which we watched for a while. It looked like fun - we should try it sometime. We had a late lunch at Hacienda Del Sol (again, mmmmm!!) then proceeded up the north shore. We got to Bluefin Bay around 5:30 that evening and explored around a bit.
We had a yummy dinner at the Bluefin Grille (does the "e" at the end make it a more hoity toity place or what??!) then went down to the beach where they had a good bonfire going. But the wind off the lake was pretty strong so we called it quits fairly shortly and went back to our room to drink more beer. We got another good nights sleep with the sound of the waves on Lake Superior splashing against the rocks. The only bad thing about both nights was that the rooms were way too hot. We couldn't get the temp right - mainly because you couldn't turn off the heat. Scott and I are both very hot sleepers so I was a little restless. Scott can sleep through just about anything so he barely noticed.

Sunday we had lunch at the Coho Cafe (very yummy pizza) before heading back towards Duluth. We had a chance to see our friends Carrie and Matty who live in a very nice old house right in Duluth before making the final trek home. We called when we got within an hour away to see how everything was going and to make sure they kept the girls up so that we could see them before they went to bed. Turns out the girls had caught a bad cold that weekend and had been up quite a bit the night before with bad coughs. This, of course, made the last hour of the trip seem very long because we both just wanted to hold and hug our little sickos. Turns out they weren't nearly as bad as we had thought which is good. The girls were happy to see us and we them. Sometimes it takes a little time away for everyone to appreciate each other a little more. Grandma had managed to make them about 7 different baked good throughout the weekend so they maybe weren't super excited to see her go. But all in all, it was a great weekend for everyone. The girls got some good old fashioned spoiling by grandma and grandpa and Scott and I reconnected and remembered that, "Oh yeah, you're kinda fun to hang out with!"