Sunday, October 12, 2008

The North Shore

This weekend we took a trip to the North Shore of Lake Superior in hopes of seeing some great fall colors.



We stayed in Larsmont, MN, just NE of Duluth, at Larsmont Cottages.



We arrived late Friday night after a three hour drive north of the Twin Cities. We settled in at Larsmont and mapped out our course for Saturday. On Saturday morning we woke up fairly early to grab breakfast and head to Gooseberry Falls and then over to the Split Rock Lighthouse.

Gooseberry Falls were beautiful. We hiked for several hours along all of the falls and took lots of photos.









After we finished hiking Gooseberry Falls, we drove out to Split Rock Lighthouse to check it out. You have to do some pretty serious hiking to get some neat photos of the lighthouse.









We headed back to the Twin Cities early Sunday morning due to rainy weather after a quick stop in Duluth.

We took lots of additional photos, which can be viewed here: North Shore Photo Album

Saturday, October 4, 2008

Centennial Lakes Park, Apple Jack Orchards, & Woodland Hill Winery

Today we intended to have some fun and play miniature golf on an 18-hole course of real grass at Centennial Lakes Park in Edina, MN (http://www.centenniallakespark.com/). When we showed up today we found out the course is closed for the season. We walked around the park anyway and even saw a wedding taking place in the amphitheater.

















Since we weren't able to play miniature golf, I convinced Josh that we should find a local apple orchard to go get some Minnesota Honeycrisps (fun fact: Honeycrisp Apples were developed at the University of Minnesota - http://www.honeycrisp.org/herit.htm and http://www.apples.umn.edu/). We drove out to Apple Jack Orchards in Delano, MN (http://www.applejackorchards.com/)and it was insanely packed! We got our apples, apple cider, and a few other goodies and then got out of there!

On our way out of the orchard, we decided to stop at a local winery, Woodland Hill Winery (http://www.woodlandhillwinery.com/). On our way there, we saw a bald eagle!



We can't take credit for this photo (courtesy of Google Images), but we were so amazed that we saw one flying low near the road on the way to the winery. Apparently Minnesota and Wisconsin are home to the largest population of nesting bald eagles in the United States outside of Alaska. It was neat to see one.

We didn't spend much time at the winery, but we did pick up a bottle of red to share over dinner tonight. We might go back for one of their dinner events sometime soon.