Houghton MI (Rainy High 70 Low 54)
Subtitled: Foodies Paradise, Part 2
We had another lunch and shopping day here in Houghton which allows us to catch up on some blog entries from our stay in Grand Marais. Sleeping in late has cut down on Bob's blogging activities as the morning is when he gets a lot done.
As we mentioned in a previous blog entry Grand Marais is a foodies paradise. Here are some more of the great places to eat.
Crooked Spoon - Jo had her new favorite French Onion soup along with a great whitefish BLT, pastrami sandwich and other great offerings.
Angry Trout - right next to the Dockside Fish Market so you know the fish is very fresh. With outside seating with incredible views and great fresh fish sandwiches and a fettuccine and salad lunch entree that is tremendous this place is a must stop while in Grand Marais.
Pie Place Cafe - first of all pie; one of the best pies we have ever had is the raspberry rhubarb streusel pie here. The pies are expensive as are the meals but everything is good. They serve a northwoods Benedict which is maple sausage (which is excellent) instead of ham and a cheese sauce instead of hollandaise making this a very good variation of a Benedict. There is limited outside seating with a view of Grand Marais Bay and the Lighthouse.
Naniboujou - we blogged about the great french toast before, this place is so unique we had to mention it again.
Believe it or not there is still more to cover on the incredible food scene in Grand Marais which will wrap up in a future entry.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Houghton MI (Cloudy High 72 Low 57)
We rarely spend time in the Eastern Time Zone and when we do we don't like it. It just feels off with everything an hour later. Add to that the part of the Upper Peninsula where we are is north of Wisconsin which is on Central Time so it doesn't feel like we should be on Eastern Time. But this year is even worse with the Olympics on and the prime time broadcast ending at midnight. The first few nights we watched till the bitter end ending even later than midnight with our DVR delay watching. But last night we decided to quit earlier and just catch up today. So we are DVR delaying the network's tape delaying.
Staying up later means getting up later so we have done very little touristy things except for sitting outside and looking at water, reading, and talking with our neighbors which we have really enjoyed. We have had a couple great meals; a steak and cheddar pizza at the Loading Zone in Linden City and breakfast at Suomi in Houghton where Jo got the Finnish baked custard pancakes, Pannu Kakku. We are here for three weeks so once the Olympics are over we can get into tourist mode but we are really enjoying the relaxation portion so we are not complaining. There are just a couple of places we would like to see while we are here.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Houghton MI (Mostly Sunny High 75 Low 55)
Subtitled: A Foodies Paradise, Part 1
We still haven't done much more than enjoy sitting outside and reading or chatting with our neighbors and enjoying the view of the Portage River so we thought we would catch up on some postings from our recent stay in Grand Marais. As promised in an earlier posting here is our review of the food scene there. Grand Marais is a small town of 1351 on the North Shore of Lake Superior about 40 miles from Canada. For such a small town the food scene is amazing due to the number of summer visitors enjoying the cooler temperatures, except when we were there :-(
Bob had three food places to check out on his list before we even hit town so let's deal with those first. The very first place we ate at was brunch at the 'Blue Water Cafe' because we heard the pancakes and french toast were good there and we heard correctly. They make a blueberry wild rice pancake that is very good. The cinnamon french toast is also quite good.
The next place on his list was the 'Dockside Fish Market' which is the supplier of fish for the town and also serves fish and chips and soups and desserts. The walleye, whitefish, lake trout and herring were all fresh and amazing, much better than the fish we had last year in Wisconsin and Michigan. The soups and chowders were good and they have a tri-chocolate cake that is very good.
'My Sister's Place' was the third one on his list with burgers, gizzards and pizza listed. We first tried the burgers and they were very good and unique. They serve a sliced green olive and cream cheese topping on a burger that was flavorful with the crunch and brine of the olive and creaminess of the cheese. The gizzards were also good but a little chewy as they sometimes can get. The best thing on the menu though is the pizza, specifically the 'My Sister's Special', a italian sausage, pepperoni, onion, mushroom, green pepper, black olive combo that may be the best pizza we have ever had. One time we substituted green olives for onions and it was even better. The sausage is homemade and mild, the crust is thin and it is wood fired in a stone oven.
Once we get to a place we start asking around where to eat. The office staff recommended 'South of the Border' for breakfast so that was the second place that we ate at. You are probably thinking like we were that this was a mexican place but south of the border up here refers to the Canadian border. This place serves good food, nothing spectacular, but good food at a great price. The Grand Marais food scene can get a little pricey so more reasonable pricing was nice for a change.
The place was crowded when we walked in and a very friendly local named Ann offered to share her table with us. We of course struck up a food and sightseeing conversation with here and got many more tips on places to eat and some of the sightseeing tips we have blogged about. The food scene is incredible in Grand Marais, so much so that we need to break it into multiple parts so stay tuned for our next edition of the Grand Marais Food Scene.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Houghton MI (Sunny and VERY Windy High 65 Low 55)
We made another Wal-Mart run yesterday to stock up for our stay in Houghton so that allows us to catch up on blog entries of our recent trip to Saginaw Minnesota near Duluth.
Like we said earlier we do like lift bridges and the one in Duluth has an interesting history. We found out more about it at the Maritime Museum which is located in Canal Park. This museum is Minnesota's most popular visitor attraction. There are models and exhibits giving an inside look into the Lake Superior shipping industry and the history of shipping on the big lake.
But we were mostly interested in the history of the lift bridge. It was interesting to find out that it started out in 1905 as an extremely rare transporter bridge, the first of two such bridges ever built in this country. Over time this became known as the Aerial Ferry Bridge. Here is a painting of what it looked like in operation.
Here is a model of the Aerial Ferry Bridge with a model of the current Aerial Lift Bridge behind it. This was a display of the centennial celebration of the lift bridges in 2005. The Aerial Lift Bridge was constructed in 1929-1930.
It was cool to find out about the bridge history and learn that this was the site of an extremely rare bridge. We saw a picture on the evening news while in Duluth of the Aerial Lift Bridge at night and we just had to find that image so here is one we found on the internet.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Houghton MI (Rainy then Mostly Sunny High 81 Low 60)
Subtitled: A bad day traveling is better than a good day flying (with apologies to the fishing saying).
We left Two Harbors Minnesota yesterday, August 3rd, and headed to Houghton Michigan which is also near Lake Superior. We were in Houghton last year and fell in love with the town and the City of Houghton RV Park. Here is a photo out our back window, we are backed up to the Portage River.
Since it is about 250 miles and we had the time this summer we decided to visit it. Here is the route we took.
View Larger Map
We certainly tested the saying about a bad day traveling being better than a good day flying yesterday. With all the small towns and road construction and stretching breaks it took us 5 and 1/2 hours. But the worst part was when we started setting up. Remember when we mentioned how the water spigot was in a different location, well that is all it took for us to leave our pressure regulator and water softener there. We have called the campground but they forward all calls to voicemail and we are waiting on a call back. We hope we can get them back with just a little postage and handling but if not it is not so bad in the grand scheme of things. The truck and RV were not damaged, we were not hurt, and no animals were hurt in the filming of this adventure, it is only money that will solve this situation. Another valuable lesson learned on this great adventure.
While in Houghton we plan to eat at some of our favorite places from last year and find some new ones, explore the Keweenaw Peninsula, walk along the Portage River to hopefully the Lift Bridge here in action, and just relax. Here is a photo of the Lift Bridge from our last visit.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Two Harbors MN (Partly Sunny High 79 Low 63)
After 5 weeks of no Wal-Mart (and other shopping) we had a 'shop till you drop' day yesterday with Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Petco, etc. on the itinerary after a great breakfast at Sara's Table in Duluth. This allows us to catch up on some blog posts from our recent visit to Saginaw Minnesota. Then we will catch up on our blog posts from Grand Marais Minnesota.
We awoke to these morning visitors seen from our back window exploring the area around one of the ponds. It was good to see the geese as we fondly remember all the geese we used to see in our backyard at our old sticks and bricks.
After our great meal the previous day we went back to Sara's Table in Duluth for breakfast, this time we bought a loaf of the cranberry wild rice bread to use for french toast at home again. Then it was off to Canal Park again.
This time we got to see Aerial Lift Bridge go all the way to the top with a barge/tugboat combo going through. Here is the bridge starting to go up about 20 minutes before the barge/tugboat combo was even in sight.
Here is the barge/tugboat combo approaching the bridge.
The bridge at its highest point.
Finally the barge/tugboat/combo going under the bridge.
The loudspeaker had the announcement early on what was going to happen and the crowd got bigger as the time drew nearer. We were glad our timing was such that we could enjoy this spectacle.
Till next time
Bob and Jo
Two Harbors MN (Mostly Sunny High 81 Low 57)
After over a month in Grand Marais Minnesota we headed out yesterday, August 1st, to Two Harbors also in Minnesota and also along the North Shore of Lake Superior. We are staying at the Burlington Bay Campground which is another nice campground right on the water.
It was approximately 80 miles from Grand Marais to Two Harbors, we sure like the shorter days. Here is the route we took.
View Larger Map
We had a short trip but then a long setup time. This is a very popular campground with an unusual reservation window. In January you can make reservations for the next year so when Bob called in January of this year there was slim pickings. We know now why this was the only site available. We ended up at a site that at first we weren't sure was even a site because we could not see the hookups. It looked like a primitive site with trees all around. The power was at the end of the site but down a hill, the sewer the same but in the middle. The water, however, was not to be found, turns out it is on the pedestal for the site next door so we needed two hoses which thankfully we had the second hose.
When Bob turned on the water the house water filter in the cargo bay fell out and a waterfall developed. Luckily we have everything in plastic bins but the carpet was soaked. Our ShamWows sopped it up and we put a fan on it but by now a short setup time was much longer. This was the first time that the water filter has fallen out in almost three years of living in our Cameo.
We did get it all setup and decided to eat at Betty's Pies which we had heard so much about. The food and of course pie were both very good. Luckily we are only here two nights because we are really roughing it. With trees all around our roof mounted dish could only get the low definition channels so we had to watch the Olympics live with the air antenna. It has been a long time since we have watched something live and suffered through the commercials. Bob kept picking up the remote to fast forward, you'd think after the 20th time he would have remembered, but sadly no. We are also roughing it because we only have 30a service but we put the refrigerator and water heater on LP so we can run both air conditioners at the same time which we had to do since it was a little hot inside after our trip and in the low 80s outside. But it is not all bad, we are few steps from a nice view of the big water and once we got settled and used to live TV it was OK.
We plan to take a trip into Duluth today to eat at Sara's Table and visit our home away from home, Wal-Mart. We are sorely in need of a Wal-Mart fix after being away for so long.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Grand Marais MN (Sunny High 80 Low 61)
While in Grand Marais Minnesota we ate at the Naniboujou Lodge and Restaurant. Naniboujou was conceived in the minds of a handful of men as an ultra-exclusive, private club on the shores of Lake Superior about 15 miles north of Grand Marais. Among the charter members were Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey and Ring Lardner. The club was dedicated in 1929 with plans for membership to be limited to 1000. A golf course and eight tennis courts were planned as well as a hunting lodge but later in 1929 Black Friday occurred and the Great Depression began. As a result the club failed and was sold, only the main lodge was completed. It is now open as a Hotel and a Restaurant.
Inside the dining room stands a native stone fireplace, the largest in the state of Minnesota, is made of two hundred tons of native rock.
The dining room is decorated in designs of the Cree Indians and has never been repainted since its completion in 1929. Here is the ceiling.
Here is a closeup of one of the designs.
The food here is incredible. The french toast is the best we have ever had and has been added to 'Our Favorite Things: Food!'. Their oatmeal is called porridge and tastes like cream of bread pudding. They make a wild rice, mushroom, cheese and Black Forest ham omelet that is very good. Everything else is also very good; from the bread to the muffins to the herbed potatoes. The breakfast meats of bacon and blueberry wild rice sausage are also tasty.
If you are ever in the area a stop at the Naniboujou Lodge and Restaurant is a sightseeing and culinary adventure.
This got us thinking since we are leaving Grand Marais today how the area is a foodies paradise so we plan to do an in-depth analysis of the Grand Marais food scene in a future blog posting.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Grand Marais MN (Cloudy and Rainy High 77 Low 59)
One of the best things about traveling the country is that we learn so much. We did not know, for example, that Dragon Boat racing is the fastest growing water sport in the world and because of its extreme popularity in Asia that it is the second most popular water sport in the world according to Paddler magazine. In recent years the sport has taken off in North America with Dragon Boat Festivals throughout the United States and Canada during the summer.
Grand Marais hosts the North Shore Dragon Boat Festival each year on the last weekend of July to support area non-profit organizations. Visitors come from the United States, Canada, and around the world. The festivities take place in downtown Grand Marais and the races are in the bay so we were able to walk which helped us avoid the parking issues. We had to support the fund raising as best we could. We had heard the one thing you had to do is have a world famous fishburger so of course we did.
What is a fishburger you ask? It is a filet of herring on a hot dog bun. With a little tartar sauce it was quite tasty. We also had our first cheese curds and they were also good.
We then sat on a rock and waited for the next heat to begin. Friday night we watched the practices and it was funny the dragon heads were not on the boat then. Here are the boats lining up to start, right in front of where our RV is parked.
Here is the winner of the heat as it crosses in front of us.
Since the boats were starting near our RV and because it was a little hot sitting in the sun we decided to go back to the park and get pictures there and sit where we knew some shade was. Here are the boats lining up for the next heat.
We are glad that we were able to be spectators at the fastest growing water sport and the 9th Annual North Shore Dragon Boat Festival. It was fun and we got to support the work of a lot of good people.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Grand Marais MN (Sunny High 74 Low 57)
It rained the last couple of days so when yesterday was sunny we just took it easy and enjoyed the outdoors. Jo got a haircut and then we had a great brunch at Naniboujou. We sat outside and read, walked along the lake, sat outside and read, and walked to downtown a couple of times, it was a 'Grand Marais Day'. That give us the opportunity to catch up on blogging, this is from our recent visit to Saginaw Minnesota where we drove into Duluth.
After a great breakfast at Sara's Table at the Chester Creek Cafe in Taran's Marketplace that we blogged about earlier we went to Canal Park, a conversion of a warehouse district into a tourist and recreation oriented area. The highlight of Canal Park has to be the Aerial Lift Bridge.
From our previous posts long time readers know we are fascinated by lift bridges so you can expect to see a lot more photos of this bridge, it is pretty cool.
While walking around Canal Park we got to witness a couple of bridges lifting for a boat, albeit a smaller one than we were hoping for. Here is the Waterfront Plaza bridge raising for the boat.
Here is the Waterfront Plaza bridge fully opened and the boat which we will follow along on its journey.
This boat then headed towards the Aerial Lift Bridge, the boat we have been following is waiting patiently.
The Aerial Lift Bridge then raises and the boat we have been following passes under.
After this we walked around Canal Park. There are a couple of lighthouses at the end of the piers on both sides of the bridge. Here is a red roofed one.
Here is a more traditional looking lighthouse.
From the lighthouse here is a photo of downtown Duluth. The steepness of the hill reminded us of San Francisco or Seattle.
Walking around there is a neat fountain, the fish in the fountain are sturgeon.
We also just sat on the benches and enjoyed the great weather and scenery. We have more to blog about for Canal Park and will do that in future postings.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Grand Marais MN (Cloudy High 69 Low 56)
We were surprised to see Herring on the fresh fish menu in some of the restaurants in Grand Marais. We tried it and loved it so we decided to do a little more research.
The Lake Superior Herring really isn't herring at all but a member of the Salmon, Lake Trout, Whitefish family. It has been mistakenly called Herring since immigrants caught this shiny fish and thought it resembled the Ocean Herring.
Available grilled or fried this flaky white fish is delicious and not oily like the ocean herring. Other names have been tried to minimize the association with the oily ocean herring like Cisco, Blue Fin, Tulibee (if caught on lakes other than the Great Lakes), or even Lake Herring but none has stuck.
We were in Wisconsin and Michigan last summer all along Lake Superior and never saw Herring as a fresh fish. In fact we had never heard of it at all but we had to give it a try since it was fresh and man we are glad we did. Turns out we are lucky to get Herring at all.
Back in the 1940's Herring in the Great Lakes was almost fished to extinction due to its high demand. Plus the introduction of invasive species, especially the Rainbow Smelt, contributed to its decline. When the Smelt population crashed in the 1980's the Herring rebounded. Commercial fishing was allowed beginning in 2006 and the population has remained strong.
If you are ever along the North Shore of Lake Superior you might overhear, "are the Herring in yet?". If fresh Herring from the Lake Superior (or any of the Great Lakes) is available then give it a try.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Grand Marais MN (Rainy High 69 Low 57)
We like our Asus Eee Pad tablet, we really do. But there is one annoying thing we still are not used to and that is the autocorrect feature. When you are typing in a word using the onscreen keyboard let's use as an example "typing" you type the "typ" and the following words are suggestions; "type", "types", "typically", "typical", "typing" and so on.
If you remember to use it you can speed up your typing after selecting a couple of characters you can select the whole word. But when the word is obscure the more letters you type in the more you forget to use the feature.
That is where "when Glass became Grift and then Cites" comes into play. We did a lot of genealogy research while we were in Idaho Falls and found some name changes for Jo's ancestors. Her grandmother was a Clites but tracing back a few generations it was Glietz and before that Gleiss. So we typed that up in an email message on the tablet to her brother, 'we found out when Gleiss became Gleitz and then Clites', but it came out 'when Glass became Grift and then Cites'. Luckily we reviewed it before we sent it.
Here are some other funny examples, if you don't watch out you can end up with the word you do not want;
pics becomes epics
pizza becomes piazza
loctite becomes lactate
slideout becomes hideout
pronto becomes printout
and many more
We can turn off the autocorrect feature but it comes in real handy on normal words so we will keep it, but don't be surprised if some weird words show up on future correspondence.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
Grand Marais MN (Sunny High 82 Low 57)
We recently decided to drive the Gunflint Trail (County Road 12) after a great breakfast at the Blue Water Cafe. The Gunflint Trail goes from Grand Marais westerly to the end about 55 miles to Canada and then back again. Along the way there are scenic overlooks, trails, and lakes. Also along the trail are a ton of lodges and canoe outfitters since along the trail there are many entry points into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
The first scenic overlook showed a view of downtown Grand Marais.
Next on our adventure was the Moose Viewing Trail that takes you to a observation platform overlooking a marshy areas where if you are lucky you will see moose. Like all trails it looks like we are heading up.
Then we head up some more.
The trail then flattens out to get us to the platform. Sadly there were no moose, but a lot of mosquitos.
Here is the observation platform with Bob looking for moose.
And the marshy area where there were no moose.
The trail heading back was a lot easier and it was mostly downhill.
We then came to the Laurentian Divide Scenic Overlook but when we got into the parking area all we could see is trees right next to the parking area obscuring the view of the lake. We then noticed a short wooden staircase and we figured it was just a few steps down and then we would be at the scenic area. So off we go but it keeps goind down until we arrive at beautiful Birch Lake.
How do we get ourselves in these predicaments, now we have to go back up. Here is the first set of stairs.
More of the trail up.
The staircase that we saw from the parking area.
The view was worth it but it was a ways to go down and then back up. Next up was Gunflint Lake which was also gorgeous and a very easy trail.
We then came to the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center at the end of the Gunflint Trail.
Chik-Wauk was originally a resort built in 1934 using local granite. The lodge eventually became the museum and nature center where you can discover the story of the seven groups of people who have passed through or lived on the Gunflint Trail. These people are; Prehistoric, Native Americans, Voyageurs, Miners, Loggers, Resorters, Outfitters, and Residents. There were dvd players with many personal stories of these peoples that were pretty interesting.
Here is a display case with the native fish of the area.
A owl hanging from the ceiling.
A Hamm's Beer clock we have not seen in a very long time.
Bob played Broomball in intramurals at college so it was interesting to see a photo, although their brooms were much better than our regular brooms with duct tape.
After our visit to Chik-Wauk we drove back to Grand Marais enjoying the scenery from the reverse angle. Once in Grand Marais we had a great pizza at My Sister's Place.
Great food and scenery and weather, we could not have asked for a better day.
Till next time,
Bob and Jo
