May 29, 2008 Update

Hi all. Mike and I are now in Duluth, MN. We traveled from Rapid City, SD up into ND and across to Minneapolis, MN this past few days. Mike has a cousin who lives in Minneapolis and we stopped by to visit him and his son for a few days.

I did not realize that the Mississippi River runs through Minneapolis, but it does. I should have known this from the news last year about the I35 bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi. It was right in Minneapolis. In fact, we were on I35 but not when we crossed the river. I remember the news on TV last year and it seemed to me that the river was very wide in the newscasts. But, it is not a very wide river in Minneapolis. I have crossed the Mississippi in Memphis and it is a whole lot wider in Memphis than it is in Minneapolis. I'd just call it a regular size river in Minneapolis.

I guess the big thing I got to do in Minneapolis is visit the Mall of America. I have heard about this mall for years and have always wanted to see it. It has an amusement park inside the mall. Not only that, but it has an aquarium in there too.

Mike took me to the mall on Wednesday. Marge (our trusted GPS system) got us there without any problem. Mike's cousin lives on the north side of Minneapolis and the mall is a bit south of downtown, very near the airport. We went into the mall via a mall entrance rather than going through one of the stores. The first thing we saw when we walked in was the amusement park. The mall is basically a square with four major department stores anchoring each corner. It is five stories (counting the basement where the aquarium is located). The center area is an atrium that is four floors high. This is where the amusement park is located. Then there is a wing going off in each direction leading shoppers to each of the four major department stores.

The amusement park was really nice. It is not huge, but they have made use of every inch of space. I think I counted four different types of roller coasters, one of which is a log flume with real splashing water. There is one that has a car that goes straight up to the ceiling and then straight down. I am not exaggerating when I say straight up and straight down. This same ride had a complete circle so that the riders come out of going straight down to doing a 360. It is some more of a ride. There were also a lot of kiddie rides for the younger kids. There were quite a few people on the rides while we were there.

Of course, we had to get a map of the mall to find our way around. It would be real easy to get lost if you don't know the layout of the mall. My first stop was to the QVC store. All of you who know me, know that I like to shop on QVC and have for years. I knew they had a store in the mall. As it turns out, the QVC store was just around the corner from where we came into the mall. Mike got a couple of pictures of me going into the store. I was surprise that the store is very small. They have a lot of makeup products and jewelry, but not a lot of clothes or other products. I was expecting it to be a lot bigger. I know you are wondering if I bought anything and the answer is, yes. I got some of the Amazing Grace shower gel that I love.

Mike and I walked around the mall for a while and went in several stores. I guess we where there for a couple of hours. I can't really shop with Mike with me because he does not enjoy shopping. We did spend a while in Barnes and Noble and checked out Macy's and Sears. Then we left and went back to Mike's cousin's place.

The drive from Minneapolis to Duluth was a short one. We got into Duluth and to the RV park around noon. Since we got here so early, we decided to go and do some sightseeing. Duluth sits on Lake Superior. The city is built on a hillside that slopes down to the shores of Lake Superior. There are homes all along the hillside overlooking the downtown and the lake. Because the hillside is rather steep, the homes on one road are high enough to have a view of town and the lake over the tops of the homes on the road below. Most of the homes near the downtown are very modest. I'd say that most of these homes have been here for many years, but they are well maintained. The downtown is typical of any downtown. There were several hospitals just a block or two from the lakefront. The downtown seems to be very much alive. I did not see many unoccupied storefronts.

There is a small strip of land that juts out from downtown into Lake Superior. This peninsula separates Lake Superior from the Duluth harbor. There is a road onto the peninsula that has a bridge called an aerial life bridge. The bridge has a support structure on each end that looks like steel beams with X shaped supports going up high into the air. Then these two sides are connected by the same type of X steel supports across the top. The center roadway of the bridge is also steel. If a big ship or barge needs to go through to get to the port, they have a pulley system that raises the entire bridge floor way up in the air between the two side supports. I know this not a great description, but in essence what happens is that the whole bridge is raised way up into the air to allow ships to pass. We actually got to go across the bridge and later we got to see it raised.

This strip of land out into Lake Superior is populated with lots of homes. Most of the homes are older and small homes. There are also some newer and larger homes there as well. I suspect that as people have sold off the older homes, developers or people who want to live on the lake front have purchased the older homes and torn them down and replaced them with new homes. We stopped at a beach access and got out and walked on the beach a bit. The sand here is sort of a medium brown color. There was a lot of wood chips and small stick all along the beach. I guess these are the remains of trees that have broken up into small pieces and made there way to shore.

After visiting the beach, we drove on out onto the peninsula and found a nice park area and a small airport. From this point on the peninsula, you can look across the harbor and see more land. This is land in Wisconsin. Duluth is right on the MN and WI line.

Mike and I continued our sightseeing by driving north out of Duluth. We drove right along the shore of Lake Superior. Out on this side of town, there are some beautiful old homes sitting on the banks of the lake. However, across the street from these elegant homes are some very average homes. It is like the road divides the wealthy from the working people. The farther we drove, the fewer homes there were and we got to enjoy some of the countryside and the lake. We saw a sign that said we were 135 miles from the entrance into Ontario, Canada. We continued on to the small town of Two Harbors. It appears that the main business in this small town is the loading of iron ore onto barges. There is a pretty lighthouse out on a point here and they have converted the old lighthouse home into a bed and breakfast inn.

I have some pictures that I will post of our trip to Minneapolis and Duluth. Tomorrow we are off to WI. We probably won't be in an RV park with Wifi for several days, so I won't be posting for a few days.