North shore trip

While family friends from PA came to visit, we met them up at Grand Marais for an overnight/sightseeing trip. Grand Marais is beautiful and they have amazing donuts (great way to start out the day!).

We started off by heading even further north to High Falls on the Pigeon River, immediately south of the Canadian border. The water at each site we stopped at was high, making each set of falls that much more impressive.

Next it was back to Grand Marais for a bit. I ventured out to Artists Point.


We then started our way back south with several stops along the way. The first was Temperance River. It was dizzying watching the water swirl. The way the water has carved the rock is incredible!

You could have seen where Temperance spilled out into Lake Superior, but Chris got in the way.

Next it was Caribou Falls off the Superior Hiking Trail. The falls are really high up, but I couldn't stop laughing at the stairway down. You will notice how it just stops.

Then onto Palisade Head. Chris showed me some of the routes he's climbed before and it got me itching to climb High Voltage.

The final sightseeing stop was the Split Rock Lighthouse. I clearly haven't been there for a long time because there is now a huge visitors center. I thought I remembered basically walking up to the lighthouse. It's kind of like what happened to Gooseberry Falls.

It was a fun trip, and I went further north and saw many beautiful sights I've never seen before. I would love to go back and do some hiking and climbing up there.

Teddy Roosevelt National Park

We went to Theodore Roosevelt National Park for a long weekend in the middle of June. This is one of the least visited national parks and looked amazing (plus it has lots of prairie dogs!). We camped in one of the total of 14 sites available - there are more, but they hadn't finished clearing the silt/mud from them yet! It was incredibly beautiful and we've already listed all the hikes we have yet on a future trip.

Here was the entrance to our campsite in the North Unit - the water had been about a quarter way up the sandbags.

After setting up our tent, we headed out.

I of course immediately found the trails where all the prairie dog towns were and we hiked that one first :)

On the way back to the trailhead, we ran into a buffalo. Luckily there was another couple there already watching it. Had they not been there, we would have turned the corner and potentially startled it. That may not have been the best start to the vacation.

That night, it rained about 3/4" in an hour. We had a moat around our tent! That next morning, we put on our gaiters and headed out on the trails. We were warned about the wet clay soil (it expands to about 3 times, and all that additional water makes it extremely slippery). I loved it! I have to admit I was a bit worried when we initially headed out for fear it would rain again while we were on the trail, making conditions even worse, but I'm glad we stuck with it.

Not long after starting the trail, Chris slipped. I wish it had been funny to see, but it just looked painful! It was comically slow though and you'll notice the slip marks all the way down. The amazing part about it (besides Chris not getting hurt) was that the face appeared to be rock, but turned out to essentially be soil. Fascinating stuff!



We also drove up to some of the scenic areas of the park (ones we couldn't hike to).

It was a beautiful park and I highly recommend it! If you're interested in seeing fewer people and more prairie dogs, go to the North Unit. The South Unit is the one right off of I94 and was more touristy. We did get to see the wild horses out there though.

As a final thought, here are the prairie dogs doing their bark. I couldn't help feeling like I was seeing miniature Banjos when I was out there (although these guys were much quieter!):

Garden pictures

Here are some pictures from the garden - enjoy!

The herb garden is exploding! I've had to cut it back several times already and it's due again:
The coneflowers are starting to open up. They should turn a purple color soon:
The potatoes have also exploded! I'm very encouraged by the experiment so far.
The stellas that replaced the grape vine are now all in bloom and looking beautiful:
The day lilies are close to blooming for that one fleeting day:
The succulents I've replanted are growing lots of new plants too: