Duluth: U Betcha!

Our next stop was Duluth, Minnesota where we arrived two days before planned and had to pay the inflated weekend price at the hotel. It is the end of summer here, and everyone is rushing to get their last weekend of rest and relaxation in... Ironic. What can we say about Duluth? It is another town that surprised us. We really don't know what makes or breaks a city for us. It's just a vibe in the air, I guess.

It was a good town to just rest for the week and get some chores done - laundry, haircuts, blog writing.... I wasn't feeling the best in Duluth and ended up spending almost two days in the hotel. My left cheek, just under the eye was swollen. I still don't know what happened exactly - if it was a clogged tear duct or a stye. But it went away after a few days of rest and warm compresses.

Ladybugs are good luck, right?

Duluth (in Minnesota) and Superior (in Wisconsin), together called the Twin Ports, lie on the westernmost extreme of Lake Superior. They are one of the most important ports on the lakes - shipping coal, iron ore, and grain - and serve more than 1,000 ships annually. A truely iconic image of Duluth has to be the Aerial Lift Bridge which spans the Duluth canal. When ships need to pass through the canal, the bridge lifts vertically using huge cables and immense counterweights. It was amazing to watch the huge cargo ships drift through the canal connecting Lake Superior to Superior Bay, as well as speedier sail boats, mini-yachts, and jet skis (and a few not-so-speedy kayaks).

Each time a cargo ship would pass through, the crew at the bridge would announce over loudspeaker the name of the ship, what it might be carrying, where she came from, and any other interesting facts. People would gather around the canal each time one of these behemoths would pass through. The crew, milling about on board or hanging out of windows, would wave to the crowds on shore. We were able to watch the John G. Munson go through. She was built and first sailed in 1952. Known as a self-unloader, there is a 250' crane onboard that can discharge cargo at a rate of up to 5,600 net tons per hour. Originally a mere 666 feet 3 inches long, 102 feet were added during one winter and brought the total length to 768 feet 3 inches. Wow. Just wow.

There are actually two canals connecting the lake to the bay: the Duluth canal and the Superior canal. The digging of the Duluth canal spurred a colorful set of events involving multiple lawsuits, intervention by the U.S. government, and the building and tearing down of a dyke that for a brief time separated the bay. According to local legend, while Superior was attempting to enact an injunction on the digging of the Duluth canal, citizens worked all weekend and finished digging the canal by hand. Unfortunately, it didn't quite happen like that. But as they say, the legend is a testament to the people of Duluth: "We don't shy away from the cold, and we get work done."

This area of Duluth is pretty touristy - sporting a few blocks of shops, restaurants, hotels, and gift shops. It's a walkable area, but if you would like to get around in style you can rent a quadracycle to putz around in. We saw tons of these - they were quite popular with small families eager to put their kids' endless energy to work for them! We spent some time exploring the area, riding our bikes over the bridge and down the Island (the stretch of land isolated when the two canals were dug), and sampling the many restaurants and coffee shops.

To sum up the midwest, so far...

We like the relaxed vibe we get from midwesterners. We like their curiosity, and on the other end of the spectrum, their privacy. We don't like the idea of having to ask for a smoke-free room, or sitting in the non-smoking section of a restaurant that is right next to the smoking section. It is odd to me that Louisiana.... Louisiana!!!!... has a law against smoking indoors and the midwest has not implemented it.

We would really like the revisit Duluth at some point - maybe in the winter to see if we could survive all the snow.

Note: All photos were taken with a Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D.