we don't go looking for an adventure, but they seem to find us...

Hooray!

The pictures from our adventure to the North Shore this year have been loaded to my computer, and now, I can share them with all of you!

WARNING.... I get kind of long winded... this may take you a while to read...

Just me, Dad, L and M packed up the big red bus and sailed north.

We drove up and soon discovered, much like our last visit, that there was some severe weather ahead of us.

We ran in to the state park we were camping at, were quite pleased to find it wasn't raining, in the nice little chalet no more than thirty seconds when God opened up the flood gates and down came the rain.

I haven't seen it rain so hard and fiercely since the hailstorm 3 years ago.

However, our family is not one to shy away from an adventure, so instead of stopping right there and finding a hotel, we decided to go into downtown Duluth.

The only problem was that all of the major highways in Duluth are under contruction and traffic was reduced to one lane with no exits.

The puddles came up to our van's headlights.

And in case your wondering how big our van is,

it's pretty big.

We plowed through at a grewling 10 mph and worried about the little civic in front of us that had water up to the grill.

And still it rained.

So just like last year and like Gideon in times gone by,

we put out the fleece.

We laughed and ran into our favorite wait-out-the-weather location... Grandma's Restaurant, and we prayed.

If the rain stopped and cleared up enough that we could pitch a tent, we would.

If it didn't, we'd head to the nearest hotel.

But once again...

God did a miracle, and we stayed the night at the State Park.

The next day we headed out to find some pretty places to take pictures.

This part is for all you history folks out there.

While walking along, I found a building built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the days of FDR who were in charge of preserving our parks and making them what they are today.

This was the date on the building:

Across the way was another building.

Same story.

Breathless with history and thoughts on who built it and what were their names and why did they join the CCC, we climbed into our drying-out van and headed for downtown again.

Little did we know...

That this was the weekend that the old Tall Ships like the ones built from the days of our country's forefathers were scheduled to be in the harbor at noon.

It was 11:00.

So we hung around for a while, watched people, made some lunch....

no ships.

Went to look at the shops, moseyed around a little bit...

still no ships.

Rumors floated everywhere... they were at Superior, WI... they weren't coming in today... they'd been sighted a few miles off our eye's limit...

After we had had enough of waiting and waiting we headed up to Gooseberry falls.

But before we got there, we encountered more traffic, some guys dynamiting and lots of rocks everywhere.

But when we pulled off, it was like stepping into heaven.

Slippery rocks and cool water became lost isles to be discovered and an adventure had begun in each of our minds as we slipped and stepped careful over the lava rocks by the shore.

Dad pointed out an out-cropping that lead far out into the water. We hiked up and walked down to the tip of the edge of the steep drop.

My stomach flipped.

From the beach it looked harmless...

but when you were at the tip looking over the edge...

there was a drop about 10 feet to the water...

and beyond that... a good 50-100 ft plunge down into the waters of Superior.

No thank you!

However I noticed these pillars and remembered them from somewhere.

I walked around while I pondered where I had seen them before.

Then I knew!

The CCC had built them and had cleared out this area so that we could stand there today.

Wow.

History, science, and gym class all in one sha-bang.

After visiting the falls which were crawling with tourists like ourselves, we packed up to go back to down town to see if we could find the ships.

Keen eyes watched quiet out the window for the masts of the ships like the Native Americans in the days of Columbus.

Shouts rang through the van and we stopped at a marina.

 where one of the tall ships had anchored for the evening.

The perfect ending to an adventurous day.

(kaye ann silver)