Simply Norma

The Lutsen Resort where we were staying had a brochure at the activities desk that showed a couple of different places you could go to purchase pure maple syrup so we decided to take a drive and check it out.

Heading up the Caribou Trail, we stopped at the first farm store called the Caribou Cream. The store was small and we were the only ones there when we arrived. After a few minutes, another couple joined us and a few minutes after that, one of the farmers came in. Both stores are on the “honor” system so you log what you’re buying in a binder and then drop your money in the container they have.

The farmer was quite talkative and I was happy we were able to interact with him. But, unfortunately, I was distracted by our conversation and forgot to take pictures. Oh well … we purchased a couple bottles of maple syrup and headed to our car.

Further down the road on the same Caribou Trail, we took a road called Honeymoon Trail then Barker Lake Road to reach the next maple syrup farm.

Driving to this farm, called Wild Country, was interesting as I saw what looked like plastic piping going from one tree to another.

The Wild Country Farm is much larger than Caribou Cream. Caribou Cream has 2500 trees that they tap compared to 18,000 for Wild Country. The number of gallons of sap collected in one year obviously are different also: Caribou Cream, 25,000 gallons and Wild Country, 130,000. The Caribou Cream has 45 acres of maple trees on its farm compared to Wild Country’s 320 acres.

The plastic tubing I saw that went from one tree to another is how they transport the sap to the “sugarhouse.” Oh — we finally reach the store.

This store was similar to the Caribou Cream with shelves lined with “everything pure maple syrup.”

Off in the corner, they had a sample of the plastic piping that they use to transport the sap from one tree to another.

After perusing the store shelves, we purchased some maple syrup and maple sugar and headed out the door.

On the way out, we noticed a LOT of plastic tubing lying on the ground.

Want to know more about maple syrup collection? The Wild Country has a website that gives you more information.  Click here to visit their site.

I wasn’t able to find a website for the Caribou Cream, however, they do have a Facebook account. Click here to visit their Facebook page.

Before heading home the following day, we drove around and took one last hike on a steep trail that overlooked Caribou Lake.  Here are some pictures of some of the scenery.

Crisp mornings, blue skies, shadows falling — autumn has always been my favorite time of year.

Related Posts:

• An Autumn Getaway
• An Autumn Getaway – Day 1, Afternoon
• The Lutsen Resort
• Hiking Around Lutsen, Minnesota
• Grand Portage State Park

 

A neighbor of ours recommended that we head to Grand Portage State Park to see the waterfalls while visiting the Lutsen, Minnesota area.

Grand Portage State Park is literally feet from the Canadian border. We could have gotten out of the car at the visitor center and walked across the border — that’s how close it was.

We were not disappointed in deciding to drive further north to see the waterfalls. They are beautiful.

The welcome center is very well maintained and once you enter the front doors, you simply walk across the hall to the other side and there are doors that take you to the trail that leads you to the waterfalls.

The half mile trail is handicapped accessible — that is truly amazing!

There are a few benches for resting along the way although the trail is not strenuous.

What’s this? Yup. A snake. Anyone know what kind it is? After encountering this one, my senses were a keenly more alert of my surroundings.

And we finally arrived. The falls are estimated to be 100-130 feet high. Approximately 3200 gallons of water per second come down these falls.

Looking across the river, you see Canada.

This is the Pigeon River — where the falls go when they “fall” …

And I was treated to a most beautiful sight! A rainbow. So calming.

Nothing else could compete with the rainbow for beauty on this day. A beautiful end to a beautiful day.

I was tempted to head into Canada to a town called Thunder Bay but that would have made for a really long day so we headed back to Lutsen.

Click here for more information High Falls on the Minnesota Department of Resources website.

Related Posts

• An Autumn Getaway
• An Autumn Getaway – Day 1, Afternoon
• The Lutsen Resort
• Hiking Around Lutsen, Minnesota
• Pure Maple Syrup in Lutsen, Minnesota

With cooler weather, low humidity and lots of sunshine having arrived in September, I have been spending a lot of time outdoors — weed pulling.  (laughing)

Yes, the yard work never ends and the buckthorn weed continues to thrive. I have almost 1/2 of my property buckthorn-free — well, that is, until next year when the seeds in the ground start sprouting.

This week I found quite a few seedlings starting to grow — already. I’m ecstatic that I’ve made so much progress, even if it is on only half of the property.

Looking out at the remainder of the work I need to do, it will be a lot easier to pull the buckthorn when all the ferns die. The ferns are so tall and wide that it’s like walking through a jungle to try and find the buckthorn between and under them.

I have great news to share — I’ve signed my husband and I up for a landscape design class in late October. We’ll be taking pictures of our property to the class and will have a designer help us with landscaping ideas. I’m so excited! Of course, I’ll have to wait til spring to do my planting but that’s okay.

Next week the county will be meeting with me to give me a list of the Minnesota plants they feel would work well on our shaded wooded acre. I was approved for the $500 grant and am looking forward to planning which ones I’ll purchase.

My original goal was to work on the landscaping of the “back” yard over a period of 5 years starting next year but the buckthorn pulling work has made me realize that I could have started this a lot sooner — well, if my back holds out. Pulling gobs of weeds takes a toll on this aging over 50 body and working every day is not an option. This week I was able to work 3 days outside but I’ve done a lot of stretching to help with muscle soreness.

Because of the outdoor work I’ve been doing, I’ve had little time to post the new recipes I’ve tried so I have a backlog of them to share once I hunker down indoors. Soon. The colder weather will come soon enough.

Want to see the work I’ve done with the buckthorn pulling?

Here’s the “before” …

And … here’s the after …

It’s pretty much the same area but a little different view. I’m hoping to have paths through my yard so I can meander while deep in thought.  (laughing)

But, now it’s time to rest for Sabbath. Much needed rest for this sore body can’t come soon enough.

On our recent getaway, we took two hikes while we were staying at the Lutsen Resort.

The first one, called the Oberg Loop, is said to be “easy” according to the brochure, but I think it should be listed under “intermediate.” Most of the trail is easy but there are areas where you have to walk on uneven rock to get to the other side of the trail. This was a little troublesome for me as the first time we came across one such area we didn’t even know we needed to walk across the rocks to get to the other side. We wound up looking at the view and taking another path.

There is a rest area at the parking lot.

Here are a few pictures of what we encountered on the trail.

Yes, this is part of the trail …

Once you reach the “top” of the trail, the views of Lake Superior are quite breathtaking!

Here is one area where one could not see the other side of the trail without climbing over the rocks to the other side. Fortunately my husband was willing to do that as I would have turned around as parts of it were a bit steep.

And here’s a picnic table … a nice spot to enjoy the views.

It was a good hike on a beautiful late summer Minnesota day. And the views are worth the time.

Related Posts

• An Autumn Getaway
• An Autumn Getaway – Day 1, Afternoon
• The Lutsen Resort
• Grand Portage State Park
• Pure Maple Syrup in Lutsen, Minnesota

Except for the condo reservation problem we had when we arrived at the Lutsen Resort (located in Lutsen, Minnesota), our stay here was quite peaceful.

There were two occupants in our condo building, us and the person living in the unit above us. The condos don’t have full size refrigerators which was a little odd to me. But then, they aren’t full condos as one might expect — more like a room. There is no stovetop or oven. A small refrigerator, a sink, a coffee pot and a microwave — just the basics.

I’m assuming most people don’t spend a lot of time in their units — we didn’t. We were able to hear the person above us walking and moving things around — quite odd — but it didn’t bother us much.

The main lodge has a swimming pool along with a hot tub — neither of which we used while we were there as time just went by too quickly.

The main lodge also has a dining room. Now — this is one place you should definitely go to eat. The food was scrumptious, service was quick and dessert, oh my, dessert was really good. No, it was not a paleo dessert — we veered off our diet a tad.

Because we arrived on a Sunday night, there were not very many people here.

You can walk from the condo buildings to the main lodge via this bridge but it is not handicapped accessible. It’s a beautiful walk but has many steps.

The resort offers activities that are included with the lodging such as kayaking, guided hikes, evening campfires, etc. Not all of the activities are provided all the time — a lot depends on the time of year that you visit.

We had scheduled ourselves for a kayak trip but thought it would be on Lake Superior which was quite choppy so we cancelled it. Later we found out that they took the kayaking group to a small lake, Caribou Lake, which would have worked quite well. Oh well …

Sitting looking out at Lake Superior on a beautiful sunny day … so peaceful.

I’m glad we went during their “slow” time — school had started and it was a tad early for the “fall colors” so gobs of people weren’t out in large numbers.

During our three days at Lutsen Resort, we also took a couple of hikes and visited the town of Grand Marais. More on those later.

Related Posts

• An Autumn Getaway
• An Autumn Getaway – Day 1, Afternoon
• Hiking Around Lutsen, Minnesota
• Grand Portage State Park
• Pure Maple Syrup in Lutsen, Minnesota

 

Continuing to head north towards our destination of the town of Lutsen, Minnesota, we stopped at the Northshore Scenic Overlook.

This was our first real view of Lake Superior on this trip as the drive, up to this time, only gave us small glimpses. After parking our car, we took a small path down to the overlook.

The summer flowers were still blooming.

Finally — the overlook!

The road you see below is the one we were on and that will continue to take us to Lutsen.

The large circular tanks you see below are called clarifying ponds and they are used to recycle water for the taconite (iron formation) processing plants.

Heading back to the car, we drove a little ways and stopped again at milepost 57 at the Palisade Head which is a large rock formation on the north shore of Lake Superior. A couple of young men got our of their cars in the parking lot and jumped over the rocks to climb the cliff we were on. That was a little spooky for me as they weren’t traveling together — who will “spot” them?

 

Walking around the area, I spied an artist further below painting the scenery.

Here’s a closer look at the artist and her painting …

And here is a picture of what this artist is painting although she can see more of the lake and rocks from her viewpoint.

Pretty cool, eh?

The next stop we made was at a rest area at milepost 79 on Highway 61 at the Cross River. It was really pretty here also because there are waterfalls. (Oh — click here for a link that shows the rest areas along Highway 61.)

Notice how the sky is now blue? The weather is getting warmer now that the sun is out.

Here’s the view from one side of the bridge. The river was “raging.”

To the right was a small grotto that brought to my mind the movie called The Song of Bernadette. (Do you remember the movie? It came out back in 1943 and was about a young girl who said she had visions from the virgin Mary.)

This is the view of the other side of the bridge …

Now it was time to continue to our final destination — the Lutsen Resort in Lutsen, Minnesota.

We checked in and proceeded to the condo that we had rented. Walking into the room, the first thing I did was look out at the view fully expecting to see Lake Superior. Unfortunately this premium room with views of Lake Superior was lacking. What I saw was a view of trees — lots of trees — with peek-a-boo views of water. Literally peek-a-boo. I had to stretch my neck to see in between the leaves for a peek of the water. No. This would not work.

I remember when I called to make the reservation I asked the woman if we had a view of Lake Superior and she said “yes, this is a premium condo.” I then explained to her that I wanted to make sure because when we had stayed in previous resorts we had gotten rooms that had peek-a-boo views.  And here we were in the same situation.

I called the front desk immediately and spoke to the woman who checked us in. She assured me we were in a premium room and I asked her to come check it out for herself. Instead, she sent someone with keys for a different room that she assured me (again) was a premium condo. When the woman arrived with a set of keys for a different room, I showed her the view and asked her if this is what they meant by premium and she said “no, this room should not be listed as premium.”

Yeah, I knew I wasn’t going crazy. Moving our things out of the condo, we headed over to our new one. Again, I looked out the balcony to see the view. Okay, so, this was so-so. I wasn’t going to argue because I didn’t want to move again as I really wanted this to be a stress-free getaway.

The view from this second condo (which was in the lower level of the building) was half of the lake on the left and trees and a “mound” of grass on the right. Bleh. Oh well. I’ve already given feedback to the resort via email since they asked.

Here’s a picture but for some reason it didn’t come out very clear.  Bummer.

I was thankful we arrived safely and had, for now, settled down.

More on the resort in the next post.

Related posts:

An Autumn Getaway

 

 

I enjoy the kind of vacation where you actually forget about the “real” world, don’t you? My husband and I took 4 days off and experienced such a vacation — it was great! We went to the “north shore” of Minnesota. Last year we drove through Duluth but did not head further north to see what all the Minnesota rage was about. This year we headed north-er.

The day we started our journey, it was gloomy and drizzly. Our final destination was the town of Lutsen which is approximately a 4 hour drive but we like to “mosey along” so it took us closer to 7 hours to get there.

Our first stop on this “moseying” journey was at a small town called Two Harbors where we stopped to take pictures of the Lake Superior coastline.

The water was choppy when we were there.

Flowers were still in bloom — does anyone know what kind of flower this is? We saw it everywhere we turned — even on the hikes we took.

We saw the Two Harbors Lighthouse while we were there but weren’t able to get close enough to take good pictures. There is a small gift shop that we walked through while we were there but it wasn’t much to brag about.

The lighthouse is the oldest operating lighthouse in the state of Minnesota and overlooks Agate Bay on Lake Superior. Click here to read about the history of this lighthouse.

The “Keepers Quarters” of the lighthouse now operates as a bed and breakfast.

Across the bay we saw a couple of ships — the one called the James R Barker was built in 1976 and was the first one to be built entirely on the Great Lakes.

On the other side of this ship was a steamer named the Philip R Clarke which was built for the Pittsburgh Steamship Company back in the 1950’s.

There is a LOT of history to be read on these two ships and some people follow their navigational journeys.

It appears that they were preparing to load coal while docked — but this is just a guess as nothing was moving while we were there.

A short drive from Two Harbors, we stopped at the Gooseberry Falls State Park to see the waterfalls.

There is a very nice visitor center here with interpretive displays, a Nature Store and videos.

The trail to the waterfalls is handicapped accessible and starts out paved. Later on, there are steps one can walk down or a paved walkway.

See the paved walkway on the right?

The waterfalls are beautiful! There is an upper, middle and lower fall area. Many people were taking pictures and walking around the rocky area. Swimming is not recommended.

The view below is looking downstream from the waterfalls.

My husband took a picture on his iPod of the “lower” waterfalls.

Although it was a gloomy day, this park left a peaceful feeling in my heart but water tends to do that to my soul.

I was intrigued by the formation of this rock.

A little color amidst gloominess always stands out beautifully.

And that, my friends, was the first morning of our trip to the “north shore” of Minnesota.

I’ll post more pictures soon of the afternoon’s adventures. I like to take a lot of pictures because it helps to remind me of everything I saw. But — it makes for long posts so I have to break the day up …

Related Posts

• An Autumn Getaway – Day 1, Afternoon
• The Lutsen Resort
• Hiking Around Lutsen, Minnesota
• Grand Portage State Park
• Pure Maple Syrup in Lutsen, Minnesota