I readily admit that I like to be in control of my life. Who doesn’t? I like my life to be orderly and to go as planned. Generally my life goes the way I want it to. When I push a certain button on the computer, it turns on. When I type on the keyboard …
Gooseberry Falls State Park
Gooseberry Falls State Park is the Minnesota park with the highest annual attendance. It is known as the gateway to the North Shore. It has lots of waterfalls, a gorge, Civilian Conservation Corps structures, wildlife, and Lake Superior shoreline. We could see how well-loved it was when we visited on a weekday and had trouble …
Questions Asked at Grand Portage
Each national park site that Tom and I have worked at has its own distinctive emphasis and personality. This means that each national park site also has its own brand of visitors and visitor questions. I have discussed some of the unique questions that we get at each place in previous posts (Death Valley, Chickamauga, …
Split Rock Lighthouse State Park
The “north shore” of Lake Superior, the area along MN 61, is a beautiful area filled with state parks and lovely little towns trying to make a living off tourism. Last week we took a trip down 61 to check out a few of the state parks that we had not yet visited. One of …
Thunderbird Lodge at Rainy Lake
For the first time since we moved in, Tom and I took a “vacation” from the RV when we went across northern Minnesota and came back through Canada. We stayed at Thunderbird Lodge on the edge of Rainy Lake, Minnesota for two nights. Northern Minnesota doesn’t have many chain hotels; our usual overnight stays when …
Choosing Life
I’ve been Lutheran for the summer and this devotion, written by Dr. Gregory Seltz, really spoke to me. We can choose to lift each other up or put each other down. Putting others down is a form of choosing death and is a sin against God. I am choosing life – which means I need …
Ontario Provincial Parks
After visiting Voyageurs National Park, we drove back to Grand Portage through Canada and visited two Ontario Provincial Parks. Ontario has 112 Provincial Parks, about the same as you find in the state of Texas. Ontario’s size is equivalent to Texas and Montana combined. The first provincial park we visited was Quetico: “a wilderness sanctum …
Voyageurs National Park
Voyageurs National Park was our primary destination last week when we explored northern Minnesota. We had been wanting to go there all summer but couldn’t get reservations at any of the hotels / lodges in the area until the end of August. So we had to wait. Even though Voyageurs National Park is almost directly …
Building a Birch Bark Canoe
An ongoing project this summer at Grand Portage has been building a birch bark canoe. The staff of the park build one every other summer and we were lucky enough to be here in a year that they were building. All the staff have participated in various ways. Tom and I helped harvest birch bark …
Grand Canyon of Minnesota
Last week Tom, Val, Johnny, and I went on a three day adventure across the northern part of Minnesota. Our first destination was the Grand Canyon of Minnesota. The Grand Canyon of Minnesota is an unusual Grand Canyon: the Hull Rust-Mahoning Iron Mine. Some grand canyons are grand CANYONS. Some grand canyons look like the …