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Two weeks ago my husband was recognized for his 20 years of service to his company. It was an opportunity for us to get a bit dressed up and enjoy a fancy dinner. Don’t we make a cute couple?
Continuing with the shabby and ornate theme of the week, this lesson had us using watercolor brushes to create a dreamy look to our main photo, extracting lots of textural and dimensional items and using fabric scans on our page. After all that extracting practice, I think I’m beginning to understand it! I guess that’s what practice is for.
I featured my hubby and I vacationing along Minnesota’s North Shore last summer. It was “One Perfect Weekend”.
So I’m a week behind in class and still working on “freestyle” type layouts. I got a bit delayed by a big national dance competition last weekend that I’ll be blogging about soon. Here is lesson 5 featuring the use of textures (love these), creating our own coordinating paper and using a gradient overlay. I used photos from the camping trip my hubby and I took last July.
Our final day of camping without the kids. Once again the air mattress worked great. After packing up camp we hiked upstream of the Swing Bridge at Jay Cooke (previously had hiked downstream). This is such a beautiful spot that pictures only capture part of.
This is the last kissing shot–I promise.
I was fascinated by the ripple marks on this rock.
Someone took the time to carve this stag into the rock.
That’s it. It was a wonderful few days but it was good to be home.
Split Rock Lighthouse and grounds are operated by the state historical society. It was packed and since I’ve seen the grounds and building before it really didn’t interest me to deal with the crowds. Adjacent to the grounds is Split Rock State Park and since we had a state park parking sticker we took the other road to the park and hiked along the shore for lake views of the famous lighthouse. It was much more to my liking–no people.
Jeff found a nice hard rock to lounge on while I hiked along the shore for a closer view.
One of the classic views of the lighthouse.
A little further down at the same park is Pebble Beach. I couldn’t resist stepping in the lake. I didn’t last very long–it was COLD.
We drove back into Duluth for dinner. After last night’s impressive dinner at Blackwoods we returned to try something different.
I had the wood-fired salmon. My first bite was heavenly.
Jeff tried the chicken and rib combo. The chicken was the tastiest, juiciest chicken either of us have ever tried. No dessert this night–we were just too full.
I observed a number of odd combinations the rest of the night. First driving through Duluth towards camp there was the Subway/Cigs4Less sign on a building. Then we decided that we’d like a bottle of wine at camp again so we stopped at the local Liquor/Live Bait shop in Gary. The previous night we choose a bottle with a screw-off cap (real classy I know!), but Jeff remembered that his swiss army knife had a corkscrew so we upgraded our selection this night.
The Swiss Army knife corkscrew in action…unfortunately the corkscrew broke off in the cork. But Jeff being the determined man that he is got out the leatherman tool and after some effort managed to open the bottle.
We enjoyed our bottle of wine by the fire with the final odd combination of the evening: merlot and fritos.
My nice thick air mattress did the trick and I enjoyed a peaceful night sleeping in our tent. Light showers danced on the tent fabric in the early morning–they lulled Jeff into sleeping again while I read a bit. The showers stayed light and stopped by 8 am. It was the only “bad” weather we experienced the whole trip. After quick showers we headed north into Duluth again. Jeff wanted to show me one of Duluth’s grand historic buildings…
the Graysolon Plaza, built in 1925 for $2.4 million. It was originally a hotel that has been restored and converted to senior apartments. Here is a view of the lobby from the balcony:
The upstairs ballroom could only be viewed from the stairway, but from what I could see it was spectacular. As we were headed towards the north shore out of town I got a text from Dad and Jolene warning us about the traffic delays. They had been hiking the previous few days along the Superior Hiking Trail and were heading home. There were two delays, one of which had us stopped for about 20 minutes. We first stopped in Two Harbors at the harbor. Side note: Two Harbors is the birthplace of the 3M company. The sights included a long breakwater protecting the harbor and the loading dock.
The Corps of Engineers saw fit to warn visitors that the breakwater was designed for navigational purposes, not for walking on. It didn’t seem to be stopping anyone.
We made it safely.
The wind coming off Lake Superior was a bit cool so we had to wear our jackets.
There was one large ore boat at the loading dock.
Hiking along the shore Jeff noticed this
unusual growth on these trees–if you have any ideas what this is let me know.
We sat on one of the benches overlooking the harbor to have our picnic lunch.
After a few moments we both had the weird sensation that we were being watched as the seagulls kept a hopeful eye on us. Soon they were joined and run off to the side by the geese. We were not generous with our lunch and soon the birds all moved off to a respectful distance. See that tree on the right of the photo above. This is important to the rest of the story. The geese had all settled around that tree resting on the ground preening themselves by the time we finished eating. Jeff had wanted to see what would happen if he threw just one chip to this little gull that had stayed closed the entire meal. I made him wait until after we were done eating and packed up. That was a good decision because within a matter of seconds of throwing that one chip this is what happened…
Those geese converged on us.
It was time to make a quick get away.
It was on to Gooseberry Falls, a favorite stop of Minnesotans traveling along the North Shore. It was the most crowded we had ever seen, but after only a 5-10 minute hike, the trail was ours alone.
Jeff overlooking the lower falls.
Stealing a kiss above the falls.
I reminded Jeff that diving was not allowed at the falls.
We managed to keep our boots dry during our rock hopping.
This guy cooperated long enough for me to get this shot.
We have a similar picture that we took on our 5th anniversary trip. We hiked around Gooseberry at the end of November in the snow. The falls were partially frozen. And we were bundled up in our winter coats, hats and gloves.
The sights were beautiful. We had one more stop this day before dinner. I wanted to see the Split Rock Lighthouse which was only about 5 miles up the road and one road construction later. See part two of Camping Day 2 later.
This past week Jeff and I went camping for a few days without the kids. We’ve never done that before. I use to go camping often as a child, but I’ve become kind of a wimp as an adult. I just don’t like sleeping on the ground. Jeff borrowed a couple inflatable beds from his dad so I could sleep on air. We dropped the girls off at grandma and grandpa’s house and headed north. Anna hasn’t slept over at their house for many years so it was a nice time for the girls and grandparents to have together. The boys were at their mom’s for a few days.
We set up camp at Jay Cooke State Park (just south of Duluth) at a site that was about 100 yards down a trail. It was a little work, but offered lots of privacy.
OK–that was my bed. Nine inches of camping bliss and I’m not ashamed about it.
After setting up came we explored the nearby St. Louis River.
Jay Cooke State Park is famous for the Swing Bridge that crosses the St. Louis River and
wildflowers and
rocks.
After our hike we drove into Duluth to see the sights.
Of course that included the Lift Bridge.
Then we did a bit of window shopping.
These pink poodles in an antique store reminded me of Ellie’s pink poodle blanket that she carried around from the time she was a baby until last year when it fell apart and we placed the remnants into a glass ornament for the Christmas tree.
This Santa suit was also in the same store. I thought it looked rather creepy–at least the mask did.
I made Jeff take my picture with this moose since moose are Anna’s favorite animal.
Then it was off to dinner at Blackwoods Bar and Grill on the north end of Duluth.
We both ordered this steak with gorgonzola cheese and scallions for dinner.
Here’s Jeff enjoying his dinner and
me enjoying a glass of wine.
For dessert we had this
it was called “Wave of Passion” cake. It was warm, it was chocolate heaven and somehow they got caramel to ooze out of each bite.
We finished the evening with a fire back at camp.
Yep that was a screw off cap–just wait till you hear what we had to go through on our second night.
