Saturday, 24 June; Duluth, MN

Happy Birthday Anne

Did I tell you that this Marina RV campground is nothing like the Sparks Marina RV outside of Reno, NV?! Well it isn't.  Sparks is an actual RV park across the street from a beautiful marina.  That marina has walking trails and grass around it.  Her is our camping place until the 30th!:

Notice the blue portable toilets right by us.  They are used by all the boat people and I believe by some of the RVers.  On this side we have no sewer hookups so I guess they would rather use the port-a-potties. So, we get lots of visitors.
Nearby is the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad.  It travels along the St Louis River and is an hour and 40 minute journey through History.  We get to hear it's whistle often.
Also nearby is the Aerial Lift Bridge. It is Duluth's most famous landmark.  There boats and thousand foot freighters blow their whistle and the bridge's middle section goes through.  Once under it the boats blow their whistles again, and this time the bridge responds with one long horn and 3 short that sound like ship horns.  

The aerial lift bridge is all the way down

In this photo the bridge is all the way up.  There is a little house or hut in the center of all the metal

In this photo the bridge is half way down.  A Freighter had just gone under it.

We here that quite a bit as well. Another thing we here are the lanyards that run the sails up the masts on all the boats with masts in our marina. It seems the masts are made of different materials so the clangs are all different. It sort of sounds like different wind chimes. Oh, did I mention it is windy here??!! It is windy here, and cold to.

They are having two festivals today.  One is a Rhubarb Festival in Leif Erickson Park which is at mile 2 on the Lake walk.  

The Lakewalk, as seen above; is 7.5 miles of paved pathway and boardwalk where you can explore the shoreline of Lake Superior from Bayfront Festival Part to Brighton Beach. 
Anyway; we decided we would walk to the Rhubarb Fest.  We walked from our marina to the Aerial Bridge.  It was up so we went to the shoreline to watch the boats come under.  It is a pretty cool bridge.

We went across it and then onto the Lakewalk on the other side.

There are quite a few people out and about today.  The lighthouse out on the point on the left doesn't seem to be in use anymore, but the one on the right is lit up.  

We passed couple of these posts with locks all over them.

There were memorials to Vietnam veterans who were from around here, and memorials to the many ships and sailors who have perished in this ginormous lake.

The Rhubarb fest was great.  It wasn't huge, but they had a couple Brat stands that had rhubarb relish to put on them.  Both places had big lines.  We were starving by the time we got there so Rob stood in line and I perused the rest of the fest tents.  It was mostly activities for the kids. They did have a tent where they were having the longest stalk and biggest leaf contest.  They were huge and dummy me, I didn't get any pictures.  They were measuring one leaf that was 36" across and it was not the winner.

I joined Rob in line for the brats and after we got them we found a table to sit at to enjoy them.  They were yummy.  After we finished them we went inside.  There they were serving Rhubarb Bread Pudding; Rhubarb Crisp; and what looked like a Rhubarb Cobbler but with big dumplings rather than a crust.

We each got the crisp.  You could get it with whipped cream or ice cream.  We both had the whipped.  It was really yummy.  But......definitely not as good as Laurie's Rhubarb pie.  Her's is really, really delicious.

On our way back we walked through the old downtown.  It is pretty cute with lots of shops and places to eat.  

Bob Dylan was born here and there is a street named after him and all the manhole covers.  I took a picture of the street sign but then forgot to look for the covers.

There were some statues and some cute....hmmmm not sure what to call it.

We walked on across the Aerial Bridge and back to our place. Oh, the other festival was down at the end of the Island that we are on.  It is another 7 mile to the end and then back.  I was pretty done with walking.  We had already walked about 6.  I was good.  

Rob, as it turned out, wanted to go mountain biking.  After walking all that way on mostly concrete and asphalt my knees were done.  The trail description sounded awesome, but I needed a rest.  So, he went off on his own.  When he got to the trail head he texted me the address and the name of the trail.  Then he texted me every hour.  That way I know where he is and if I don't hear from him because he gets hurt I know where to send help. It makes me feel better.

Tomorrow is Rob's birthday.  He wants to play golf, but I'm afraid the weather is not going to cooperate with his plans.

Rob went to K-Mart for me after his ride.  The wind blew another tomato plant off the table and broke it.  He bought two new pots and a bag of soil.  I repotted the broken on and also reported another plant into a bigger pot.

He had a good time on his bike ride. He said it was really muddy through quite a bit of it and that I wouldn't have liked it.

He grilled some chicken and I baked baby potatoes and steamed some broccoli for dinner.  Then we watched a really cute movie with Jennifer Aniston, Julia Roberts, and Kate Hudson called Mother's Day.  We enjoyed it.

It is really pretty outside tonight.  We didn't realize last night that they light up the bridge at night.  They do and the buildings across the way are lit up as well.  Some one was shooting off fireworks as well.  Interesting eventing.

Good night everyone, Happy Birthday Anne.  Tomorrow is Rob's 54th birthday