Thunder Bay and the North Shore

Erin and I had dueling dentist appointments on Friday.  We both took the day off of school so we could make the appointments and when finished cavity free we headed East.  We rented a room at the Cliff Dweller on the North Shore of Lake Superior.  The view out our room was spectacular.  There’s something about looking over a body of water with no distant shorline.

We basically just checked in and then headed back down the shore to Duluth to catch a St. Scholastica Hockey game.  Erin’s cousin Brennan is one of the goalies for the team.  He unfortunately for us was not playing in the game we attended, but the saints put on a good show winning 6 to 3.  Brennan ended up starting the next night which turned out to be a televised game.  He came ready to play stopping all 29 shots thrown his way.  The saints won the second game 3 – 0.

We got back t the Cliff Dweller at about 11:30 and crashed right out.  The next morning we were leaving the country and we needed our sleep.  After our continental breakfast we were on the road by 10:00 heading up the highway to the Canadian Border.  After a couple hour drive we found our way through the border and at Kakabeka Falls just 25 Kilometers outside of Thunder Bay.

We found out that the falls were in a park of some sort and we needed a parking pass to displayed in our car window to park there.  We unfortunetly didn’t have any Canadian currency so we went back into the little town of Kakabeka to find an ATM machine.  After a quick withdrawal we broke our newly acquired 20 at a local gas station for the Loonies we need to plug into the machine what would render us a valid parking permit.

The falls were amazing with a huge drop to a canyon floor below.  The frosty trees that lined the picturesque falls looked like they’d been dusted with powdered sugar.

After checking out the falls from both sides of the river we headed into Thunder Bay.  The town of around 110,000 people is just as you guessed it like any other city.  We contemplated going to a movie, because that’s what we do in foreign countries but the show times didn’t quite match up with our “schedule”.  After driving around town a little and checking out the Bay part of Thunder Bay we headed back to America stopping off at a cheese farm and picking up some smoked Gouda from the only cheese place in Canada that makes Gouda.  The smokey flavor is very strong and tasty.

For dinner that night we drove up to the top of Lutsen mountain to a resturant we’d been to last year with Jesse and April.  Dinner was very good and with full tummies we went back to the lake where we ended our weekend by watching Iron Man back in the hotel.

It sure was a nice weekend get-a-way.  Now we have a week and a half sprint to Christmas break.