The Escape

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So, my friend Audra and I decided to quickly escape to the city of Duluth in Minnesota. No, it doesn't sound very interesting but then again, we are fans of the quirky. Recently on our travels we found the Stump Fence Capitol of the World. Who would know that over turned tree stumps could cause such a commotion. Anyway, it was the last day before we headed back to school and I had been wanting to show her this city for while. (I had been there before for work.) One of the first places we stopped was an Irish pub but since it was about 10:30AM there on a Sunday we felt a wee bit shameful and couldn't bring ourselves to belly up to the bar. So we continued a walk down one of the main streets where there are many shops. For the most part, Duluth is pretty liberal and there is a bit of hippie/tree-hugger/crunchy-granola subculture. Fortunately for my friend (a hippie) many of these types of stores were open and I had to endure the ever so pleasant smell of patchouli and such the rest of the day. I swear it would permeate rhino hide! We then walked down to the touristy Canal Park area. When I had stayed previously, our crash-pad was the "semi-posh" Hawthorne Suites there and I was intrigued by the odd internal architecture. I think the building had originally been a factory or warehouse and they completely renovated it into a sort-of upscale hotel. Anyway, the suites on the far right side of the hotel are extremely spacious and really a treat to stay in if you have the opportunity. But the old pipes running through the rooms give it a weird industrial feel. Right next to the Hotel was our lunch destination - Old Chicago Pizza. The pizza was good - our favorite mushroom special. If we had been at all less poor we would have really gone crazy with the tomatoes and pineapple. But another highlight of lunch was the beer tasting - yay! Old Chicago has a pretty decent selection of domestic and imported beers - the most expensive being around $11 a pint. I tried a fabulous darker beer called Big Sky Moose Drool Brown Ale that comes out of Montana while my counterpart tried a layered pint of a hard cider and guinness. Anyway, good times there. Oh and I forgot to mention the whole 'getting the car stuck in a snowbank' story. We found a beautiful state park not far from the Wisconsin/Minnesota border called Amnicon Falls. Really quite pretty and relatively secluded. Unfortunately, the roads in the park were pure ice and Audra managed to lodge the car on a small bank. I had to push. It was rather hilarious as the first thought for us was "get the camera" instead of "get the car out." In all though it probably took us under 5 min to get it out. Please! I'm from the U.P. of Michigan...everyone knows how to get a car out of a snowbank. Anyway, more travels to be had later. For this day trip we drove 4 hours there from my parents house and then 6 hours back to school.

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