Thursday, July 7, 2016

Summer Road Trip (Duluth and U.P.)

We packed in a quick summer adventure. It is as follows. On a Wednesday we drove to Duluth and took in our favorite things...
G&T and Vikre Distillery

Cheers to delicious varieties of gin.

Vikre Distillery AKA my future sofa.
 
Bowie was mind blown by the lift bridge.


Treats at Amazing Grace in Canal Park. A must.

 
All of these exciting activities took a minimal amount of time so we paid for the Duluth Children's Museum hoping to keep Bowie happy and busy the rest of the afternoon. That place is a bust. Don't waste your time (or money). It also ended in a Bowie melt-down. We left to stay with Josh's cousin Ben, his wife Nicole and their son Elias for the night.

Peterson AKA Herseth/Bachman men.
 
Bowie thought Elias and his giant car/train collection were the coolest. He is right. The next morning we hit up our Duluth MOST FAVORITE the Duluth Grill for breakfast and then drove to the Upper Peninsula Michigan.

I love the Duluth Grill!
We had a plan to hunt waterfalls in Porcupine Mountains State Park. Due to our poor planning and sleep deprivation we drove past all of the waterfalls on our way into the park. Dejected we decided to hike to view Cloud Lake. Luckily this was way better than any waterfall I'd ever seen because we literally hiked INTO A CLOUD! We had lunch IN THE CLOUD and then briefly scored a beautiful view of the lake below before the CLOUD that we were STANDING IN hid the view again.


My view of Cloud Lake. It's there, I promise, but I'm IN A CLOUD!

After the cloud adventure we drove straight to Josh's aunt Kathy and uncle Ralph's lake home in Twin Lakes (Lake Gerard). They stuffed us full of delicious food and provided all of the amenities of a 5 star hotel. We were able to spend the next couple of days relaxing and enjoying good family time. Ben, Nicole and Elias came up a day later to join the fun.

Seen here are the horrible conditions we were forced to stay in.

Cousin snuggle time.


The whole gang  (including the BACK of Bowie's head).


The boys.

The toad prisoner.
Uncle Ralph took us to explore Agate Beach and we found many imposter agates. It was very relaxing to tune out the world and walk the beach thinking about nothing but the rocks under our feet.



We were lucky enough to get a date night in the town of Houghton where we sampled beer and had dinner at a brew pub and walked along the river. Josh also found this mural of naked people jumping into a lake.


In conclusion here is a photo of the most beautiful baby ever enjoying the U.P.