59F again this morning at Gunflint Lake as we arise for our penultimate day on the road. We are packed, our cabin is cleaned of all our detritus, even vacuumed! We stop at the lodge to send Friday's message and settle up our bill for the three days.
On the road at 9:00, we reset our odometer from the 1121 miles we have logged since we left Omaha a week ago, and set sail back to Grand Marais, some 43 miles back to the coast of Lake Superior. We parked in Grand Marais and walked the shops of the area, making some purchases in an art gallery, bookstore, and stopping at the Blue Water Cafe for our breakfast/lunch of omelette, eggs and biscuits and sausage gravy. The omelette passed muster well, the biscuits & gravy barely, and the eggs cold by the time the biscuits & gravy were eaten. We hit the road around 12:30 and headed south to Duluth and the road back.
Saturday traffic is much greater on the North Shore Scenic drive today. On the way north, we had noted a small roadside store, Playing with Yarn, and made a note to stop on the way back, which we did. Amazing little shop in the back of a home. The home sits literally on the shore of Lake Superior. We made a purchase and were soon back on the road, scooting through Duluth and onto I-35 to reach the small highways we prefer.
As we cross North-Central Minnesota scenery here becomes flat farmland, interspersed with large and small lakes, all busy on this Saturday with beautiful weather and boats and campers on the road. Although we had hoped to get further south, we settle for the night in St. Cloud, finding a room at the Courtyard by Marrriot in downtown. We cross the street for dinner at the Mexican Village restaurant for standard fare of taco salad and burrito; sad note, this bartender has no idea how to make a Dirty Martini, and we didn't have the heart to explain it to him. We head back to the hotel and into bed early, looking forward to our 7 hour drive home to Omaha tomorrow. We have enjoyed our week on the road; we have seen areas we were pleasantly surprised by, met people who were friendly, helpful, entertaining and taught us a lot, both about the area and about themselves. We begin daydreaming of our next road trip.
No more messages from us on this trip as their is nothing really interesting to see or say as we cross old ground again. Thanks for joining us on our short little adventure. We will see most of you tomorrow.
