Trip to the North Shore

This weekend we took our first family trip to the North Shore. Our first stop was a new marina just north of Duluth and we got out to climb around.




Our hotel was in Silver Bay and after dinner we went for a walk to see the town mascot, Rocky Taconite. The kids took a shine to Rocky and Mark took this photo.

We all choose what we most wanted to do- 3 votes for rock climbing and Mom's vote for walking the pier at Two Harbors. So we stopped at another marina to rock climb, then traveled to Gooseberry Falls for more rock climbing. Here's Mark and Tim up the falls.

We went to a naturalist class and learned new things about fish. Mark was a sunny, Anjali was a catfish, and I was a rainbow trout. Mark's stripes help sunnies blend into seaweed, Anjali's feelers (see green yarn hanging down) help catfish feel food in the mud, and my spots help trout blend into rocks.
My flat tail indicates that trout are not fast swimmers while the deep groove between fins on the kids means that sunnies and catfish are faster. Gotta say that wiggling my tail while talking through a dixie cup mouth pretty much made my afternoon. :) Had to capture that for the blog.

Tim made friends with a large pillow rainbow trout. Mark asked what it's name was and since the naturalist didn't know, Mark decided that it was a girl trout and named her Ahri. Also a blog moment captured by Mark.


We finished our adventures at Two Harbors where for the 4th time in 24 hours, Tim and the kids climbed rocks.

Then we drove home slowly through crazy construction and traffic. Kids were great sports and now we've got some food for thought about our SD trip in September.
Good times!