July 11th - DULUTH!!

Wednesday July 11th 2012

Duluth here we come! Today we headed into Duluth to show Nana the sights. First stop was the William H. Irvin cargo ship museum. We had a wonderful tour guide who took us around the ship telling us lots of history and some great old tales from when he was a sailor out on the great lakes. The tour was about an hour long and Cole and Alexis were little angels the whole time. You might think a 5 and 7 year old would lose interest but they were very intrigued about everything on the ship.

Alexis and Cole in the wheel house

Once the tour was finished it was time to head over to Grandma’s Restaurant for some lunch. Everyone was a bit warm and hungry! When we were refueled we all walked over to see the lift bridge and walk out to the point and see the old lighthouse. We did get to see some smaller ships go under the bridge, but missed the big cargo ship leaving port when we were on our tour.

Cole and Alexis really enjoyed climbing around on all the rocks on the shoreline. They were trying to see how far they could go jumping from rock to rock and not fall into the “hot lava” below. There were plenty of opportunities for photo ops.

We then headed down the street where the kids cooled off in the fountains on the sidewalk. The thought they were lots of fun and even though they were told not to get too wet – they did.

Down the street a big further is a cool water fountain where there is a little bridge that you can walk across. They also thought this was pretty fun.

The next stop was at an outdoors store and even though we just went in to look both Cole and Alexis came out with new tennis shoes. Continuing down the sidewalk pictures were a must with the big moose chair. First with Nana and then each on their own, after all how often do you see a big moose that you can sit on?

The toy store was next, followed by the finale of the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Shop. Cole and Alexis both picked out a piece of Grasshopper Bark for the ride home. Right before we got in the car we saw all the RV’s in the parking lot of the civic center and found out there was a big dog show going on. We all peaked inside and got to meet a very nice 8 month old Briard who was going to be in the show the next day. He was super friendly and super hairy!

After we got back to the island the kids wanted to put on their suits and play with their new water guns. They filled them up and chased each other around up in the yard. That went pretty well until Cole shot Alexis and she got mad. She stormed up onto the deck of the bunkhouse turned around and yelled at him ending with “you stinky baby”. Apparently that was a really bad insult in her book! Then we headed down to the lake so they could play down there. They filled up their guns over and over in the lake shooting all the naughty aliens. After awhile daddy came down to the lake and joined in the fun. Before long Cole and daddy were in a battle.

Dinner snuck up on us like it always seems to so we headed up to eat. Then a quick game of Scrabble slam with Cole, Nana and mom and off to bed with Cole and Alexis