Duluth, Minnesota

Tuesday, July 30th, 2013

Today was too busy. We only wanted to spend one night in Duluth. We had prescriptions for both Daisy and me to get filled (we ended up going to three pharmacies) and, once we were parked next to Lake Superior, Bill wanted to go on a 2 hour cruise around the lake. We ate dinner late. I think we just tried to cram too much into one day. We are parked in a boat docking area right next to the lake. It’s the most expensive place we’ve stayed at so far with probably the worse hookups. It’s very small. I think it’s mainly used for people that come down here with their boats.

The cruise around a small part of the lake was too long but we couldn’t be here for just one day and not take it. The cruise director gave us some interesting facts about this very beautiful lake. It is the largest fresh water lake in the world. Looking at the area around the lake from the boat reminded us of San Francisco where the homes are built on a hillside. It is a busy old city, much busier than we had thought it would be. We saw the world’s largest aerial lift bridge, built in 1905, which rises 138 feet in less than a minute. It does this every 30 minutes throughout the day. We also saw one of the largest ships in the world, a giant lake carrier which was 1,000 feet long. It is so large it must stay in Lake Superior since it can’t fit through the canals to the ocean. Since Lake Superior is fresh water there are ships here that are over 100 years old. This lake contains 10% of the entire world’s fresh water.

We are staying within walking distance of about 20 restaurants. We didn’t eat out though. We had left Daisy for 3 ½ hours by the time we were finished with the cruise and picking up prescriptions so we came back to her and Bill barbecued.

We are anxious to leave here to enjoy what AAA stated is the most beautiful drive in North America along Lake Superior in the both the U.S. and Canada.