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jenettTrip photos - at least a few - from my trip to Duluth.
So, what did I do?
Monday, I drove north to Duluth, stopping at the Lake Superior Zoo. I wanted to stop for several reasons: I have a fondness for zoos that is not squashed by recognising that they're problematic in all sorts of ways. I tend to prefer the Minnesota Zoo, which does a lot with thoughtfully planned natural habitat styles, but in this case, particularly wanted a much closer look at bears.
So, I looked at bears for a good bit - they have a Grizzly, a Kodiak (related subspecies) and a Polar Bear. Also, sheep. And swans. And Siberian Lynx. And Kangaroo. It was very quiet with almost no one around, and no competition for good spots to stand by the windows for minutes at a time.
I then puttered around Canal Park until it was time to go and check in, which didn't produce much in the way of excitement, but did mean I had lunch and bought some nice chocolate truffles for later.
I then went up and settled into the B&B, which I did not bother to take photos of, since they have very nice ones on their website: http://www.solglimt.com/suites/harbor_view.htmlis the suite I was in. The tub is directly on the back of that glass-topped wall you see in the bathroom. Their son, apparently, is a glassworker and contractor, and he did their bathrooms: all of them are really lovely uses of color and materials.
Tuesday, I had a nice breakfast (amazing apricot scones, blueberry pancakes with local maple syrup, pork sausages, and a yogurt parfait thing), and then took myself north to Gooseberry Falls (after taking a few photos of the Lake from the front beach.)
The park information building had not only quite a bit about the local wildlife and plants, but also about the Civilian Conservation Corps who built a lot of the park buildings (and many in other areas of the state.) The CCC was started during the Great Depression, and hired young men between the ages of 17 and 23. It paid them room, board, and cash, but most of the cash was sent home to their families automatically: they worked for between 6 and 24 months, usually. There're some fascinating explanations of the living spaces and recreation options, as well as talking about what they built and how. (I did not, however, take photos of most of this.)
I did walk to see all three of the falls: the photo below is of the Upper Falls, which is the clearest photo I got. We're in High Snow Melt season, so they're really rushing, and you can see the rich mineral content in the local rocks in the color of the water.
I then hit "Argh, tired now" and came back to Duluth, so that I wouldn't have to drive when I totally crashed, and went to the aquarium. I fell in love with the water wall, a two story wall of frosted glass that's between the main entry and the exhibits, and which has on it symbols of water from all kinds of contexts. Many of them I knew, but there was something really pleasing about all of them in one place.
The exhibits as I said were typical thoughtful Minnesotan Museum - not only why stuff's cool, but where it came from and why *that's* cool. A little geology, a little immigration history, a little ecology, a two story tank of Lake Superior fish, a lot of bits of info and questions. One of the cool things about not having grown up here is that I'm much less learned about the local geology than I am New England's (not hard: I did a total of a year and a half of fairly intensive geology classes between high school and college, so I know a fair bit of it.) A lot of Minnesota's is somewhat similar - I had the usual delighted moment of "Drumlins! Glacial Till! And that's a Roches moutonnée!"
Except, of course, there are places the geology is *very* different. I'd known, of course, like any hobby-geek about prehistoric megafauna does, that there'd once been a huge inland sea in the middle of the continent. But what I had missed, somehow, was that part of the reason for that sea was that there used to be a huge rift zone, down to magma and active volcanic structures, straight down the middle of the country, and that the Lake Superior watershed is basically a huge former volcanic crater, since modified by glaciation. Basically, think of the Mariana Trench, move it to more or less where the Mississippi is now, and don't get too close.
Which is almost as cool as the entire Boston area to route 95 having formerly been part of the African subcontinent, geologically speaking. (I am still fond of my New Hampshire earthquake story, which I should tell again at some point.)
Anyway, I was delighted by all of this, and even more delighted because ... ok, you know how petting zoos have 'feed the goats' type things? The aquarium has a 2 story tank of lake fish. And a feeding thing. You put your quarter in, and you get food, and then you carefully throw it up into the glassed in area (the glass comes to about 5 feet, so this takes a little planning), and then you see this flash of silvery fishies (*large* silvery fishies, as I think everything in that tank was at least a foot long, and many were 2-4 feet) and the food disappears. I could have done that for hours, but restrained myself to three handfuls of processed-fish-pellet. (No photos of this, because I couldn't get a good angle that didn't involve glass.)
After this, I went and got smoked fish on bagel for dinner, brought it back to the B&B and mostly fell over. Yay, falling over. And Wednesday, I drove back. (Wednesday's breakfast was also lovely: apple-coffee-cake, bananas with a little creme fraiche, and green-eggs-and-ham, where the green eggs were scrambled and shaped spinach and scrambled eggs. I am not normally a breakfast person, but both of these were very nice indeed.
So, what did I do?
Monday, I drove north to Duluth, stopping at the Lake Superior Zoo. I wanted to stop for several reasons: I have a fondness for zoos that is not squashed by recognising that they're problematic in all sorts of ways. I tend to prefer the Minnesota Zoo, which does a lot with thoughtfully planned natural habitat styles, but in this case, particularly wanted a much closer look at bears.
So, I looked at bears for a good bit - they have a Grizzly, a Kodiak (related subspecies) and a Polar Bear. Also, sheep. And swans. And Siberian Lynx. And Kangaroo. It was very quiet with almost no one around, and no competition for good spots to stand by the windows for minutes at a time.
I then puttered around Canal Park until it was time to go and check in, which didn't produce much in the way of excitement, but did mean I had lunch and bought some nice chocolate truffles for later.
I then went up and settled into the B&B, which I did not bother to take photos of, since they have very nice ones on their website: http://www.solglimt.com/suites/harbor_view.htmlis the suite I was in. The tub is directly on the back of that glass-topped wall you see in the bathroom. Their son, apparently, is a glassworker and contractor, and he did their bathrooms: all of them are really lovely uses of color and materials.
Tuesday, I had a nice breakfast (amazing apricot scones, blueberry pancakes with local maple syrup, pork sausages, and a yogurt parfait thing), and then took myself north to Gooseberry Falls (after taking a few photos of the Lake from the front beach.)
The park information building had not only quite a bit about the local wildlife and plants, but also about the Civilian Conservation Corps who built a lot of the park buildings (and many in other areas of the state.) The CCC was started during the Great Depression, and hired young men between the ages of 17 and 23. It paid them room, board, and cash, but most of the cash was sent home to their families automatically: they worked for between 6 and 24 months, usually. There're some fascinating explanations of the living spaces and recreation options, as well as talking about what they built and how. (I did not, however, take photos of most of this.)
I did walk to see all three of the falls: the photo below is of the Upper Falls, which is the clearest photo I got. We're in High Snow Melt season, so they're really rushing, and you can see the rich mineral content in the local rocks in the color of the water.
I then hit "Argh, tired now" and came back to Duluth, so that I wouldn't have to drive when I totally crashed, and went to the aquarium. I fell in love with the water wall, a two story wall of frosted glass that's between the main entry and the exhibits, and which has on it symbols of water from all kinds of contexts. Many of them I knew, but there was something really pleasing about all of them in one place.
The exhibits as I said were typical thoughtful Minnesotan Museum - not only why stuff's cool, but where it came from and why *that's* cool. A little geology, a little immigration history, a little ecology, a two story tank of Lake Superior fish, a lot of bits of info and questions. One of the cool things about not having grown up here is that I'm much less learned about the local geology than I am New England's (not hard: I did a total of a year and a half of fairly intensive geology classes between high school and college, so I know a fair bit of it.) A lot of Minnesota's is somewhat similar - I had the usual delighted moment of "Drumlins! Glacial Till! And that's a Roches moutonnée!"
Except, of course, there are places the geology is *very* different. I'd known, of course, like any hobby-geek about prehistoric megafauna does, that there'd once been a huge inland sea in the middle of the continent. But what I had missed, somehow, was that part of the reason for that sea was that there used to be a huge rift zone, down to magma and active volcanic structures, straight down the middle of the country, and that the Lake Superior watershed is basically a huge former volcanic crater, since modified by glaciation. Basically, think of the Mariana Trench, move it to more or less where the Mississippi is now, and don't get too close.
Which is almost as cool as the entire Boston area to route 95 having formerly been part of the African subcontinent, geologically speaking. (I am still fond of my New Hampshire earthquake story, which I should tell again at some point.)
Anyway, I was delighted by all of this, and even more delighted because ... ok, you know how petting zoos have 'feed the goats' type things? The aquarium has a 2 story tank of lake fish. And a feeding thing. You put your quarter in, and you get food, and then you carefully throw it up into the glassed in area (the glass comes to about 5 feet, so this takes a little planning), and then you see this flash of silvery fishies (*large* silvery fishies, as I think everything in that tank was at least a foot long, and many were 2-4 feet) and the food disappears. I could have done that for hours, but restrained myself to three handfuls of processed-fish-pellet. (No photos of this, because I couldn't get a good angle that didn't involve glass.)
After this, I went and got smoked fish on bagel for dinner, brought it back to the B&B and mostly fell over. Yay, falling over. And Wednesday, I drove back. (Wednesday's breakfast was also lovely: apple-coffee-cake, bananas with a little creme fraiche, and green-eggs-and-ham, where the green eggs were scrambled and shaped spinach and scrambled eggs. I am not normally a breakfast person, but both of these were very nice indeed.
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Kangaroo - Duluth Zoo |
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Kodiak bear - Duluth Zoo I was standing on a ledge directly across from him: his back was about eye level. *BIG* bear. |
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Grizzly bear - Duluth Zoo Notice that he is, in fact, smaller than the Kodiak. |
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Polar bear - Duluth Zoo |
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Sheep! Duluth Zoo |
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View from the beach by the B&B That little house is the entrance to the interior bay shipping channel, accessed by the Ariel Lift Bridge (just off camera to the left.) |
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Gooseberry Falls - Upper Falls |
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Water Wall at the Aquarium - description of symbols |
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Water wall in action It's hard to take good photos of 2 story tall walls of water - but I hope this gives some idea. |
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-28 11:34 pm (UTC)Lovely pix.
Indoor waterfalls are mesmerizing: there's a particularly lovely one in the cafeteria of the National Gallery of Art in DC.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-28 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-30 02:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 09:11 am (UTC)Will I see when I'm in town, April 6 to 17?
Also, if you want to see MOAR sheep, come visit me!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 01:33 pm (UTC)I still need my wool cards, can you come by sometime soon?
no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 02:36 pm (UTC)(Have I mentioned I hate the fact that driving is an energy suck right now?)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-29 03:31 pm (UTC)