Low Hanging Fruit

This day of our vacation was dubbed “Low Hanging Fruit Day,”  the idea being that today we were going to see a lot of cool things that didn’t require a great deal of physical exertion.  Since we’ll be hiking the next three days, this seemed like a reasonable idea, and the Minnesota Park Services certainly aided our endeavor.  With awesome visitor centers, well paved trails, and sturdy staircases, we were able to walk to some amazing waterfalls and get some amazing pictures. 

After visiting two state parks, we headed to Grand Portage National Monument.  Grand Portage in its hay day was an important trading post for the Ojibwe and European fur traders.  This history is enshrined in its museum and “living history” village exhibit, which was fascinating.

In the village, we met a canoe maker who was incredibly knowledgeable and fascinating.  Talking to him later, we learned that he was a retired electrical engineering professor. He and his wife have been a volunteers with the park services for the past two years, traveling around the country and working at different parks.  The man now is knowledgeable in technology through about four different centuries!  Alex now has aspirations for what our retirement will look like.

After visiting the monument, we made one more stop at the Grand Portage Waterfall on the Pigeon River that separates the United States and Canada.  We were a little concerned that we would inadvertently cross the border, but we successfully made our way to the most wondrous of the falls we saw all day.

We finished our day at Grand Portage casino.  Before our Baptist readership flip their wigs too far, this was purely for their hotel services, not a cent of the Lord’s money we have been entrusted to steward wisely was spent in vice.  With a 6:45 departure tomorrow and no hotel this side of the border for 60 miles, this seemed a reasonable expenditure.

It was a truly marvelous day of picking low hanging fruit.  We waited with anticipation climbing for the more difficult, higher quality fruit the next day would bring.