Roll Out

Somewhere north of St. Paul on I-35 Arthur was flipping through radio stations and landed on one playing a mix of hip-hop and rap from the 1980s and 90s.  While driving he was bebopping around repeating the lyrics “Roll out, Roll out”.  He had definitely switched in to road trip/vacation mode.  Which was good since it was a long first day of our vacation. 

The alarm went off at 4:30am and we “rolled out” of the drive way by 5:15.  We had a 12 hour drive ahead and had to get an early start.  We were on our way to Minnesota’s North Shore along Lake Superior.  We would end up within spitting distance of Canada.  This trip was going to included 4 new states for Arthur, his first experience with large bodies of water and boats, our first true backpacking endeavor, and a test of Alex’s travel agent skills.  

Saturday did include a lot of driving but we tag teamed the driving well and had a lot of entertainment.  Once again our usually Saturday morning NPR favorites—Car Talk and Wait, Wait followed by Prairie Home Companion with the News from Lake Wobegon  as we cruised past some of Minnesota’s 10,000 lakes.  We also were content listening to our audiobook for this trip, Boys in a Boat, about the story of the 1936 Olympic gold medal crew team from Washington.  It seemed fitting with the recent Olympics and to prepare us for our own boating adventure later in the week.  

We did stop for lunch in St. Paul at the Machine Shed.  This was a favorite from my family road trips growing up and I think Arthur gave it his stamp of approval.  He had the sirloin tips and I had pulled pork with sweat potato fries—it was all delicious.  We kept “rolling” to Duluth—the gateway to our adventure- and stopped at the visitor center so I could be armed with the best maps and travel guides since we are still existing in a pre-smart phone age and depend on paper documents.  Arthur was excited to see sea gulls and the view from the visitor center was a great view overlooking the river and harbor in Duluth.  Duluth is an industrial port that ships minerals like coal and taconite was well as having a paper mill.  

The last hour of our drive was along the scenic shore of Lake Superior.  Our initial impression is that there is a whole lot of water in the world’s largest freshwater lake.  No moose sightings yet but we did see a deer and then a herd of elk at an elk farm along the interstate.  We finally “rolled in” to the Lax Lake Resort about 7:30 that evening.  We settled into our room just in time to see a rainbow over the lake since it had been lightly raining most of the evening.  After 12 hours of driving I think we will be ready for the change of hiking over hill and dale with everything on our back.  Omnia Vincit Amor.