A WEEK OF DOWNTIME – DULUTH, MINNESOTA

Today is as pretty a day as you could ever see.  Walking along the lake shore today, the air was cool, crisp, and sparkling clear… almost enough to make me wish we were staying longer in Duluth! 

I’ve been making a mental transition this week, from our eastern travels to the west.  With the approach of the last of the dreaded Big Three Camping Weekends (Labor Day), we needed a reservation for a site somewhere – and decided it was time to move back into the more familiar territory west of the Mississippi.  On Saturday, we’ll leave Duluth for a week of travel to Livingston, MT (just north of Yellowstone National Park), where we’ll stay over the holiday weekend.  We have a couple of social visits planned along the way – one of which might end up taking place in a rest stop!

We took a break from sightseeing this week and hung around our campsite. Watched neighbors arrive and depart – including a couple with two English Bulldogs (and two more at home).  This guy spent his downtime in the drivers seat, and we often saw the smaller female in the passenger seat – too funny!

Travel planning, minor motorhome maintenance, laundry.  We washed our filthy windows!  I planned our meals for the six day trek across North Dakota and Montana; today we’ll go to the grocery store, cut each other’s hair, do the last of the laundry. 

Sound like too much fun, huh???

I also fit in a LOT of reading, sitting outside in the sunshine.  I started and finished “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest”, the third of the popular trilogy by Stieg Larsson featuring his gutsy hacker heroine, Lisbeth Sander.   Of the three books, this was the most “dense”; though you couldn’t breeze through any of the three, “Hornet’s Nest” took quite a bit of concentration (and was worth it).  What a shame Larsson died after finishing the trilogy (heart attack at age 50)– I REALLY enjoyed his story and characters.  If you haven’t read the books and plan to, be sure to start with the first, as this is a consecutive story.

And of course we had the freighters to entertain us. 

When I blogged about my new guide book to the big freighters, my friend Elaine commented, “Laurie, with your new book, jot down the date and time of sighting next to the entry of each vessel. Used to do that many years ago with the Western Guide to Birds, and it brought back memories when I thumbed through the old book.” 

I had learned that from my BIL Frank back when I was trying to enjoy bird watching (another hobby not for me – I’d rather hunt BIG things than tiny things, I guess).  Elaine’s comment brought to mind my favorite “diary” activity: the Passport to Your National Parks.  I know I’ve mentioned this before, but my enjoyment of my Passport grows with each year of travel and park visits.  I didn’t buy mine until our second year of travel, but sections of it are full, now, and I love browsing through it as a reminder of our travels and all we have seen.  If you like visiting National Parks, pick one up!