We decided to visit the Northeastern Minnesota purely for photography purpose. While we have been to northeastern Minnesota several times, we have never been there during winter season. We plotted a jam-packed 2-day itinerary to cover the following areas: Duluth, Two Harbors, Gooseberry Falls State Park, Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, Shovel Point (right outside of Tettegouche State Park) and Temperance River State Park.
Our original plan was to capture sunset shots at Split Rock and Shovel Point on two separate days, but it was all cloudy in both evenings. However, I managed to capture sunrise shots in Duluth on Sunday, albeit it wasn’t an impressive sunrise. The sun was just plain lazy over the weekend. The sunrise was at 8:00 am and sunset at 4:30 pm. While we were cruising along Highway 61 listening to System of a Down’s “Deer Dance” on the radio… sure enough, we spotted two deer dancing at nearby bushes. Too bad, my pet Honda scared them away before I managed to pull out my camera. The hike to Shovel Point took 3 hours even though the snowy trail is less than 2 miles roundtrip, partly because we spent lots of time taking pictures.
The amount of rum we drank at Grandma’s Bar and Grill certainly wasn’t enough to keep us warm at night. It was just FREAKING cold at Canal Park. The park was virtually deserted, with these two crazy Asian dudes wandering around the park at subzero temperature. The 16-storey revolving rooftop “Top of the Harbor” restaurant at Radisson Hotel is pretty cool, albeit it is not as high as Space Needle in Seattle. We also paid a visit to Betty’s Pies to get a Blueberry Crunch pie (5-layer chocolate pie wasn’t available that day). It is certainly one of the best pies we ever had! Finding the place wasn’t easy. My GPS initially brought me to a barn (thanks a lot, Garmin! <shakefist>), but we somehow spotted Betty’s Pies when we drove along Highway 61 to Split Rock.
