Ely to Minneapolis

We went on our morning walk.  When we got to the dock we saw that the boat needed to be bailed.  It had rained here yesterday.  

They still have not had enough rain.  Usually the end piece of the pier is even with the front part.

The neighbors pier.  I bet it is hard for them to get out into the bay.  Their pier is on wheels so that they can pull it out of the water in the winter.

This is the back of Jeanne's house.  

They have a little porch "breakfast" room. It is my favorite room of the house.  They shut it all off in the winter but it sure is nice during the times I am here. 

It is 16 steps up to the lower floor and another 14 to the upper floor.  Because they are out in the country they have to take all their trash and recycling in to a drop off site.  That is 30 steps over and over to get the weekly trash down to the cars. Today was trash day.

We had breakfast, got the trash loaded up in the vehicle.  Then went for morning coffee. There is another batch of guests arriving on Saturday (Jay's friends) so we had to change sheets, do laundry, and clean up.  I mostly just tried to stay out of the way.  We had lunch and then packed up and left.  We did not quite get the trash done, so Jay had to finish after we had left.  We got on the road about 1:30 pm and arrived at the airport hotel a little after 6 pm. We are staying at the Hilton.

The hotel is right across the street from the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge.  We took a short walk over to it.  

We decided to do the 1/2 mile walk

You can't tell but this is a steep set of stairs.

I guess that there is a lot of algae.

It may have been only 1/2 mile but there was quite the elevation change.  It was very pretty.  I think we will take a longer walk there tomorrow morning.  But tonight, we were ready for dinner.

We ate at the hotel.  There are not a lot of restaurant choices close.

I had the quesadilla and Jeanne had the tacos.  

I bought an extra glass of wine to take up to the room.