Last Day: Ely to PDX

It is hard to believe that my week with Jeanne is over.  The time goes by so quickly.

Around 2 am last night, Jeanne woke me up to say that we could finally see the full moon!!! It has been so overcast that the moon has not been visible.

Jeanne is the best host.  Who else would know that I would WANT to be woken up at 2 am to see the moon.  ;-) 

It was a clear morning.  The guys were upset that today was such a gorgeous day for golfing, but they were all leaving.

And I got a sunrise!!

After a nice breakfast of cereal.  We all headed out.  Jeanne and I left around 8:30 am.  We had a lot of plans.  See fall colors, run a few errands, stop at Lester Falls, have lunch and stop at some other park.  Well, as usual, plans do not always agree with life.  

We drove by the building that McMenamins should buy.  It is an old hospital.

Then we drove though a coffee place. The woman who owns this place built it herself and started the drive through coffee.  It is open all year around.  She is quite successful.  Pretty cool.  

We drove through Two Harbors.  The colors were starting to turn.  I thought I would take pictures at Lester Park.  Once we got to Duluth there was a lot of road construction and we were detoured in such a way that we could not stop at Lester Park.  Traffic was terrible.  So we kept driving and decided to have lunch in Cloquet.  We ate at a Perkins.  

I had a very good dinner.  Then because of more road construction and detours we were left with no time to go to any other parks.  

Sharon and Kris, do you recognize this?  Funny to pass by streets which I recognize like Portland Ave.  

Cool sculpture.

We stopped at a Starbucks close to the airport so that we could do our final picture sharing.

Then Jeanne dropped me off at the airport at 4 pm.  She made it home with no difficulty.  She called to say that the northbound traffic on 35E was not diverted so she was making pretty good time.  I made it through security.  They stopped my bag because my Zups seasoning packets.  I buy it in Ely every year and every year they question it.  Next time I will try to remember to put in in my liquid bag or some place with easy access.  Anyway, they did let me go through.  Nothing inspired me food-wise so I bought food on the plane.

Things have changed somewhat in the MSP airport.  All regular passengers head to the North Security and TSAPrecheck and other special people go to the South Security.  

My flight was on time.  George met me at the airport at 7:30 pm.  So I am home safe and sound.

Jeanne took this on her drive home.  

Another Relaxing Day

More branches blew down last night.  Another rainy day.

Downy Woodpecker

Jay  made a delicious breakfast of peach pancakes.  Yummy.  The guys decided to golfing in spite of the rain.  Jeanne and I went in for coffee and then to the church to do some work for their order of service.  I helped fold.

Notice all the nice landscaped rocks.  Last year when I was here we went out with Jeanne and Jay's grand kids to collect rocks.  It is nice to see them all well used.

It was lunch time.  We decided to go to Insula Restaurant for lunch.  It is an American Asian Fusion restaurant.  Very good food.  Jeanne had her usual of pulled pork won ton tacos and I had spinach salad with strawberries and candied walnuts.  She let me have one of her tacos.  They were delicious.  She had some of my salad.

tacos

We did a tiny bit of dinking but the rain was a deterrent.  We went home.  We had to get the ribs in the oven for tonight, anyway.

Cool mural.

This garden area is in front of one of my favorite stores. 

Interesting bumper sticker

A wealthy guy has bought up some of the old buildings in town and has been renovating them.  This old theater has been closed as long as I have been coming to Ely but it is supposed to open this November.  There is one old building which would be a perfect one for McMenamins to buy and renovate.  ;-). 

Since it was not the best dinking weather we went back to the house.  We worked on copying each others pictures.  While we were working on that THE SUN CAME OUT!!  We dropped everything and headed out to the Kiwishiwi Falls.   

It was a little muddy but we did not let that stop us.  

I guess that is not enough blue to make a pair of Dutchman's britches because it rained right after that.  But we did see blue sky and sun today.  

We drove back into Ely to the Art and Soul Gallery.  I always like that place.  Really cool art.  I could have bought half the stuff in the store, if I had more bare walls to hang things.

Back home again.  We walked down to the bay to check out the cover on the pontoon boat to see if it stayed covered.  I guess the back side came off with the wind.

Covered pontoon boat.  

Then we had to check out the tree that came down yesterday in the storm.

This is the tree that went down in the storm.  It is right by the back of the house.  Weird the way it split and some went one direction and some the other.

The neighbor's boat

My annual picture of the bay.

I guess the guys got pretty wet today with their golfing.  It was on again off again day, so they dry times, too.

After 4 hours in the oven, Jay is finishing the ribs off on the grill.

Delicious

Note Jay's beer, scotch and wine - an equal opportunity drinker.

The guys: Jay, Rick, Todd, and Mike.  They are a great bunch of guys.  

They watched some movie down stairs.  Jeanne and I watched an old movie upstairs.  It was a great day.  It is hard to believe that it is my last day here.  We will head off in the morning.

Recovery Day

Most days we have been having intermittent light rain.  But luckily it has been during times we have be indoors or driving.  It has not interfered with our activities.  One evening it poured but we were inside.  Today we had a leisurely breakfast of cereal.  The guys had an early tee time.  We relaxed and looked at each others pictures.  That was fun.  Then we went in for the coffee group from 10-11 am.  It is nice to see familiar faces.   It was a windy day with the prediction of rain so we decided to not dink in the shops.  Hopefully tomorrow we will be able to do that. We picked up the mail and came back home and had lunch.  Then we sat and did some computer work.

We put together a puzzle. That did not take long.

The guys came home.  I guess they had gotten a little wet.  Jay had to go down to fix the cover of their pontoon boat.  The wind had blown it off.  It started raining harder and got quite windy.  The wind blew a lot of branches. down.  We heard a loud crash but could not find what had happened.  I hope everything is OK.

We found that some branches had fallen on the grill.

The wind and rain did not bother the birds.

I went with Jeanne and Jay to their choir practice. That was fun.  I like listening to them.

More stormy weather.  We all watched an old Clint Eastwood movie from Jeanne and Jay's collection.  

Having trouble with the Internet because of the storm.  Even using my phone hot spot is not working well.  

Grand Marais and Two Harbors

We had a simple breakfast of cereal before heading out for the day.  The plan was to go to Grand Marais, check out Artist's Point, have lunch and head down to Two Harbors to see baby Ruby.  Maybe with a stop at Gooseberry Falls on our way.   Well, as usual things did not go quite as planned.

Great fall colors

Driving through Finland

 But on our way towards Grand Marais we needed to stop at a rest stop.  When we were there we saw a sign for Carabou Falls 0.5 miles.  We were up for it.  We hiked up along the stream.  Very pretty.  We were just about ready to give up when we met people coming back who said where the falls were.

It was well worth the walk

But we did have to hike down 156 steps and of course back up those same steps.

Back on the road.  There was a big sign for Temperance Falls.  So, of course, we had to pull over.

Lake Superior

 We did do a little rock climbing which Pam would not have liked.

Next stop was Cascade River State Park

It was fun trying to get the waves hitting the rocks.  We did not see a lot of the Cascade River.

So now, instead of going to Artist Point and then lunch we decided to do lunch first.  It was 1 pm.

We ate at the Harbor House Grill

Great flower arrangement.

I had a Reuben and Jeanne had Fish and Chips.  Great food.  We were close enough that we could leave the car and walk down to Artist's Point.

I wonder why they call it Artist's Point

Lots of scenes of the water hitting the shore.

Half mast for 9/11

Bear Tree

Argh!! it was already 3 pm - that was when we were planning to arrive in Two Harbors.  So no stops.  So much to see, so little time.

We were going to Two Harbors to see Jeanne's niece's new baby, Ruby.  She was just born a week ago.  Jay has 3 brothers.  Gordon is the youngest. His wife, Sue, was there as well.  Julie and Trey are the parents of baby Ruby.  Ruby is the name of Jay's mom. 

Sue and Jeanne

Julie, Trey & Ruby

Ruby

Jeanne with Ruby

Julie with Ruby

Me with Ruby.

Their house.  It is quite nice and on 30 acres of land.  They have done a lot of work on it.  It is bigger than it looks from this angle.

We headed home a little after 5 pm.  We had to scurry home, since we were cooking dinner.... Well, Jeanne was cooking dinner.  The guys got home just before we did.  

Jeanne made sweet and sour meatballs, rice and broccoli. With peaches and ice cream for dessert.  It was all very good.