The North Shore

When I was in Minnesota this past weekend, Kelly took me to Duluth and the North Shore of Lake Superior. In Duluth we toured Glensheen that was once the home of the Congdon family.
This is the old carriage house and barn. It is now the visitors center and gift shop.

You can see some of the main house through the pretty fall trees.

Here is a view of Lake Superior from the grounds.

And there was this pretty arched bridge on the grounds.

And here is my guy, Kelly at Glensheen! He's pretty cute too!


Some nice fall leaves.

After Glensheen, we drove farther North along the North Shore. It's very rocky and the water averages 40 degrees!

This is me on the North Shore. I am amazed that with my thin Arizona blood, that I made with just a sweater and a scarf pretty much.

More North Shore.





Then we arrived at Gooseberry Falls. There are about 3 levels of falls.

It was a nice day!

Random New England Photos

I had several more posts planned on New England, but I seem to have "misplaced" some of my photos. I am sure they are still on my computer, but heck if I can find them all.
I would refer you to Cynthia's blog, where she has done a very clever post on our trip. Just click on the sidebar where it has her name under friends blogs.
Here is Cynthia when were definately on the Appalachian trail

Here is some lovely fall color on our way to an Apple orchard.


Here is Cynthia and I at the memorial where Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont.

A lovely view!

A wonderful tree.

More pretty fall colors.

A Halloween display we saw. This is a babysitter in training.

The boo man group.

And kids waiting for a bus. Maybe more later if I can find them!

Snicker's Halloween Costume

So Meagan's baby is Snickers. He is a poodle/shnauzer mix and a very sweet fun boy. He is only a year old and so still quite full of energy.
Meagan got him this hot dog costume for Halloween. He is an expert on getting out of it. It it were a rodeo event, it would probably only last about 3 seconds.
This picture is the whirling dervish. He was spinning on the floor inside of the costume.

This next one is the bucking bronco. He looked just like a horse bucking.

And this photo was right before he was released. No animals were harmed in the production of this post!

Kelly's Birthday

I was just in Minnesota visiting Kelly and we got to celebrate his Birthday while I was there. Here he is blowing out the candles on the peach cobbler. The amount of candles are symbolic. I am not robbing the cradle. He is not 6 years old. Just to be clear!
And here he is with his very lovely daughter Meagan. Isn't she a beauty? She is very photogenic. She looks great in every photo I've seen her in.
Happy Birthday Kelly!

I see dead peole

Cindy and I were fascinated by the old cemetaries we saw. There seemed to be an awful lot of them. People have lived there so much longer than out west and there were some interesting and old headstones. We finally stopped at one to take some photos. These are actually two different cemetaries.

There were some prettier ones but we didn't stop to get photos.

We saw so many that we started saying, Look more dead people!

The Flume

Cindy and I did lots of things besides get lost on the Appalachian trail! We decided to go the Flume which is located in Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire. The trees were so glorious that we pretty much ran out of adjectives. Cindy was getting tired of me saying,"Look at that tree!" Towards the end of our trip I would just point.
So here is some of the beautiful scenery we enjoyed on our way to the Flume.

I particularly enjoyed the sugar maples. They would have every color, very vibrant, on a single tree. Orange, yellow, green and red.

Isn't this just stunning? I had to just stop the car and back up so I could jump out and get this photo.

So the Flume is a natural notch that formed through the rock eons ago. There is a river/creek (definately a river by Arizona standards) that flows through it.

It 's a good 2 mile hike, uphill, the whole way. We aren't quite sure how you can do a loop and it be uphill the whole time, but trust us, it was.
At the bottom it looks sort of like Slide Rock in Sedona. We met someone later who had worked there. He talked about how hard it was to keep people out of the river.

Then it gets into the actual "notch". Here is Cindy at the beginning. Besides the river, there are waterfalls and ferns everywhere. They have this nifty boardwalk that you take that brings you up right through the notch.

Here is a photo of one of the many waterfalls.

It's hard to get a bad photo in the area.

Cindy at a waterfall!

Here we are at the "top". But then we loop off on the Ridge trail, that still seems to be uphill all the way back to the visitor's center.

There are a couple of covered bridges in the park. This is the smaller one for pedestrians only.

And shortly before the end, there is the great view of Mt. Washington. It is the highest peak in New England and is known for record breaking wind speed and cold at the peak. It you look closely the rocky top looks like a profile of George Washington looking at the sky.

And just as we were pulling out of the parking lot, we got this great rainbow right over Mt. Washington!