Road Tripping to Lake Superior

Road tripping to Lake Superior – An Absolutely Superior Weekend

It has been road tripping weekend again! In this blog I will report about my great weekend at Lake Superior and about some assignments that had to be done before hitting the road.
It´s only week five of the academic year and the first papers and assignments are already due! That´s way different to what I am used to back home in Germany. You will have to start right away. As I am only having classes on Mondays and Tuesdays for the first half of the semester there is still plenty of time left to get those done and to make plans for the weekends. One of the classes I am enrolled in right now is a half-semester class which makes it much more intensive compared to the other class which goes all the way through to December. We only have classes for seven times for four hours each session and the professor really uses the time effectively. There are a lot of group projects and discussions, quite a bit of reading and preparation before classes as well as those papers that are due every second week. The topics of the papers are interesting and as they are part of the game that is just fine.
After submitting the paper, I really wanted to see a new spot and I heard about Duluth, a city at Lake Superior which is the closest spot from River Falls to see the Great Lakes. Some friends were in and so we decided to drive up north on Friday and to spend the weekend in a cabin close to the lake. We started planning one day before we wanted to leave and so there were not a lot of options left for us but we still found a lovely cabin close to Iron River which is about 160 miles (260 km) away from River Falls. It took us about one hour to get to Duluth the next day. Cabins that are located right at Lake Superior are super expensive and most of them don´t have any vacancies from May to October. The cabin we rented was very remote and located at a small lake as well and so we were very happy to stay there for the weekend. Having a campfire, swimming in the lake, visiting Duluth and just having a great time were the major parts of our plan for the weekend. And it worked out!
After arriving late and having a campfire on Friday night we started into Saturday really unhurried with having a breakfast with a gorgeous view over the lake. The weather was just perfect for a morning swim and that’s what we did to start the day right away. After breakfast we headed north again to visit Duluth. It is a quite big city with a population of about 90,000 inhabitants located at the waterfront of Lake Superior. By the way: World-famous Bob Dylan was born in Duluth, Minnesota. A friend recommended me to go and see Enger Park which is a great spot to overlook the whole city and to have a great view over the tremendous Lake Superior. This Lake is the largest of the five Great Lakes of North America and it is considered to be the world´s largest freshwater lake by surface and the third-largest by volume. It is a lake that is so big that you won´t be able to see the other side no matter how good the sight is. You feel like you are close to an ocean and not a lake as you do have waves and massive container ships and you just feel like you are at the Pacific Ocean. After visiting Duluth, we headed further northwards to see the famous Split Rock Lighthouse. It is a great spot to take pictures and we really enjoyed the ride along the coast that brought us there. Great coastline and great views that get even better during dawn! There are a lot of noble houses along the scenic byway and a lot of good spots to swim or to just enjoy life. We spent the whole day at several places along the coast and really had a great time and some great food in “Grandma´s Saloon and Grill” in Duluth.
On Sunday we planned to head back to Lake Superior because we had heard about the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, a group of islands which consist of sandstone that is formed by the water and builds caves that way. You can dive or kayak into those caves or you can go on a cruise that will bring you to all the best spots of this area. We decided to go on a cruise and we did have the possibility to see several lighthouses, the famous caves and to feel the magnitude of Lake Superior. It was simply amazing!  
It started to rain just when we returned from the cruise and so this was the end of a great trip!
The next week will be homecoming week and there will be a lot of events on campus that I can report about.

To be continued!