July 2012 Page 7

Sunday July 22 - Duluth and up

In Duluth. Drove to Duluth this morning, as the first step in going up the Lake Superior north shore road (Hwy 61). Spent a few hours at the waterfront near the large bridge. The place was crowded - weather was just right and it was a weekend day - perfect for strolling by the cool waters of the lake (avg temperature is 40 degrees). Here are some scenes. The Bridge is the largest of its kind in the world, and typically raises to allow ore carriers over 1000 ft long and about 200 ft wide! We found later that this was iron ore, mostly loaded further up 61 onto lakers destined to ports like the Cincinnati area steel mills (as opposed to salties that go out to sea).

Lighthouse

Oops! Who dat?

UP the road was the rose garden with the statue of Leif Erikson, the "discoverer of America".

Up the road in Twin Harbors we saw a real articulated locomotive:

Where we saw beaches were people (mostly kids) swimming:

Lake Superior is so big, it looks like the ocean.

At the harbor in Twin Harbor, we saw our first Taconite loading plant. Taconite is a pelletized iron ore made from low grade ore surface-mined mined northeast of here in places like Hibbing, then upgraded and railed to Twin Harbors or another one of the taconite loading harbors up the road.

Saw this old tugboat and the lighthouse:

Hard to see how big this really is in these pictures. Remember the length of these ships (over 1000 ft) and see how close they get to the loaders. we stayed to watch this ship enter the bay and SLOWLY get positioned.

Dusks obviously completely oblivious to what was going on.

We stayed thy night at the parking lot of the grocery store in Twin Harbors.

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