Here it is... trip report, Day 1 & 2
Sep 16: Travel Day
The day actually started the night before, as it always does. We traditionally go out to eat the last night before we leave for a trip, starting way back in 94 with dinner at Szechuan before we started driving for Wilson Peak in Colorado. Tonight's fare was Gloria's in Colleyville. A tasty meal indeed - flank steak with chimichirri sauce, argentine sausage, black beans and plantains. And a darn fine swirl.
After dinner, I went home and finished my packing and checklist process and went to bed. The alarm clock went off and I was up and getting ready, awaiting Chris and Charis to pick me up at 9:00. They arrived and I said goodbye to Helen and we were off to the airport. Traffic was painless, as it was Saturday. Checkin was relatively easy - even though we opted to check in at the ticket counter instead of our usual skycap checkin. Skycap has started charging per bag to check in (and they still expect a tip on top of it.) So - we hauled our giant suitcases and duffel bags up to the ticket counter and checked in there, then went in search of breakfast. It was McDonalds. With little other incident, we boarded the plane and were off to Minneapolis. Baggage claim, car rental were quite easy and we piled our bags in the Ford Explorer, hit the highway and took off for our hotel for night 1.
Which brings me to one of the odder parts of the story. The hotel is called the Sofitel. It's supposed to be French. It's a nice hotel, and not too expensive. We could have paid the same and stayed at a Best Western. But the decor is bizarre. It looks like something that one would expect to see in a 60's spy movie... maybe an Austin Powers... or for you video gamers, it's straight out of a N.O.L.F. level. It's difficult to describe - but I shot some video, which I will post as soon as I edit it.
After we dropped off our luggage, it was off to grocery store, REI, and lunch. We both thought we'd like to have Chik Fil A for lunch, so we went in search of the yellow pages in our room. There were none, so Chris called down to the desk to ask about it, and they said "we prefer to personally help our guests with finding what they need... our concierge will be happy to assist you." We both rolled our eyes at that, but decided to give them a chance. Especially since we didn't have a choice. At the concierge desk, we inquired as to the location of the nearest Chik Fil A, and were surprised to learn that there were none in Minnesota. But the annoying part was that it took the dude at the desk about 12 minutes of futzing with the computer and asking for help from their 'concierge veteran who knows everything there is to know about Minneapolis' to come up with that (this will be significant later.) Something we could have determined via the phone book in about 2 minutes.
We got in the Ford and took off for the grocery store to buy some dry goods and 'scout' to make our trip there the next day shorter and more efficient. On the way, we passed a mall and decided that we'd go in and head for the food court for lunch. En route to the food court, we passed an Annie's pretzel stand. In the morning, we saw an Annie's stand in the airport that was advertising a pretzel-wrapped hotdog, which we both thought sounded good.... so we stopped there to get lunch and a drink. While we were eating, my diet coke slid off the bench and spilled on the floor - making it the most expensive sip of diet coke ever.
After that, we went on to REI - where we had to buy a few items that we couldn't take on the plane, and to look around. REI is one of my favorite stores - and the Minneapolis store is one of three flaghip stores. It's huge and has LOTS of stuff. Plus, we figured that since it was so close to a paddling mecca like the Boundary Waters, it would have a more extensive paddling gear section where we might find a solution for our seat back/gear bag problems... The seat back/chair cushions we had chosen were not readily compatible with the under-seat bags we had chosen to hold our raingear, snacks, GPS, and water bottles... The way each attatched to the seat seemed to make the other one unable to attatch. But their paddling section was pitifully small, smaller even than the one in the Dallas store.
However, we did manage to get the stuff we NEEDED... which was stove fuel, stormproof matches, sport beans (jelly beans with electolytes and vitamins), and a couple other small items.
After REI, we went back to the hotel to relax a bit and watch some college football, and try to find a place to go to dinner. Again, cockblocked by no phonebook in the room, we were left at the mercy of the concierge to find out where we wanted to go. We knew that we wanted to go to 'Eat Street' which was the unofficial name of the street where there were a lot of restaurants. I figured that if *I* knew what the nickname of the street was, living in the DFW area, that the concierge who knew everything there was to know about Minneapolis would know where to point us. All we wanted was directions how to get to Eat Street, and we'd find a place there that looked good. Well, she had no idea what we were talking about. Well, she hemmed and hawed for several minutes about how she'd never heard of it... piddled about on the computer, and 10 minutes later still hadn't gotten us anywhere. People... pull up google.com, enter 'eat street, minneapolis' and you will get over 2 million results... the top 10 of which are extremely specific about the location and the EXISTENCE OF Eat Street. Eventually, she got that Eat Street was actualy Nicolette Ave and printed us up some directions... so we cruised up and went up and down Nicolette a couple times looking for something that was casual, but out of the ordinary. We settled on an english pub, where be both got Fish and Chips and a Newcastle. While we were eating, we discovered that we were across from the Minneapolis symphony's home, and they were doing some outdoor concert, so we got some live classical music while we ate (we were sitting outside.)
After dinner, we went back to the hotel, watched some college football on TV and relaxed. About this time, tornadoes were forming in the Minneapolis area, there were tornado warnings all over the Twin Cities area, and at least two touched down in the suburbs. I don't think we actually got any rain where we were, though. Eventually, I got sleepy and turned in. One thing I can say about the Sofitel... there was a lot of weird stuff ( time warp decor, incompetent concierge) but the beds were amazingly comfortable. One odd thing about the beds, though... no top sheet... just the bottom sheet and a comforter. But still... extremely comfortable.
Day 2: The drive
We got up somewhat early, packed the Explorer and took off to the north, after hitting the grocery store to buy our meats and other stuff that we didn't want to keep out of refrigeration for too long. This included meats, cheese, and stuff for dinner this night and breakfast the next morning. When we were done, we went north on 35 up through Duluth and on to Tofte, which is where our cabin, canoe, and wilderness permits all were. First, we checked in and got the key to our cabin, then unloaded the bags and took off to get the permit from the US Forest Service ranger station. That required us watching a goofy video and taking a quiz. Then on to pick up our canoe at Sawtooth Outfitters in Tofte. If you ever take a canoe trip to the Boundary Waters, I highly recommend them to you if you need to rent a canoe. They're very knowledgeable, reasonably priced, and friendly. And have a good selection of watercraft. As we were picking up our canoe, the woman who owns the place was telling us that water levels were very low, they've been having a drought up there worse than the one we've had in DFW. She specifically mentioned an area that we were going to have to go through the next day (and the last day) as being particularly low and difficult to get through as there is no portage around it. But we recalled that it was low and difficult the last time we went through 2 years ago, so we weren't too concerned.
We strapped the canoe onto the top of the Explorer and went back to the cabin.
The first thing I did once we got the canoe back to the cabin was take it off the Explorer and put it on the ground to see if I could make the seat back/gear bag situation work. After a little bit of futzing and fiddling, I got them to cooperate and determined that it was going to work out ok.
The cabin is one of several that make up the Sugar Beach resort on the shores of Lake Superior. It's called The East cabin… it was very nice, had a small kitchen, living room, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. And a very nice view of the lake. It was nice to have the room to spread our gear out to pack in a large(ish) living room, instead of a small hotel room.
More CabinAngry Sky over Lake Superior
Calmer Skies
We had a long afternoon and evening to pack - it was quite nice. Usually we are up really late packing the night before, and it sucks to have to stay up late packing then get up early. We leisurely packed, watched football, I charged up the batteries on my digital camera and video camera, and cooked dinner (brats and sauerkraut.) Then we got all our trip food prepped, froze some lunchmeat and cheese that would be consumed the 2nd 3rd and 4th days, and got everything ready for breakfast the next morning. The Cowboys were the Sunday night game, and it was nice to just relax and watch the game when we had everything done. The cabin was very nice, and we were very happy with it, and would definitely stay there again. Unfortunately, they usually only rent by the week, and not by single days. But we got lucky this time, and they had someone checking out the night before we stayed, and someone checking in the next day. It worked out perfectly.
posted by Jeremy at 10/02/2006 08:02:00 PM
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