honeymoon - day two

what a difference a good night of sleep makes!!! we got about ten hours of shut-eye and started off our day right with a really great breakfast. we ate at this local place in two harbors called the vanilla bean - one of many recommendations from our friends before we left for our trip. i had their specialty pancakes (vanilla butter and maple syrup) and terri tried their veggie omelet. the highlight of the restaurant, in my opinion, was their vanilla flavored coffee. oh man, that stuff is g-o-o-d!!!

we made a quick pit stop at the local visitor center and grabbed some pamphlets to help us decide our agenda for the day and upcoming week. we decided to set off up the north shore and sight see all the different hot spots. our first stop - grand marais. this is a cute little town which the lady at the visitor's bureau described as a mini cape cod. while one may take argument with that description, it is quite beautiful. while walking around town, we passed a really cute restaurant called the crooked spoon. just after passing the door, a woman comes running out of the restaurant and says, terri? terri thronson? one of terri's high school friends that went to brandon high school and was involved in many of the same sports with terri now lives and works in grand marais, and happened to see us walk past the store front. ironically, terri has a history of running into people in the oddest places - twice before at the state fair for example. other items of interest in grand marais included the world's best donuts, and a really cute gift shop called The Attic owned by a couple that bought the store and moved to grand marais from minnetonka. good news for terri's siblings - we bought a really nice aromatic cedar cribbage board. that's right, we're practicing up for the next tournament! we finished our tour of grand marais with lunch at the crooked spoon. the lunch was absolutely amazing! i tried the pastrami sandwich on toasted rye with Gruyere cheese, tomatoes, and horseradish mayo. terri had their version of a blt which was far superior than others i have tried. the manager even sent us an order of their creme brulee as a gift on our honeymoon. if you are ever in this area, we highly reccommend you try this place. it is fantastic!

our next stop was a rest stop at cutface creek. seriously, is it possible to not stop at a place with that type of name? other brief stops along the way included a scenic sight called cedar falls. not a bad place to get a little drink if you're thirsty. :) we swung by a little place in schroeder that sold baked goods, espresso, subs, and malts - logical variety of goods, right? we tried the vanilla malt, and it was pretty darn good! we intended to make a stop at the lutsen mountain area and try their summertime slide. unfortunately, their summer weekday hours just ended - so we may be writing about this on friday if the weather holds. more on that later.

next stop for us was at the splitrock light house. this place is a great place to tour if you're ever on the north shore. we took the thirty minute tour, heard the fog horn, and even saw the amazing prism used to focus the light beam over twenty miles across the lake. we took a quick stroll down the side of the cliff to get a better view of the lighthouse, and see where the keepers had many of their stores delivered by boat.

we continued south along the shoreline and stopped again at gooseberry falls. we hiked out to the falls to get a glimpse of the river. unfortunately, due to the dry weather up here this summer, the falls were not at their peak of impressiveness. we were able to climb out on many of the rocks and get some nice pictures.

our final stop on our way back to the resort was dinner at betty's pies in two harbors. we both tried the broasted chicken and split a piece of the homemade cherry pie. we had a really great first day, and spent the rest of the evening relaxing back at the resort. i'll post more tonight about our third day tonight. sorry about the longer post, and that i haven't included any pictures - i'm having problems posting them to the blog site. feel free to add your comments! until next time...

terri & aaron