God said to Abraham

Everyone should find their own personal recording of Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited and let it run in the background, I know that's what I am going to do.

God say, “You can do what you want Abe, but
The next time you see me comin’ you better run”
Well Abe says, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
God says, “Out on Highway 61.”

We were in sorta Duluth for the weekend for Gopher women's hockey and for a little road trip.  We actually didn't end up overnight either night in Duluth as the hotel room rentals actually in Duluth are greatly inflated in price at this time of year due to "peepers", people headed "up north" to get a view of the leaf colors.  There was also some sort of international girls' hockey event centered in Duluth.  The result of this conflation of events was that rooms in motels on the Canal Park waterfront were available for about $250 per night.  Meanwhile rooms at the Black Bear Casino Hotel located 18 or so miles south of the Duluth waterfront were going for $89 per.  And we like gambling . . . so . . .

We were in the Black Bear Casino Hotel.

These are all from our Saturday excursion, starting Saturday morning.  We headed out from the casino down into the nearest extremely small town, Carlton.  To get there we had to travel down Highway 61.

There is going to be a fair amount of railroad content, the first of which is that in traversing that section of old Highway 61 we passed the point just outside of Carlton at which Jay Cooke's fledgling railroad company began construction of a railroad line which would reach the Pacific (and make Cooke wealthy).

From there we headed on down to investigate as best we could what if any damage the big flood following last spring's record rains had wreaked on the gorge above Jay Cooke State Park.

We have visited this spot before.  This is the dam on the Saint Louis River.

We walked a bit farther across the bridge than we have most times previously.  Partly this was because it was a warm and wonderful day in Carlton and partly because we had never got a photo any time previously of this quite large and healthy tree apparently springing directly from a bed rock spur directly below the dam.

It was unbelievable out there Saturday morning.  It was 27F overnight but by the time we had breakfast and got out onto the town it was just light jacket weather, gorgeous, sunny, mild, spectacular.

Minnesota comes through in October again.

We headed up to Duluth to try to see what was up at Hawk Ridge.

Here is the board at the time when we arrived.

It was mostly a Sharpshinned Hawk day.  This year the skies were much more clear than when we were there last year under mostly overcast skies.  Further the wind conditions this time were such that the birds flew much closer to the ridge line viewing areas than they did a year ago.  Last year it was kind of a kick to be there and see the birds migrating but this year it was a bigger kick in that the birds were often close enough for people on the ridge line to get a pretty close up clear view.  Within about a minute of our arrival a "Sharpy" flew up to within about 10 or so meters of the gathered crowd and hovered there taking as good a look at us as we were taking of it.  Within a few minutes several more repeated the routine and in fact the "Sharpies" repeated the pattern so often that the staff birder who was alerting normals to the arrival of birds tired of "Sharpies", proclaiming that there were so many of them that it was becoming boring to comment upon them.  At one point he launched into a fairly lengthy description of a nearby common grackle and gave us all lots of tips on how to differentiate them from the very similar in appearance crow.  Tail feather shape.  And, of course, call.

But mostly for us being at Hawk Ridge is about being at a beautiful spot overlooking the city and harbor at a time of year when Duluth is presenting some of its absolute finest views.  Looking back towards the head of the lake.

You can only barely discern that there is a city there.

We are not birders.  We like the atmosphere but we had other items on our itinerary.  We were getting ready to leave when this thing showed up and came very close.

An American Bald Eagle, close enough to be photographed with a camera which was NOT equipped with a telephoto lens.  That's my standard wide angle lens and it looks like an eagle to me.

Wanna compare numbers?  Here's the board when we left the ridge.

During the hour or so that we were there 140 Sharpshinned Hawks, 20 Bald Eagles, 12 Red tailed Hawks and 7 Turkey Vultures passed by close enough to be officially recorded by the designated counters on the very top of the ridge.

We are not birders.  But we thought that was pretty cool.

It was getting late for lunch.

We ate at "At Sara's Table".  Or perhaps it was the "Chester Creek Cafe".

Or perhaps it was Taran's Market Place.

That's 19th Avenue East on the right of the photo leading down to the greatest of the great lakes.

If you ever, ever, ever have to have lunch in Duluth you would be well served by having lunch at "At Sara's Table, Chester Creek Cafe".

Watch the video.

By the time we left we had both eaten too much but this time we wanted to go to Two Harbors.  Here's where the railroad content kicks back in.  Two Harbors was the Lake Superior terminus of the Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railroad and there are some nice museum bits at the former depot on the Lake Superior waterfront.

Here is TOPWLH next to the larger of the two locomotives on display.

The newer kids liked their stuff bigger.

Here she is next to a much older locomotive.

For both photographs TOPWLH for scale.  Some difference, huh?

Here's a look at the charming old depot, now in use as the museum.

The tracks in front are still in use for some sort of tourist train which runs during the height of the tourist season from the depot museum in Duluth.

But for me the trip topper is that while we were taking those photos of ancient what used to be railroad stuff we could hear very distinctly industrial creakings and slammings from behind us.  We pivoted around and eventually moved down the harbor a bit to get a better angle for the photo.  What makes Two Harbors truly charming is that it isn't a potemkin railroad place.  It is still a working port.

The noises from behind us were from the loading operations going on for that iron ore freighter at one of the THREE still in operation ore docks on the Two Harbors harbor.  That's Two Harbors on the right.

It is called TWO Harbors because there are two harbors.  This one is Agate Bay.  We drove around the corner of land and looked at the other harbor.  There's nothing happening over there except condos and vacation rentals.

Agate Bay is better.