Grand Marais, Minnesota

Grand Marais, located on Minnesota's North Shore, 40 miles from the Canadian border, is a lovely and quaint little beach town with Lake Superior coastline to the East and the boundary waters and woods to the West. A small Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket/Cape Cod kind of place, with lots of artisians and Scandinavians.

We arrived about an hour early to our cabin site, which was also home to a lodge which specialized in quilt-making. They had quilt-making parties, similar to the new scrap-booking craze, and the end results were amazing and beautiful quilts, and quilt-art. While we waited for our cabin to be available, we ventured down to the local bike shop and met the owner's and found out about the local roads/trails to ride.

Our cabin had a full kitchen with an oven, fridge, microwave, coffee, plus a shower/bathroom and even HBO(!), etc and was located just off the shoreline of the lake, with a walking path right outside our cabin...and even a honeymoon-trail! I was feeling kinda too tired for a ride and so Mike suited up and headed out into the woods for some mountain bike exploration while I un-packed and hiked to the shore with Sydney to check out the lighthouse. Mike was still not back when I returned and so I shopped for dinner and then went and rode a short 25 mile loop on the road that the shop-guy mentioned. My first "climb" in months out in the woods. Nice!

When Mike got home we BBq'd dinner out in the picnic area of our lodge, then hiked once again out to the Lake to watch the sunset while we walked along the rocky shores...