Duluth trip

Duluth

Just a mere 2.5 hours to the north. It is a cool port city on Lake Superior. It is our 13th anniversary today. These facts come together. Here's how...Erik planned a weekend get-away to Duluth in order to celebrate our anniversary. He checked my work schedule-clear. He asked my parents to watch the kids-agreed. He found a great place to stay-reserved. It was a wonderful trip. It was great to be away from kids and life for a few days.

This is a picture from our window.

Because it seems funny to end my anniversary post about a murder mystery, I am going to talk about Glensheen Mansion first.

We got to go see the Glensheen Mansion. I loved hearing about the Congdon family. Chester Congdon was the richest man in Minnesota in the early 1900s. The home is amazing. It cost the family the equivalent of $30 million dollars to construct the home (not including land and furnishings..which are both amazing too). There are so many interesting things about this home and this family. The pictures around the home and the house itself seemed to portray a loving family. Our tour guide was great. But, there is also intrigue around this mansion.
As some of you may know, this is the home where Elizabeth Congdon (the Congdon's youngest daughter) was murdered in 1977 by her adopted daughter's husband (most probably planned by the daughter for her inheritance although this was never proven). This was barely mentioned out of "respect for the family," but our tour guide did point out where it happened. Fascinating.

Now on a happier note:

Our hotel was linked into the skyway system, so it was easy for us to get to the shore. We had a great time exploring the shores. We found tons of cute shops, watched a movie and ate yummy food.

We walked across the lift bridge and found a cool sandy beach.

According to Wikipedia...it is the world's largest freshwater sandbar.
We took matching pictures on the shores of Lake Superior. Surprisingly, there were very few people hanging out on the sandy beach. So, there was no one to take our picture together. This is what we would look like on a deserted island.
As we were getting ready to walk back across the bridge, this boat came home. It is called the Blue Heron. It was on a 5 day research trip. It was fun to watch them raise the bridge for it come home.
Happy 13th Anniversary Erik!