Duluth getaway

One of the most challenging aspects of our basement renovation has nothing to do with the work itself, but rather planning around Oliver's schedule. Chris has managed to frame much of the basement and finish the new bathroom in his free time away from work and in those limited hours when Oliver isn't sleeping or begging to play. But when one of the contractors announced that he'd need to do a lot of jackhammering on his first day on the job, Chris, who has the week off of work, suggested we leave town and take Oliver to Duluth.

Duluth is a special place to Chris and the attachment he formed to the city during his college days is similar to the nostalgia I feel for the two places I had lived in during a similar period in my life, Brunswick, Maine and Freiburg, Germany. I'd love to go back to either place with Oliver and Chris someday, but since Duluth is just a 2 1/2-hour drive up the interstate, it was a more logical choice for a trip down memory lane.

Since Oliver loves sand, water and things that move, that's how we determined the agenda for our visit. We got into town just in time to take the afternoon ride on a scenic railroad out of Duluth's old train station. After an early dinner, we drove to across the iconic Lift Bridge to a beach along Park Point, a neighborhood of Duluth that sits on a sandy spit jutting a few miles out onto Lake Superior. The day had been unusually warm for Duluth and the lake the warmest Chris has felt it, so the two of them played in the sand and on the edge of the shoreline. We had enough foresight to bring sand toys, but miraculously, no swim gear, and by the time we left, Oliver's clothes were wet and his diaper mostly water-logged.

The next morning we walked in Canal Park, where it had been cold, windy and mobbed with runners and fans back in June for Grandma's Marathon and the skies threatened rain. Instead, we had another day of unusually warm weather and sun. We happened to be in the park when the Lift Bridge was raised to allow a freighter ship go through. Oliver did love watching the ship sail by, and he and the crew waved to each other, but he cried when the ship blew its horn announcing its arrival.

The latter half our morning was spent at another beach at the far tip of Canal Point. After years in Minnesota, I'd nearly forgotten the sight of miles of sandy beaches and actually didn't think such a setting existed here. So while most of the North Shore reminds me of Maine with its rocky shores stretching out into a vast body of water, the lake side of Park Point has wide sandy beaches stretching its entire length. Like the night before, Oliver loved standing in ankle-deep water, dumping sand and water in and out of his bucket and throwing small rocks into the water. I honestly think he would have stayed there until he literally dropped from hunger, but Chris and I eventually announced it was time to leave and go have lunch. We found a shady spot in the park on the other side of the dunes and we couldn't have planned a better picnic spot. A crew was using a Bobcat to grade the sand volleyball courts near our lunch spot and small planes from the airport on the other side of the road from the park were taking off and landing practically over our heads.

In the end, we only spent 24 hours in Duluth, and we surely had some difficult moments with Oliver's messed up nap schedule (we realized we cannot rely on Oliver to sleep in the car) and my lack of energy, (read my last blog entry) but the trip ended up being exactly the kind of quality time I had been hoping to enjoy in these final crazy weeks as a family of three.