Fall has officially arrived in Minnesota and the weather is still amazing. We just got back from a weekend road trip to Kansas City, but that didn’t stop us from taking another road trip, this time to the Canadian boarder! Why? First, because the fall colors are awesome on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Second, because we needed to finish our Global Entry interview at a US Customs station in preparation for our New Zealand trip. Unfortunately we missed the fall colors by about a week. The cover photo above looks out over Lake Superior near Grand Portage. If you look closely, you can see Isle Royale in the distant horizon. Below is the high falls in Grand Portage State Park on the border of Canada!
Being such short notice for this trip, we had limited lodging options in the area. Luckily we found two tent campsites available at the Grand Marais Municipal Campground, so we grabbed one! We are actually somewhat familiar with this campground. Five years ago Kyle and I spent a week camping here for our anniversary. We stayed at a tucked away campsite called “Honeymoon Hill”. It was the perfect spot for sharing our anniversary cake tier and savoring champagne by the campfire. That week was filled with hiking, sailing, fishing, and canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. It was so fun – until the bear. Let me preface by saying, we are tent campers and typically pretty happy campers. Anyway, on our second to last night, Kyle woke me up in the middle of the night whispering that he thought someone was walking around our site. We listened intently and quickly determined that it was a bear! The bear wandered around and after finding no food (thankfully we put it all way), she stomped over and sniffed the tent right above our heads! We were terrified and spent the remainder of the night sleeping in the car. The only thing we’d left out was a water jug which now carries a souvenir bite mark.
Thus, I had some worries about camping back at the exact same campground. Thankfully, we had no bear encounters this trip! We successfully completed our Global Entry interviews and then we spent the rest of the time hiking in search of waterfalls and trying to catch a glimpse of the elusive northern lights (which we failed at). The leaves were just on the edge of gorgeous fall colors, perhaps one or two weeks later would be a bit better.
When we go back to the North Shore again we’ll be sure to hit up some new hiking trails and try out Voyagers Brewing Company.
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