On the Road with Maya: Superiorly Celebrating Sixty

Upper Gooseberry Falls in Minnesota

This past week, July 15 to be exact, I turned 60. Mostly a birthday is just another day and like one of my favorite song writers, Townes Van Zandt said about days, “Forget most, remember some, but don’t turn none away.” Sixty seems like a birthday that should not be forgotten or turned away and since I’m not home to celebrate with friends and family, David and Maya have been doing their best to make this a memorable week.

On my birthday, we drove about 40 miles north from Duluth, Minnesota to Gooseberry Falls State Park on the shores of Lake Superior. The afternoon was spent hiking around the gorgeous waterfalls in the park. Then David took me to Betty’s Pies, a popular local restaurant with good food, but especially well-known for their excellent pies. So it was a birthday pie and not cake, but that was just fine by me. I tried the Great Lakes Pie, a multi-berry delight of blueberry, strawberry, blackberry and rhubarb. David had the caramel apple with vanilla ice cream. They were both delicious. As the birthday girl, I got to have some of both.

David's might have been a little better than mine.
Maybe it was the ice cream!

Then it was back to the park campground for a stroll by Lake Superior. I put on my fleece jacket as the breeze off the lake felt chilly. But I loved that it was mid-summer and I was a little cool on my birthday rather than sweltering in the Texas heat. Actually, my last four birthdays have been spent ‘on the road’ and they have all been in cooler climates than Texas. From the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon to the Adirondacks in New York and then last year back to Oregon at Cape Perpetua, I’ve had several birthdays to remember recently. And this year, I’m celebrating with Lake Superior.

Daisies lined the trails, I've never seen so many daisies blooming

Middle and Lower Gooseberry Falls

From Gooseberry Falls we traveled another 60 miles or so north to the marina campground in Grand Marais. We’ve been here for 4 days enjoying this cute little lakeside town and the surrounding Superior National Forest and Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. I’ll be writing more of our adventures and posting lots of photos in the days to come. I’ve been just a little lazy about ‘blogging’ during my birthday week.