Relaxing in the North Woods

We had a wonderful time on our vacation in Minnesota. We went up to the Gunflint trail which is a dead end scenic road 40 miles south of the Canadian border. You are literally in the middle of nowhere. As soon as you leave the town of Grand Marais to head up the trail, you lose cell phone service. There are no tvs, computers, phones, or even dishwashers up there! You completely lose touch with the outside world but it doesn't matter. We had a great time hiking, fishing, biking, and relaxing. Kylie was old enough this year to enjoy herself and we were able to find a place that allowed us to bring Shea. He had a blast with all the attention he was getting. He loved hiking on the trails and swimming in the lake. He would jump off our dock right into the water! We went over into Canada one day and found out that there really isn't too much to do over there. But, we found a beautiful waterfall and went to an amethyst mine where we were able to 'mine' our own amethyst (from a pile of there left-overs.. but Kylie didn't care). It amazed me how much amethyst there was just lying on the floor (behind a gate, which we weren't allowed to touch). So pretty! We even attempted canoeing with Kylie one day... We found out that toddlers and canoes don't mix. We didn't go over but came very close a couple of times. Luckily we made it safely and dryly back to land. It was a wonderful vacation! (ignore the dates on the pictures, my good camera broke right before we left so we used an old one, it took new batteries everyday and I got tired of updating the date stamp...)