North Shore Drive & Duluth
We spent our time up by Duluth, MN & along the North Shore Drive mostly. We went in June of 2021. Our kids were 9, 7 & 2 at the time.
North Shore Drive
Iona’s Beach
Iona's Beach was pretty. It was almost all these flat, mango-sized pink rocks (rhyolite) and a few blue ones (basalt) mixed in. I'd never seen anything like it. They made a cool noise when we walked on them. It was pretty, but there wasn’t much to do other than see it so we didn't stay long.
Black Beach
We had no clue why it was named that. Then on the way out our son found a patch of black sand. Lol. So at least we found some.
Tettegouche State Park
Tettegouche State Park is just a few minutes north of Silver Bay. It was very pretty! If we had more time we could have done more hikes there. We got to see Two Step Falls, Swinging Bridge-that crossed the river, and High Falls (tallest falls completely in Minnesota). The water falls were amazing and we got to get really close to them! There were tons of stairs on that hike, but our kids did just fine.
Split Rock Lighthouse
We got to go in and climb to the top of the lighthouse. We got to go into the fog signal building, the fuel building and the keeper’s house. The view from the cliffs was gorgeous. The water was crystal clear when we were there, and we could see all the rocks in the water.
Gooseberry Falls State Park
We did the short hike to Lower, Middle & Upper Gooseberry Falls. We thought the middle falls were the best of the three. We could get up close to the middle & lower falls. It was very pretty. It was also very crowded. There were other trails we could have done.
Duluth, MN
We drove across the big aerial lift bridge and back. We wanted to see it open for the huge ships, but it didn't open while we were in the area that morning. But we did get to see a smaller one open twice for sailboats.
S.S. William A. Irvin ship
We got to take a tour of the S.S. William A. Irvin ship. It was cool. It was 615 feet long, a retired iron ore ship that worked on Lake Superior and was still functional. We got to tour multiple levels of the ship and go up on the very top. Our kids even got to spin the ship's wheel! The workers stationed around to answer questions (self guided tour with arrows pointing the way) were almost all retired ship crew so they had interesting stories to share.