Day 17 - Fargo & Superior

Meet John Bunyan, located at Akeley, Minnesota. He also presses wild flowers!!!!! (need to be a Monty Python fan to understand that one)

Minnesota is called the 10,000 lakes state. Leech Lake at Walker is one such oversized dam. The size of this lake requires a lighthouse

Surprisingly, we crossed the Mississippi River at a place called Jacobson in Minnesota - just a peaceful flow of water this far north

The town where Bob Dillon was born - Duluth in Minnesota. It is located at the far west of Lake Superior, a ship building city with a huge railroad junction.

A cold and windy Lake Superior at Duluth, Minnesota. This is about the furthest west ships can go on the Great Lakes waterway system.

Duluth is famous for its Aerial Lift Bridge. All fresh water flow under this and the bridge lifts to a great height.

Another view of the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge

For those inspiring engineers - the arrow shows the monstrous "bike" chain that lifts the bridge. I hate to see this break in operation

Once a railroad box car now a diner. Duluth, Minnesota

There are several bridges over the waterway between Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. This is one of them on the windward side. The border is located in the centre of the bridge.

It was a bloody wet day. It didn't ease between Fargo and Duluth - a distance of 400 klms. In addition the temperature was freezing. Notwithstanding this we witnessed a local (a young fellow) jogging under extreme windy conditions at about 5 deg C temperature and in rain - he was only wearing running shoes and shorts!! He probably thought today was a heat wave........bbrrrrrrrrr! The journey today passed many lakes and birch forests. We had lunch at a place called Hill City at a local cafe and with warm tucker we made the trip to Duluth by 2 pm. Duluth is a decent size city that focuses on shipping and all things associated with Lake Superior. The lake is the world's largest and easily seen from space. When we arrived the rain did stop and gave us some respite for us to look over the main attractions - the Aerial Lift Bridge and lakeside park. We crossed over to Superior in Wisconsin and checked-in. Holiday Inn Hotel chains is the way to go in the US - clean, breakfast supplied, free WiFi and good reception staff. We recommend to anybody who visits the US to consider the Holiday Inn chain. Tomorrow we will continue to drive east to a place called Marquette. Located on the southern foreshore of Lake Superior and in Michigan state (pronounced Mish-shin-gin). We have made contact with one of the local ballroom organisers and she has invited us to her place for a social dance. Her house is a couple of miles from where we will be staying and "Marge" has invited all her social club members. This will be interesting - we think that she has a decent size dance floor in her home. Well she is a PhD Associate Dean at the Northern Michigan University. Hopefully the weather will turn better and give us some great views of Lake Superior and the temperature increases - Anne is rugged up in several cocoon type garments - so much for summer in the US. We heard on the news that Phoenix, Arizona is sweltering at 42 deg C at this moment. Cheers.