My Little Vacation

            Last fall Anna, Elly, Mom, Mrs. Connie and I went on a little vacation. We piled into Mrs. Connie’s truck and went to North Branch, Minnesota and the North Shore of Lake Superior. Overall, the trip was awesome! The hotel was clean and comfortable. My favorite part was probably going to Gooseberry Falls.

            We stopped in Orr, Minnesota. Usually we just stop at the gas station, but this time something caught our eye. So we went in to investigate. It was an awesome shop. They were selling all kinds of souvenirs. There were puzzles. There were these stools and pots and pans and all kinds of stuff you could use for camping. It was kind of like a general store. I got a peppermint cane. I thought I got a lemon one, but it wasn’t lemon. It was butterscotch, so the shop lady was nice enough to trade it for a peppermint one.

            Soon we were on our way again. We stopped in Virginia for lunch at Grandma’s. I couldn’t eat another bite after I ate that hamburger! It was a cheeseburger and I had fries too, but I couldn’t eat the rest of my fries. I was full. I can’t believe Elly ate all of her fries. Mrs. Connie taught us to put salt and vinegar on our fries. It is a Canadian thing. They were so yummy.

            While we were in Virginia, we stopped at Target. I saw this humongous hole carved in the wall, so I hopped in and pretended I was in a hamster ball. Then we went inside and shopped. We saw a monkey Bigfoot toy and we stopped to watch it for a while. Soon we were on our way again.

            When we arrived in North Branch, we went shopping. I was really hungry and I wanted to go to the snack spot for chocolate. We never did get any chocolate. I was so grumpy of shopping in and out of those stores. All I wanted to do was go back to the hotel and fall down on the bed and die of exhaustion. The only store I really wanted to go to was Claire’s. Anna paid one dollar and I paid two dollars to purchase a little keychain set. It was a giraffe and a zebra. The giraffe had a tag that says “Best” and the zebra says “Friends.”

            We went to Perkins for supper and I ate chicken strips and fries. The food was fine, but we were tired. All we wanted to do was go back to the AmericInn and swim in the pool. The pool was kind of small, but we didn’t swim that much anyway. We sat in the hot tub because the pool was so cold.

            I slept on a cot. I loved the cot. A cot is a mattress that they set on the floor with wheels on the bottom. The next morning, we had waffles (the usual) and a doughnut or two, with cereal and toast.

            Then we went to Goose Berry Falls. The roads were so winding that I fell asleep on the way. It was a long drive. There was construction on the way there. We drove through Duluth, but we didn’t stop to go shopping. We went through a tunnel because that’s the way the road went. It seemed so long, it took forever. We had to drive through gravel and stuff. That’s why I like trucks. They don’t get stuck.

 

            First, we first went to the low falls where we waded through the little rapids of water. We made our own houses. I kept switching my house around because I couldn’t find a dry place. We also collected rocks and moved them to make a dam. The water had to go around them. We took a hike down the boardwalk to see where it went, but Mrs. Connie’s foot was hurting too badly to go on the long trail. We saw a flicker and an oriole and a couple of chickadees. There was a baby sparrow. I thought he was beautiful.

            When we got tired of wading, we went to the high falls. On the way I found a cave. The cave was really bumpy and it had a lot of humongous rocks in it. I went inside to take a look, and I tripped over a rock and hurt my ankle. Thankfully, I was ok! We never did make it to the high falls. 

 

            That afternoon, we went to Split Rock Light House. I got a flat penny. A lot of their souvenirs were cool too!  To see the light, we had to climb up a whole flight of stairs that went around and around. The lighthouse was pretty awesome, except I expected more than something just spinning around reflecting the light. I thought it would be lit up, but apparently it wasn’t. The foghorn was absolutely loud. It was too loud, and I didn’t like it at all. It was in a lower building a little to the left of the lighthouse.

            We got to see where the lighthouse keeper would have lived if they still worked there. The house was like any ordinary house, except it had a built in ladder that went all the way up to the attic. We couldn’t go up there. They also had a much bigger kitchen and a separate room for their food. It was old-fashioned.

            It was great going on the trails and seeing the lighthouse from other places. We even went on a trail past the keeper’s house down to the beach. We climbed down, down, down to see the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The stairs were right along the old tram line. That’s how they used to haul up tools and rocks and stuff to make the lighthouse before there were roads to the area. That’s also how the keepers got their food.  

            It was so cool down there because the water was so deep that the only thing you could see was the humongous rocks sticking out from the water. When we got to the bottom, we got to wade on the big rocks. We climbed on them, but I recommend not going out with shoes. I almost fell down with shoes on, but when I took them off it was much easier. Miss Connie took us way out on the rocks so we could see a boat pass by.

            We also went down a little trail to the left of the lighthouse. We could see down to the bottom of the cliff. There was a fence around the edge. When I was looking around, I spotted this little cave down there. It went into the cliff at the bottom. I wanted to go down there and go in it, but I couldn’t. The fence was in the way and there was no passage anyway. I was disappointed. So we went back up to the top of the hill where the lighthouse is. We spent so long at the lighthouse that we skipped lunch. We were hungry!

            When it was supper time we went to a restaurant where I had the most delicious food. It was called Betty’s Pies, and I got a chicken strips with fries and vinegar and a piece of blue berry pie. I liked that restaurant because they had all kinds of pie; blueberry, key lime, peach, strawberry, cherry, banana cream, and raspberry cream. They also had coconut cream. In the souvenir shop I got a pack of mints. They were tiny circles in a tin with a moose on the front.

            On the way home, I looked at all the stuff I had. I thought, “That is a lot of stuff,” as I ate a little bit of Chex mix. Then Anna and I played a game of River Crossing. She won.  We listened to some of Anna’s ipod and watched movies. By the time we were done it was past supper time. We didn’t actually have supper, but we ate Chex mix and granola bars and stuff like that. We listened to more of Anna’s ipod and played a game of I Spy and 20 Questions and some more River Crossing until we were home, home sweet home.

            Overall, it was tiring to drive so much. It was worth going, though. We got to spend time with our friends and have fun. I want to go to Gooseberry Falls again some day.

The End