Duluth Travelogue No. 1

The nation's birthday was a great success. I gave her a big cake with 244 candles and a 245th to grow on. God willing, the United States will exist next year. Wow. The US is almost a quarter of a millennium old. That's getting up there in years. As commodore, and being generally awesome, I must say that auspicious events such as that deserve nothing less than an even bigger cake than is normally given to nations.

Currently, I am up in Duluth with Andrew and Lea (Joe could not come, unfortunately). We are staying in Andrew's house, where he, Dave and Ben will live during the school year. I've only been to Duluth like three times in my life, and never for anything more than a driveby. Actually getting out and seeing the city has been really really cool. Minnesota is, on the whole, completely flat. The slight changes in elevation from street to street that constitute hills in the Twin Cities would be laughed at here. Duluth is situated on the slopes of the hills that run down into Lake Superior, and that makes it long, narrow and extremely hilly. It looks like San Francisco. It's like the San Francisco of the North. Yesterday, when we arrived, we watched the fireworks, which we probably should have been closer to have appreciated fully, and then made dinner of sausages and black beans and rice. It was tasty. We watched some Sealab 2021 (I only have the first season, for those of you who are keeping track of my birthday wishes) and then went straight to sleep. I woke up around 7AM because I couldn't sleep any more, and took a shower and read Gorillas in the Mist for a bit. Once Andrew and Lea were awake, we made omelets, which were delicious.

Andrew goes to UMD, and this is will be the first year in which he has lived off campus and also had a car. So, in trying to get to all the different places that Andrew knows around the area, we've been driving around based upon the directions Andrew has in his head from running and biking everywhere. This knowledge doesn't translate perfectly, as is exemplified when we came down a street today that connects only by stairway to the street above. Andrew's Saturn was not quite up to the challenge. Still, Andrew getting lost everywhere is a good way for him to remember directions in the future. Lea will see to that.

Today, we went hiking up to a rock outcropping called Hartley's Point, and then hiking around some waterfalls. After this, we went down to Lake Superior and walked around the shoreline. Gravel and stone beaches are not so easy on the feet, but are a novel diversion for me, who has only ever seen white and yellow sand on everything. I have found several interesting rocks, include part of an agate known as a Thunder Egg. This is because of the white quartz in the center and the darker outside layers. It is quite small however, but interesting all the same. After hiking, we went to Canal Park to have lunch. I cannot recall the last time I went to a restaurant and ate everything on my plate. Usually there is something left that I couldn't quite fit in my stomach, but magically, this time, I consumed every morsel. Maybe its because Andrew was there and, because he averages ten miles running per day, can and must eat like a ox.

For the countless phalanxes of readers that I have who might not know who Andrew and Lea are, they are Andrew Vasilakes and Lea Jacobsen, who I have known since about sophmore year of high school, if not earlier. Lea and I used to be profound enemies until she started hanging out with my gamenight friends more and more often, and became more like me. I have this effect on people; join me or I'll cut off your hand with a lightsaber. Lea chose the easier of the options. She is another one of my friends who wants to be a doctor, but I forgive her for this. She is smart, and has an inventive sense of humor, much like my own. Andrew, on the other hand, is perhaps the only person I will admit to being more out there than myself. Case and point, he once decided to stop brushing his teeth, but rather drink pop before going to bed, because the carbonic acid would scour his enamel of bacteria. It wasn't until later that he realized the sugar deposition following this simply caused more bacterial growth. Also, in his biology class senior year, he decided to tell everyone to call him Lloyd, except he would forget he told them this. The teacher would often call "Lloyd, what is the answer?" No response. "Lloyd?" No response. "Lloyd!". Andrew would then turn and realize he was being addressed. His family recently changed the pronunciation of their last name from Vaa-sih-lakes to Vah-see-lah-kis (the traditional Greek pronunciation). His father decided this, and his mother found out by calling her husband at work, getting his voicemail and hearing the changed name without her forewarning. She was none too pleased. Much like on Simpsons when Homer changes Marge's name to Hooty McBoob, or Chesty LaRue. Lea and Andrew are also dating, but not in a way that makes me feel like a third wheel to be here, which is extremely nice.

After hiking and lunch, we hung about at Canal Park until one of the big taconite ships came through the lift bridge. It was impressively large, although I believe I've seen larger (Good God, it's the Kitty Hawk!) And after that, we went... somewhere. Where? Damn, I forget. Well, I was bloody tired, so I was asleep for it anyways. We got back to the house, took naps, and woke for dinner. We went to an awfully overpriced malt shop (Portland Malts, don't go) and then peoplewatched. When Andrew and Lea and I people watch (Yes, we've done this before) we invent stories of people's lives, which makes watching them all the more amusing. My favorite was the pre-school teacher who was an Olympian, but killed one of her students for being annoying and was thus disqualified. Or the man pretending to be Irish and dating the amnesiac Irishwoman. After that, it was starting to get dark, so we walked around trying to find a place to eat. We managed to get up the hill a bit to an imposing structure with a clock tower I swore would be City Hall or something like that. What was this grand building? A public high school! The youth of Duluth honestly go to school in buildings grander than anything at my college, much less the carpbin where I went to high school. We ate at Pizza Luce (same as in Saint Paul, even the staff look alike) and then went up to Hawk Ridge to light off fireworks.

We were originally going to go to the beach on the Wisconsin side, but after nearly half an hour of fruitless driving, we returned to Minnesota. Wisconsin has nothing going for it, except that... no, nothing. The world should shrink it out of existence so the Twin Cities will be six hours closer to Chicago. The fireworks were neat, mostly bottle rocks and a really cool one called the Busy Bee, but both Andrew and I burnt our fingers. We returned home, watched more Sealab and went to bed, which is where I am now headed. This is an exceedingly long post. I've been meaning to keep them short, but I'm just not good at that. I'm much too detail oriented, and my memory is just a bit too specific. I suppose I need a concussion...