Last weekend for Memorial weekend, David and I and 2 friends all went camping for 3 days. It was sooo much fun. David had always wanted to see the Soudan Mine so he picked a state park that was close to that....it was McCarthy Beach State Park. It was a very cool place. The campsite is right between 2 lakes....Sturgeon Lake and Side Lake. It was up in the Iron Range of the state.
This is the view that we had from our campsite. The acutal site for the tent and campfire ring was about 10 stairs above the parking for the site so it overlooked the road and the lake. There was tons to do there. You could rent kayaks or canoes for the day and take them out fishing. There were even people out tubing behind boats...crazy people....the water was still VERY cold!! Oh yeah....both lakes are pure sand....no rocks or nothing. Sturgeon Lake had a big beach for swimming. I guess you can walk out quite a ways with the water only to your hips.
Sure the park was fun, but we also hit up a couple of different attractions in the area beside the Soudan Mine. We went to Iron World in Chisholm, MN. It was a cool museum. There was a lot of hands on activities to do. Plus you learn a lot about all the mining that went on in the state and still continues to go on today. All I have to say is those men were crazy back in the days. There is no way I would go a half mile underground working only using a candle that only lasted about and hour and a half!! Better them than me right?? Anyways, Iron World was very educational...why did we do educational things when we were supposed to be getting away from school?!
This was the figure that greated you at Iron World. He was HUGE!! It said that he is the 3rd tallest statue there is in the U.S.A. I thought Paul Bunyan was big...
Another place that we stopped at was Bear World. When we went to Soudan to check out the underground mine, I threw out the fact that if we were only 15 miles away from Ely, MN we needed to go there. So on our way from Tower to Ely we came across Bear World. Recently been put in since I don't remember seeing it before. It is very similar to the International Wolf Center. They had bears to view and more educational stuff about them as well.
We couldn't have timed it any better. As soon as we got there, this big fella came and greeted us. He was big! I think the guy said he was over 700 pounds. The rest of them were sleeping out in the nice shaded woods.
I'm sure you're thinking we went and saw a lot of things....well that's not all. We came back home through Grand Rapids, MN...it was a little out of the way but we all wanted to go there anyway. We went to some Outdoor store and then we went to the birth place of Judy Garland (Dorothy from Wizard of OZ). That was cool too.
This was the original carriage that was used in the movie when she is about to meet the OZ. Turns out this carriage was originally built for Abraham Lincoln. In fact, it was his for a while and then some how...can't remember....it ended up being used in the movie. Now it is one dispaly at the museum. They even had some of the orginal props and costumes used. They even had her birthplace... the actual home she grew up in for tour. It was pretty cool. But then I found out how she died...kind of disappointing....drug overdose. Why is it that every celebrity dies of a drug overdose?! Just curious. So that finished our long 3 day weekend.
So then we jump a head to this weekend. Thursday I had drove over to my sister's to help her with some stuff. My car had been making some noises. Turns out it was the drive shaft going bad. All I could think about was "what next?" when it came to this car. So Thursday on the way home I was getting paranoid that my car was going to toss in the red flag and call it quits. I started doing some research and now I am the proud owner of my very first Brand spanking new car!!
It is a Kia Spectra SX!! It is sooo nice. I saw this one at the dealer and it had my eye from the first sight! It is a nice little sporty car! It has been a battle over who gets to drive it though....even though I'm paying for it! Oh well....at least we now have a nice car that we can take trips in!! If I don't blog for a while, it's because we are out cruizin' in my new car! : )
