Barbara, the volunteer ranger at the trailhead of Titcomb Basin in Wyoming, said how she was not a big city girl because she was from Duluth. Well, Duluth was not a small town either. The population of Duluth and the adjacent Superior added up to more than a hundred thousand. It's a major city by the Minnesota standard.
The first thing I noticed as I entered the city on I-35 was smokestacks and steel structures. It is an industrial town befitting the legend of Edmund Fitzgerald that sank while carrying the load of iron ore. In the town was a maritime museum dedicated to the shipwreck. I didn't spend much time in the city. I had a long way to go and it was already late morning when I was done with charging the car. I got my car charged up in Holiday Inn parking garage where Tesla superchargers were located, drove around the downtown and then headed North along the shore. Highway 61 was now visited.
Two Harbors, Grand Marais, and Grand Portage were on the menu. But first, I had to get my lunch. I stopped at Two Harbors, plugged in the car -- It's almost 300 miles for the roundtrip to Grand Portage and there is no Tesla charging stations on the way; I had to pick up as much juice as possible on the way -- walked around for a while and then had a sandwich in downtown Tow Harbors. From there on was numerous stops for sightseeing all the way to Grand Portage.
With esplanade and shops along the lakefront, Grand Marais resembled Sausalito. You look down on it from Gunflint Trail and the view would be like looking down Sausalito from I-280 above the hill. Yes, I did attempt driving Gunflint Trail to Boundary Water, but I had to turn around because it was too far, and it was getting late in the afternoon. I still had a long way to go to Grand Marais.
Grand Portage was closed when I got there past 7PM. I took a few pictures, which turned out to be similar to Eel Bay on Wellesley Island on St. Lawrence Waterway, and then turned around. I drove all the way back to Lutsen, plugged in the car at Arrow Electrics' J1772 charger and slept in the car.
I've never heard of Boundary Water Canoe Area; I only found out about it while searching and compiling a to-do list while I was already on my way through the North Shore. I'm sure it is a nice place if you are canoe packing. I obviously didn't plan for it. I still wanted to do a day of canoeing just so that I can say I canoed the land of ten thousand lakes. So I decided to go North to Ely, the gateway to BWCA. It was too windy for a day trip, the outfitter said. October is a better time anyway, maybe I could do a multi-day canoe-packing on the way back. I went for a hiking through Blackstone Secret Loop instead. The trailwhich , loops through two lakes in figure 8 for about 5 miles, was beaufiful enough. But it was nothing special for someone who has been hiking through forests and lakes all over the west. I pretty much ran through it and then I was on my way back to Duluth. I chareged on the car once again and then wen straight to Minneapolis, the cit that I meant to check out in previous trips but never did. I checked in to Quality Inn somewhere between Minneapolis and St. Paul in the evening.
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