Gooseberry fun!

Road trips are always such a blast, and yesturday was no exception! (well, except that our good friend David had to bail because of homework :( ) I was a little nervous because the weather in the morning was not looking good, and I hadn't gotten much sleep. But, that definitely didn't stop me, or the rest of us for that matter.

It was Angela, Brooke and myself, who set out on this adventure of picnicing, hiking, gazing, talking, hiking, laughing, and hiking! :) The North Shore is so beautiful, I always want to call Lake Superior an ocean, but the brisk breezes are a good reminder of lake-worthiness. I guess that doesn't always mean it's not an ocean, it's just that most of the ocean beaches I've been to are sandy, warm and lush with palm trees.

When we first arrived we found a spot on the rocks by the "Middle Falls" and ate our lunches. The sun was out and I found myself wishing I had been as optimistic as my fellow hikers who both wore shorts/capris. It was alright though, I started a new fashion trend and took the bottom of my jeans all the way up to my calf. Once we were done eating, we asked a couple who had asked one of us to take a picture, to take one of us. We then started our trek up the middle falls and around to the Upper Falls which along the way we jumped from rock to rock to cross the river. We all managed to get to the other side without getting wet which was good, since none of us had our suits on at the time (though they were packed)!

We hiked up and over the Upper falls and started on the Snow Shoe Trail which we then realized was also "Gitchee Gummee Trail." (an old indian name for the lake) We figured this would take us to Agate Beach, because on the map it goes follows out to the beach. Well, little to our knowledge it does get close to the beach, but the trail is a few hundred feet up(give or take a hundred). Needless to say, we couldn't exactly just cut off the path and get to the beach on the trail we took. It was a beautiful trail of photo ops, we took a little break at one such point and decided to go back around to the other side of the river take a trail to the beach.
We worked up a lot of sweat on our journey, but it was well worth it, and we also had cool breezes with the wind off the lake. It's funny though, how you can be so hot and then so cold in a matter of an hour or so. When we go to the beach, the clouds were covering the sun and the wind was just ripping through my Tshirt. Angela got the award for being most prepared, having a sweater to put on while at the beach, and pretty much anything else you could want.

The whole time at the Falls was probably about 3hours or so, seems like sort of a short time, but we were all pretty exhausted by the time we were walking back to the car. On our walk back to the car a nice lady named (i think) Malory and her husband stopped to ask if we could give her a ride to their car. They had parked south of Gooseberry on 61 around Castle Danger area. They started out around noon and hiked the Superior something or other trail :). It took them abour 4hours to get to Gooseberry and realized it might be a bit dark on the way back. And might take a bit longer going back, since they had already walked/hiked up and down rocks and what not already the way there. So, we of course were gracious and brought Malory back to their car so she could go back and pick up her husband.
While talking with her she asked us all what we did for schooling, etc and after awhile she asked us how we all knew each other. Since we all do such different things, it was hard to put us all together in how we met. We laughed and then explained to her our connections, it made me think of how interesting it is to see how friendships are all so differently made.

After we dropped her off, we flew down a dirt road back to 61 and headed to Blackwoods for dinner. A place highly recommended by Brooke and actually some other friends I know, so that was fun to finally experience. I've mostly heard about the men's bathrooms that are "so cool" because they put ice in the bottom of the urinals and there are small windows above the urinals that you can look out and spy on the people at the bar. (the people in the bar can't see you tho) The women's bathroom is pretty lame compared to that, but they do have a bowl of mints in there.
Our meal was very delicious, speaking of meals, I'm getting hungry for lunch and have a left over chicken sandwich to finish. Mmm... We then left and started our trek home, once back to my place Ang had this crazy idea of going to Lifetime since she hadn't been running in 4days. She was determined, so she went to burn calories while Brooke and I decided to consume them with delicious Edy's *Light* Slow Churned Mocha Almond Swirl Ice Cream... MMMmmm... it has 1/2 the fat and 1/3 less calories.
A fantastic way to end a great roadtrip and hiking adventure!
Who's up for the next one??