Sunday July 26, 2020 - Church, Enger Park - Park Point Beach - Aerial Lift Bridge

Hooray!!!!!  The ward here in Duluth Minnesota met and they invited us to join them!!!!  We got to go to church.  It felt SO good.  Yes, we have been doing our family church every Sunday, but I have to say, it was so amazing to meet with the saints for church again.  There is great power in gathering together as Saints.  After attending church with the Duluth Saints, we got to jump on a zoom call with our home ward family.  I felt a sense of love and connection when I saw the faces of all those that I have grown to love.  Ward families are the best!!!

Our campground is on a marina.  At the very end of the marina, you cross into Wisconsin territory.  I had to walk over and say that I was in Wisconsin while everyone else was in Minnesota.  For some reason it made me laugh really hard.                                                                                      

Haha I'm in Wisconsin now!!!!!

And You are in Minnesota!!!! They paid no attention to me.

After our silliness, we drove to an iconic place here in Duluth.  It's called Enger Park. There is an old watch tower there that you can climb all the way to the top.  At the top you get a 360 degree view of Duluth and a great view of Lake Superior.  There is also a  little park with trails that you can wonder in.  Part of the trails are dedicated to old Japanese statues of peace.  There is a replica of the oldest Peace Bell.  The kids had to bang on it:))     It was hot and humid but we still learned a lot and enjoyed the magical view of Duluth.                                                                                                                 

From the Enger Tower we could see a long, skinny peninsula off of Minnesota.  We were curious about it so we decided to drive over to it.  On the way over we crossed the Aerial Lift Bridge. This bridge is way cool.  Later in the day we will be able to see it lift for boats to go under.                                                                                     

Here is a screen shot that I took of the skinny peninsula that we wanted to drive on.  We ended up where the blue dot is. We found this great beach called Park Point Beach.  At first we told the kids that we were just going to check it out and not swim because today was Sunday.  Before we knew it all 4 kids were in the water.  Scotty and I looked at each other and laughed. Oh well.  We let them build sand castles and walk around in the water for a while.  Asher and Graham did flips and tricks.  People walked by and commented that Ash and Graham were like the instagram people doing flips.                                                                                                                                                                                           Just to give you an idea how huge Lake Superior is, under my writing is the first picture I took of the lake.  It seriously looks like the ocean to me.  It goes on and on.  Then I looked on google maps where we were.  On the next picture we are on that small blue dot. Look how much more lake there is to see. I was so blown away at how ginormous the lake is.  Scotty did some research and found that Lake Superior is the larges fresh water lake in the world.  I totally believe it.  The water was warm.  The sand bar went way out so people were super far out just walking around.  Taj made friends with the family next to us. Nolan and Austin were the cute boys he played with.  Their parents Jessica and Nathan talked to us for a  while. They drove up from Minneapolis to be at this beach. I understand why.  It was so calming and soothing.                               

The Aerial Lift Bridge lifts up every hour and half hour for boats to pass through.  We had to see it.  We were so intrigued by this and wanted to see a huge cargo boat pass by.   I looked up the boat schedule and it said that a boat from Canada was going to pass through at 7 PM.  We were there at 7 PM to see the boat but the boat wasn't there:(  That's OK, we saw a ton of other boats pass under the bridge.  We walked up to all the light houses and walked across the bridge two times.  This experience was unforgettable.                                                                                       

                                                                            We came back and did our Come Follow Me for the day and crashed hard:))))  I loved seeing Scotty on the couch. hahahha  We were all so tired.  But what a great day!!!