Eclectic travelers

First we have to start with location - you know the old saying - location, location, location - well forget it.  This grill is surrounded by a wood stove store, a motel and a gas station and lots of black top.  Across the street is a Salvation Army Center and another gas station.  In other words, this is not your high class restaurant row.  BUT!!! Yes that big a BUT!!!! it is a fabulous place to eat. And it is popular!  Yes the setting is weak, but they have done everything they can to add green.  Their farm manager (from France) has created standing gardents that are in boxes all around the restaurant and remind you of the fact that the produce is local and fresh.  This is a place that has really found a way to lead in the local food movement and their menu is complex and creative.  They have been featured in the nationally syndicated "Dive-Ins, Diners, and Dives".  That is an honor, not a put down. And Tom, the owner,...

Our three grandsons stood transfixed with looks bordering on horror as the man used his sharp knife to skin a fox hanging from a metal post.   He was just one of many costumed re-enactors at the North West Fur Post in Pine City , MN this past weekend.   They were there to relive a time before the European settlers arrived in full force. The Annual Festival of the Voyageur is a gathering of people who enjoy dressing up and living in the rustic manner of the late 17 th Century.   In the field outside of the old (looking) Fort with its palisades is a realistic looking encampment of canvas wall tents, lean-to’s and teepees.   Adults and kids are dressed in period clothing and there is very much a feeling of time travel as you walk past the smoldering campfires with heavy cast iron pots hanging above them.   Many of the re-enactors are craftsmen and women, who make silver jewelry, clothing, wooden canoe paddles and other items from the past.  ...

WINGIN’ IT By Kate Crowley For the first time I was able to bring three of my grandchildren up to Hawk Ridge in Duluth .   It was something I’ve been waiting to do for years and now that they live in Duluth , it is an easy car ride up the hill from their house to the long, rocky ridge that parallels the lakeshore below.   I know that people living in northern Minnesota , especially in the Duluth area are familiar with this fantastic natural resource, but there are still many in the state that have never visited, nor witnessed this amazing yearly phenomenon. For people who do watch birds and pay attention to the autumnal migrations, there are only a few places in the U.S. that compress and funnel the birds as they move from the far north to the far south.   There is a Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania that is similar to our Hawk Ridge.   It is on the Appalachian flyway.   Whitefish Point Bird Observatory in Michigan is another place where ...