northern minnesota is gorgeous!

sunday (jul26) i decided to drive up the north shore. turns out minnesota past duluth and along lake superior is so beautiful! driving up I35 into duluth is gorgeous as you see the harbor from the higher up hwy. then (as suggested by the vetrinarian i shadowed on thursday) i drove through duluth and took the scenic hwy61 along the north shore.

here's a scenic pullout right north of duluth. i love rocky beaches!




someone before me had piled up some rocks.

the vet had suggested i drive up to grand marais, but that would have been a day of 8 hours of driving, which did not sound attractive. i made it up to split rock lighthouse, about 20 miles north of two harbors, mn. unfortunately for the cars behind me i drove pretty slow so i could take it all in. i guess that's their fault for choosing the scenic drive instead of the express route ;)



here is the lighthouse and the view from it.



another view from the lighthouse. you'd fall right into the big rocks, green water, and along the rusty orange cliff!



the rocky beaches below the lighthouse were pretty and had some fun rocky puddles!




after split rock lighthouse, i drove back down to two harbors, which is pretty unremarkable.



i walked out on this dock.



until i got to these bikes, i noticed the swarms and swarms of nats. OMG. after i got as far as that last picture, i ran back to shore. didn't even make it all the way to whatever that is at the end of the dock. the view was still nice despite the bugs.



after two harbors, i drove back toward duluth. i stopped at scenic cafe, just north of duluth and highly recommended by one of the vets, for dinner.



scenic cafe's building is unassuming (which is nice), but the food was kind of expensive and fancy without being spectacular. i had curried mussels.

finally i stopped back in duluth, this time with a camera. it had gotten darkish and cloudyish.



a view of the famous bridge in duluth. 3 kayaks are going to go under it; i guess they don't have to raise the bridge for the kayaks.



i left duluth just as it was starting to rain hard. the interstae out of duluth is kind hilly, that, plus the rain, and the setting of the sun, created a beautiful orange and shiny view as i was driving out of duluth. wow, north of duluth is WAY prettier than the stretch between moose lake and duluth.

a bit after i got back from duluth, albert, one of my classmates, arrived to start his internship in moose lake!

monday i didn't do much after the internship. it was really nice weather in the evening. i gave albert a tour of moose lake, we ate at art's cafe, and then took a two miles walk on the bike trail.

tuesday i decided to drive my bike up to carlton to bike the last 15 miles of the munger trail from carlton to duluth. from carlton, the trail starts out going through jay cooke state park. wow, the trail immediately is beautiful, incomparble to the whole stretch from finlayson to carlton that i had been biking. unfortunately this part of the trail also has a lot of patches of very torn up pavement, so it was a very bumpy ride. the most ominous part of the trip was that the whole way to duluth was basically downhill, which meant a glorious trip there, but a hard trip back! it was evening, and there were clouds, so i thought it would be wise to hussle. i finished the 30 mile trip in 2 hours and 12 mins, even with all the uphill, which is pretty good for me! i think the air in my tires was KEY! i got rained on a bit, which was even more motivation to keep up the pace. my legs were exhausted, but it was amazing! and the trail really was beautiful: patches of forest, ravines, mini canyons, rivers, lakes, etc.

wednesday (today!) i biked my favorite route (moose lake to mahtowa and back, 25 miles). i don't know why, i just like biking toward mahtowa so much more than biking toward willow river. 25 miles has become my standard longish-but-still-doable-after-work. today i tried to keep up a good pace. i ended up averaging 14 mph and finishing in 1 hour and 47 mins. i think this will have been my last bike ride during my stay here. (sad.) i've gotten kind of hooked on biking. i always start every trip regretting my decision to go, but by the end, it is exhilerating to know that i have biked 25 miles, or even 50 miles! tomorrow there is rain in the forecast and i leave on fri. i am sad to see my retreat come to a close.

truly, it has been a retreat. i have gotten used to life here: basically no responsibilities save showing up to follow someone around during the day, biking in the sun, or crafting during the dark and raining hours; eating well; sleeping well.

playing catchup

i kind of fell off the blogging wagon after last sunday. here's what i remember of what i've been doing since.

on monday, after a 12 hour shift with OB (saw a cesarean!) i made myself bike 12 miles since i knew rain was in forecast for the next couple of days. i was really not into it ;( partly b/c all day in OB i was thinking about a new project i wanted to work on...just in time for the rain to come! after biking i drove up to cloquet, where there is a walmart, and bought my materials!

tuesday and wednesday were pretty rainy, so i began my project. my friend kalie is getting married in august, and this coming saturday is her bachelorette party. the concept is wearing an ugly bridesmaid dress, but most of us don't have that, so it became an ugly prom dress concept, but then really it just became an ugly dress party. i didn't really know what to wear, so i decided to make something! tuesday night i made an electric blue pleated skirt completely from tulle! the next night i made a short hot pink skirt with satiny material layered over a lot of tulle! i couldn't decide which one i wanted to wear.

wednesday i had planned to bike with the pharmD student but it was super rainy. fortunately the weather cleared up by thursday, so we biked about 20 miles (to willow river and back)!

friday i did my favorite route, to mahtowa and back (25 miles)! thursday and friday i also continued to work on my "ugly dress". i started making a top, and also a matching clutch purse!!! i will post pictures when it is all done! basically i don't know how to make actual clothes, so it all just wraps around and ties. and i've discovered the fun of pleating and volume!

saturday, ellen, patricia, and kalie came up from the cities and visited!! i gave them the grand tour of moose lake, we did some great thrift store shopping (ellen bought an amazing ugly dress, and i bought some suspenders for a quarter!), we drove down to willow river to check out willow river days, had some sweet corn, saw part of the parade, ate at gampers (which i would really not recommend), and "hiked" in moose lake state park (also not that thrilling).



i've always wanted to wear suspenders but never sure if i could pull it off. there wasn't a mirror that i could find, so the girls took a picture of me so that i could decide if i wanted to make the 25cent investment.



part of the tour of moose lake was the moose lake city park, which i didn't make it out to much. there are two docks, a playground, and a bandstand; next door is the camping grounds.



in willow river we all had some sweet corn!



everyone looks like all smiles but the misquitos were deadly and we were miserable. patricia and ellen are poking out of a detour we made to avoid a bog. we are not good hikers ;(



our detour is on the right and the bog is on the left!

they all had to leave in the late afternoon, which made me kind of miss the city. i made myself bike about 12 miles, through the moose lake state park bike trail and a bit on the munger trail. i didn't really like that route. earlier that day, an anesthesiologist on call at the hospital, who was staying at mercy, had pumped up my bike tires. i had no idea what bike tires should feel like, but apparently mine were really flat. it made a world of difference!

i had a nice dinner of candy strip beets and beet greens! beets are so fun!

50 miles!

biked 50 miles today (to carlton, mn and back)!! carlton seemed like a ghost town, nothing but the gas station was open. even their public library is not open everyday! all the restaurants and stores were closed. i saw three hardcore bikers a few times on my way to carlton, and saw them again at the gas station at carlton. they were three physicians from abbott biking an 8 day tour of minnesota! they had started in hinckley and were planning to make it to duluth today. (70 miles in all!) the day before, they had started in the twin cities.

anyway, not much of note happened. i do like biking north toward duluth better than biking south. somehow it always feels easier. i have now biked the 44 mile stretch between finlayson and carlton. i'm tempted to drive up to carlton at some point so i can bike the last 15 miles to duluth to see what the trail is like.

agates

today i joined the almond popping pharmD student and his brother for the agate days festivities. this weekend is agate days in moose lake. apparently moose lake is the agate capital of the world. what is an agate? these rocks with lines and other markings.

we went to the moose lake high school gymnasium, where agate collectors from all over were displaying and selling their rocks. then we had "homestyle cooking" at art's cafe. since i have been freezing for about a week, i had a "hot turkey sandwich". it was two pieces of white bread with turkey breast in between, topped with mashed potatoes and gravy, plus cranberry sauce. it was both disgusting and delicious. major tryptophan food coma after. after lunch we walked over to get in place for the agate stampede. agates, quarters, and a lot of other rocks are spread out on a segment of a street, and when the cannon goes off, everyone rushes out and tries to collect agates and quarters. it was kind of crazy. i found an agate. most people found a little bucket full. but i got no quarters! ;( ;(

later i went back to the moose lake city park to check out art in the park and back to the high school on a mission to find a pair of moose earrings. i thought that would be the perfect souvenior for my time in moose lake. alas i did find a pair, i don't super love them, but they will do if i never find another pair. there's not much shopping here.

even later i biked about 10 miles (to sturgeon lake-ish and back).

then i ate beets+beet greens+chicken breast+this purple root thing. and this morning before i went to the agate days festivities i bought another 2 bunches of beets for next week! my poo poo is going to be red.

friday night in small town minnesota

nick gave me the grand tour of bruno (population 102) and askov (population 368). then we ate at peggy sue's cafe in willow river (population 309). after, we watched his brother's bar league softball game in denham (population 40!!). driving back into moose lake and mercy, i kind of felt like we were getting back into the "city".

dress!

i was shadowing an anesthetist today, and the female surgeon in the OR had on a scrub material dress! cool!

funeral home, then duluth.

i spent a day in cloquet shadowing a mortician/funeral director. it was kind of a quirky day. i'm always the only student shadowing at each site everyday, but for whatever reason, today nick (another student in my class also doing this internship) was scheduled with me at the funeral home. i think it worked out really well, since while usually when i am shadowing it is nice to have the one on one attention from the physician or nurse (etc), today it was nice to have a buddy. it wasn't the dead bodies that bothered me, but the strange/strong personality that makes a funeral director. i think i might have felt a little uncomfortable there on my own.

that said, the funeral director was incredibly nice. he even bought us lunch at mexico lindo. which, coincidentally, someone had mentioned to me on tuesday as the best mexican food ever. it was decent. i had a chimichanga.

we were let out of there early since not much was going on, and since we were now only 20 miles from duluth, we went on a spontaneous adventure to duluth! we saw the waters of lake superior, saw the bridge go up and a giant boat go through, climbed big rocks, skipped little rocks, visited the visitor center, and browsed some shops. IT WAS SO COLD. but it seemed a shame not to go, so we braved it. canal park in duluth seems like it was be really nice and fun if it was warm out.

hearts

didn't get back until 7:30p, so just biked about 8mi (to sturgeon lake and back).

anyway, when i got back and took my shirt off, i noticed that the sunburn i had gotten a few days back had started peeling from the center of my back out. it formed a perfect heart shape! i wish i could take a picture, but it was just impossible to twist my arm all the way back there.

roots + greens

i don't know why, lately i think it's funny to cook roots with their own greens. tonight i had onions cooked with their very own green tops and chicken, plus some beet orange pasta from yesterday!

beets: my new favorite food!

got lazy today. after a day in outpatient oncology, i found myself in ER for a few hours. by the time i got back to walter's house at about 6:30p, i was hungry and tired. no biking, just made dinner. boiled round yellow beets and long red beets, beet greens, and an apple cinnamon brat.



then did i make mac 'n cheese?!



no way! with the left over yellow and red beet juice, i dyed some pasta orange! saved for the next few days. i tasted some; the flavor is SO GOOD!



back to blogging about my food. some things never change.

O_O

i realized last night as i was going to sleep that: i don't think moose lake has a chinese restaurant! (or any non western european restaurant for that matter now that i think about it.) i don't know why, i feel that is kind of refreshing!

super pleasant sunday!

yesterday dr. reed (who i had shadowed in the ER on tuesday) called to invite me to her home for sunday! so this morning i set off on a series of gravel roads to her property. i got there at 9a, in time to watch her (and even try my own hand at!) milking her goats! she's got a nice little barn with milking goats, kids, egg laying chickens, barn cats, and a pretty little horse! she brought a large pail of goat's milk in, and i got to watch her make cheese! it's amazing that with the milk of the two goats she milks day and night, dr. reed makes cheese, yogurt, cream, buttermilk, and ice cream.

the property that she has made her home is pretty amazing. she has miles of trails for hiking, lots of maple trees that she taps for sap and actually makes her own maple syrup, a patch (at least) of wild blueberries near the house, lots of trees some of which became the lumber that is her house and her other buildings, solar panels and a wind turbine that is sufficient for 96% of her power needs, compost piles that date back 3 years, and an amazing vegetable garden. she has a greenhouse to get her plants going, then a large outside garden, then another part of her garden that is covered by a hoop house and can stay warmer, then yet another part of her garden that she plants vegetables that can grow more toward winter (at which point she can pull the hoop house over to cover the winter garden). she plants snow peas, shelled peas, green beans, celery, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, different lettuces, different peppers, newt potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, carrots, horseradish, fennel, beets, every kind of tomato, many kinds of chilies, garlic, different shaped eggplants, asparagus, melons, watermelons, pumpkins, squash, strawberries, raspberries, many kinds of other berries, a couple of different apple trees (just from what i remember), and more! then near the house, she has a giant herb garden, with many herbs i have heard of and many more i have not. she has a few different cold rooms in her basement of different coldnesses where she can store a lot of her fruits and vegetables and cheese to eat over the winter. her maple syrup operation is also quite impressive! the trees are tapped, with tubbing that runs all around and into a reservoir, which then has tubing that runs the sap to the syrup house where they have to boil the sap down 25:1 to make syrup. on her property, she has vegetables, dairy products, eggs, and maple syrup (which she uses in the place of sugar for everything) to sustain her and her husband, and a lot extra of many things to give away to friends. i think sustainability is a huge goal of her and her husband!

it was such a pleasant sunday; dr. reed showed me all around her place and we chatted while she made cheese, watered her flower gardens, and made killer blueberry wild rice pancakes! it's amazing that she began to build her home and life on this property at the start of medical school, and even had goats to milk before school started. she really knew what she wanted both in her career and in her life, and went all out for it!

i watched her make those pancakes, but forgot to take mental note of the recipe. i want to document what i remember so that maybe i can recreate it sometime. 1C whole wheat flour + 1C whole wheat pastry flour + 1Tbs baking soda + baking powder (?) + pinch of salt. 1/2 a stick of melted butter + 3 egg yolks + 1/4C maple syrup. combine dry stuff + liquid stuff + goat buttermilk + vanilla (?) + goat milk until correct consistency. then fold in cooked wild rice + blueberries. lastly fold in the egg whites, which were first beaten until stiff. butter the hot griddle and make pancakes! i don't know if i have forgotten ingredients or messed up the order, but doesn't it sound delicious?! we had these amazing pancakes with butter and her maple syrup, plus easy over eggs from her hens, and coffee with goat milk cream. she also sent me home with a bottle of her syrup!

i got back to walker's house a little after 4p, was still feeling lazy after yesterday's biking, but decided the two pancakes and two eggs (one brown, one green!) i had earlier merited some sort of physical activity. i biked a leisurely 12.5 miles round trip just past sturgeon lake (going south) and back. i wanted to make it to this gorgeous farm/ranch i saw last time on my way to willow river. apparently it is owned privately by a family. the building on the left is the house, and the equally gorgeous building on the right is the barn!



the munger trail basically runs right next to hwy61. here's a nice little stretch of the hwy with tall, straight pine trees lining the side!



there you have it in terms of pictures of the munger trail. two posts back were pictures of the trail going north of moose lake, and this post is going south. the rest in between is more or less the same. at least the part that i have ridden, which is about a 30 mile stretch from finlayson to mahtowa.

surprise!

i guess when you bike straight with the sun coming from one side...you do not get bilateral sunburns. last night i discovered a patch of sunburn only on the left side of my left calf.

i am doomed to have strange tans

didn't go biking thursday because i got back late from camp heartland. friday i was touring the hospital's lab for 2 hours in the morning, and then at the retail pharmacy in the clinic across the parking lot following a pharmD student (who had a stash of almonds in his white coat pocket and would pop 1 or 2 almonds every 20 mintues or so) around. we got let out at 1:30p (instead of 5p)! so i decided to go for another bike ride! i was really tired, but somehow i still made it relatively easily to mahtowa (25 miles!) and back. the sun was super shiny on the way there, and when i got back i realized i finally got a sunburn. but instead of evening out my farmer's tan, i basically only burned my back because i sit so forward on my bike! + all sorts of straps: bag, camera, bra, tank top...it's a riot back there!

i finally took my camera along, which made me realize even more that, although the trail is wonderfully paved, there is really not a whole lot to see along the way.



after getting back from biking friday evening, i realized my tires were pretty flat. i went to alco and bought a super light tire pump and, on impulse, bought a little "bike computer"!

saturday morning i went on a search for a farmer's market! there is one grocery store in moose lake, and it is kind of crappy and not cheap. some people had mentioned that there might be a farmer's market on saturday in the parking lot of the hockey arena...and there it was! there were only 2 stands...apparently it is still early in farmer's market season. i purchased round yellow beets and long red beets, romaine, onions, some big round purple root thing, green beans, and a cantelope.

then set off (toward the south) for my bike adventure to finlayson! the whole trail has been really flat so far, but near finlayson there is a group of hills. i had to get off my bike twice, once on the way there and once on the way back ;( but it was fun to climb the hills and even more fun to go down them! i totaled 38.6 miles today! i was so tired the last 5 miles. and with my new bike computer, i've realized...i'm a really slowwww biker...i averaged 10.6mi/hr ;(

finally back, i was exhausted. i drove back to mahtowa to purchase some brats. apparently tj's corner store has the best brats. when i biked there, i couldn't really buy brats and bike back with them. for dinner, i had boiled yellow beets, steamed beet greens, and a chicken wild rice brat. it was DELICIOUS! i had never made beets before, i never thought i liked them, but the yellow beets were SO GOOD and sweet. i thought about taking a picture of my dinner, but then i was too tired and hungry, so alas, no picture.

maybe next time i'll actually blog about why i am here, the internship.

tired.

biked to barnum and back. i think about 12 miles. my butt is starting to hurt...

schedule of last 3 days:
monday. met with CFO of the hospital; occupational therapy
tuesday. ER
wednesday. quality improvement meeting; hospital pharmacy; chiropractor
take home message: paperwork, paperwork, paperwork

blah!

biked 18 miles tonight!

9 miles to willow river from moose lake.

crafts and cruising

i have no roommates in this 4 bedroom walters house, and i am officially lonely! last night i realized i had to shorten my dress pants (even though they are already "short"). i had the dinner table all to myself, and i was feeling especially crafty! i spread out my bath towel on the table, got out my iron, some safety pins, and my sewing kit. my hemming looks not too shabby if i do say so myself! first time i've ever hemmed too! i have another pair to do, but i'll probably do it tomorrow night. tonight i am pooped, because i just got back from a...

25 mile bike ride! i biked on the willard munger state trail, from mercy hospital in moose lake to mahtowa (a tiny town, literally 4 square blocks big) and turned back. on the way, i almost biked over a very slithery snake! and there is all sorts of mini-roadkill on the trail. from mahtowa it is another 26 miles to duluth. alternatively, the trail goes as far south as hinckley, 38 miles from moose lake.

i am in moose lake!

after a brief hiatus...back by popular demand! ha!

i am in moose lake, mn!

after an uneventful but glorious drive up i35...an awesome hwy: smooth, divided, sunny, blue skies, white puffy clouds, 80 degrees outside! there was a slight traffic jam on i35 heading south, all the people coming back from their 4th of july weekends, but i guess not many people heading up north at the end of a long weekend!

walters house, where i am staying, is modest, but new: 4 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1 living room/dining area, 1 fully equipped kitchen, central air. right now i'm on "moose lake wifi 214". is moose lake all on wireless? wow what a savy place. it's definitely a step up from phi rho. also, walters house essentially shares its parking lot with mercy hospital, where i will be doing most of my internshiping, so extremely convenient. unfortunately i have no roommates at the moment, and am not sure when i will get any, so it's quite lonesome here. so far i have settled in, made a giant pot of celery+carrots+chicken+pasta. and a sandwich for lunch tomorrow. some things never change.

tomorrow i will start to explore moose lake. i am most excited about: <http://www.munger-trail.com/traillogs.html>. too bad i can't ride a segment of it each day.

anyway, for those who are still interested in getting honors for summer session! yesterday i realized that moose lake is only 1hr45mins from phi rho...so all the noncampers+kalie should come up and camp one weekend!!! unfortunately i am not allowed to have any guests at walters house, but i bet there is good camping around here! or you guys should come up and bike with me for the day!

thus is the start of my 1 month summer internship in medicine (sim) in rural minnesota! i realized on the drive up that my summer is going to be all about going back to my "roots". even though i have lived in mn since i was 2 (save the 4 years of undergraduate), rochester is hardly representative of mn. for the first half of my summer i am going to experience up north mn for the first time! and then later, i'll take it back even further and go to taiwan for 3 weeks!

and so it begins.