Our Hockey Hall of Fame/Cove Point Lodge recap

This past Saturday, July 22, my Chris was inducted into the UWS Hockey Hall of Fame. I was VERY proud of my CJ, as was his parents and my parents. We could not keep our smiles off our faces the entire night, especially when CJ went up first to accept the first honor of the evening and gave what was most likely the shortest speech ever in Hockey Hall of Fame history. LOL. That's my man, a man of few words. Afterwards, we all, including his parents, brother, sister-in-law, and college friends, all went to their ol' college stompin' grounds and hung out. I, of course, drank 7UP and ice water all night, and even though I thought I'd be exhausted (past my bedtime) I had a ball, even stone sober! LOL.

The next AM, CJ and I got up, said our goodbyes to Treble and Sage *future big fur siblings*, and drove 55 miles north of Duluth up the coast of Lake Superior, the infamous "north shore". It is truly a beautiful place on this earth and if you ever get the chance to go up north here, I encourage it. It is rejuvenating to your soul, to reconnect with nature. We had a one night reservation *(get away from life)* at the Cove Point Lodge, which I've posted about and shared some pics from. I wanted to share a little history about the Cove -- the actual "water/earth cove" that the Lodge sits on. You can see the cove in our pictures, here of the storm brewing. That rocky ledge sticking out, framing the cove, that is where the pictures from the previous blog entry are from. Its called "Proposal Point" on the Lodge's map, and it is truly amazing to be on those rocks, those huge, gigantic boulders created millions of years ago by glaciers.

Some facts about Lake Superior and the cove (from the brochure). Lake Superior was called the "Kitchi-Gummi" by the Ojibway, natives to the land. It means "big lake". For centuries, the Sioux and Chippewa lived in the Lake Superior region. Lore has it that the Native Americans were attracted to Cove Point for spiritual reasons. The point rises gently out of Lake Superior and faces due East, toward the sunrise. Representatives of the many tribes would gather at the point by the tree line about 50 feet up from the water, and build a campfire. They would gather at Cove Point Lodge to discuss trading, territorial issues, and smoke the ceremonial pipe to celebrate native customs. By the mid-1600's, voyageurs arrived on the scene and got along with the Indians. They started to trade for fur. They would paddle up the lake for 15 hours at a time, heading to a trading post in Grand Portage (north of our resort). When the waves were too dangerous, it was easy to slip into Cove Point and land the canoes on the pebble beach. They too would light a campfire and wait in the cove until the weather improved.


I guess what makes me think this whole trip was not only peaceful and an awesome getaway, time to reconnect with Chris, but that fact that it was such an important location for so many people in our history made it very, very cool and special to me. Walking where they walked. Things like that are interesting to me.

Basically, CJ and I enjoyed a lunch, checked in, and spent time hiking around both the shoreline, and on a trial above the lodge. He didn't want me to push it with possible twins inside me *LOL*, so I didn't go too far. It was a very muggy day, so I made sure and had plenty of water. As we were hiking along one trial, at one point, I said to CJ, "honey, look, we're treasure hunters" *just like our favorite Monday night show*. Giggle. That's how I am, sort of dorky like that. We then took a break and cooled off inside, just as the rain started to come slowly down. We sat inside the grand 'sitting area', and played cribbage, checkers (its' been years!), and Scrabble. *on a side note, I went yesterday and bought a new Scrabble board, because that game inspired me to play it more more more*. I was impressed with myself for coming up with the word "saloon", while CJ blew me away with "quiver". LOL

We then enjoyed a fantastic fish dinner in the dining area, I had walleye (yum, my fave fish), and CJ had salmon. We spent the rest of the night relaxing, I curled up and read some more of Wicked, while CJ did the usual channelsurfing. A nasty thunder and lightening storm came through, which was gorgeous to watch. I posted the "sign" of the ray of light, and included another picture of the clouds and their funky colors. I love nature when it is like that. The only thing CJ and I worried about was our poor Tboy who was at home with Nana and Papa. He is terrified of thunder, but my parents assured us they were not getting that storm back in Duluth, and Trebs was curled up next to my mom on the couch. *Whew* I fell asleep with my Zen and Sound Healing on the MP3 player, and awoke to a gorgeous, hot day. I hated leaving. We hope to go back in the fall or winter, hopefully with some other couple(s).

We also had a few "hopeful signs" as we were leaving that day. 1) the couple behind us talked about their "twins". Then 2) back in Duluth, after we picked up the furkids, played with our goddaughter, Aubrie, and had lunch, the fawn/baby deer twins were in the back yard. We tried to creep up to take a picture, but one twin saw us and bolted soon after. Was is a sign? Discuss amongst yourselves. LOL

We then drove back to the cities, and I conked out for most of the ride, resulting in a horrific neck cramp that had me rubbing my own neck for about 1/2 hour after I woke up. *sigh* Ahh, road trips.