The Nysaverse

To my wonderful fiancée! The past year with you has been absolutely amazing, and I realized quite some time ago that I’d found the one I want to be with forever! I love you so much, Honey!

This past weekend, Jenny and I went to the north shore of Lake Superior (specifically Bluefin Bay in Tofte). We’d discussed engagement a while back, and I’d even borrowed Jenny’s two silver rings for sizing of an engagement ring. However, she hadn’t known when I’d be able to pick up the actual ring - which I did last Wednesday, in preparation for our little holiday vacation. Of course, I just had to take a few pictures of the ring:

and: When we arrived at Bluefin Bay, just before sunset, the moment just seemed right: Jenny was amazed at the room, and the view of Lake Superior from the room, and the gorgeous sunset… At that point I couldn’t imagine waiting until later in the weekend (as I’d originally thought to)… So right then and there I asked her to marry me! Then the ring came out of its hiding place (my camera bag - the perfect hiding place for the drive north), and onto Jenny’s left hand. The weekend was wonderful!Saturday we went snowshoeing in the Tofte area (Britton Peak?), than wandered around Bluefin Bay taking evening pictures of the bay. The morning clouds moved on before we wandered out, and afterwards the sky was perfectly blue. In the evening we drove to Lutsen Mountains for dinner at Papa Charlie’s. It was after dark, and we couldn’t see anything out the window by the table - we were wondering what the view could be… well, when we stopped by Sunday, we realized the restaurant was about halfway up one of the ski hills, and we looked down on the valley where the ski trails led!

Sunday the weather was perfect. Blue skies all day. We spent some time getting pictures around Tofte, then drove to Grand Marais, about 40 minutes north. Grand Marais has a really cute downtown area - most of which is closed during winter. We ended up at the marina harbor, and thought about wandering out to the lighthouse, but the breakwater was all iced over, and navigating it would have been rather treacherous. In the end, we settled for pictures of the drifting ice that had settled around the Coast Guard station’s launch area - what looks at first glance to be a solid but rough patch of ice, but turns out to be many many chunks of various sized pieces of ice, all mashed together against the shore.

We did some shopping, got a late lunch, and started driving back to Bluefin Bay just before sunset, stopping to get some pictures of the gorgeous sunset along the drive. I intend to post more of my pictures, but I’ve got to sort through them a bit more.

Monday we woke up, both not wanting to leave. We loafed about the room as much as we dared - briefly flirting with the notion of becoming squatters in the resort - before we resigned ourselves to going home, and started packing for the return trip. Along the way, we stopped at two of the amazing state parks along the north shore: Split Rock Lighthouse, and Gooseberry Falls. In winter both parks are beautiful, with the added benefit of there being almost no visitor traffic.

At Split Rock, the visitor center attendant said that Jenny and I (at 2pm) had been the third and fourth visitors of the day (I believe they close at 4pm in winter). We had a private screening of their movie on the building of Split Rock Lighthouse, and were able to tour the lighthouse without anybody around. Gooseberry Falls had a few more people (maybe 10?), but was otherwise about as private.

Hard to believe we’re back in the cities, and back at work… At least the holidays are coming up.

I’ve been cleaning up categories on the site… I realized posts defaulted to “General,” and that many of my categories were rather nonsensical, and used for things I didn’t mean.

I’ve now added a “Personal” category for personal posts, “Travel” for travel posts… You get the idea…

“Current Events” no longer exists - most of those got moved to “Personal” or “Travel”.

Anyways…

Spent a wonderful evening setting up the Christmas tree at my house. Jenny’s assistance means (among other things) a much more even distribution of ornaments.

I’m working on perfecting my ornament photos - the idea being to use ornament photos as the basis for some Christmas cards, possibly in future years (if I can’t get anything for this year).

Unfortunately the tree being fake becomes more obvious in photos:

Hmm… I guess I’ll keep trying.