Duluth is a cool city...

But it's even BETTER when your best friend is in town!  Mary & I had the most awesome weekend together.  It was nonstop fun.  Did I mention it was an amazing weekend?  Seriously.

Here is a tour of the weekend:

Prior to Mary's arrival I made her this fabulous Pioneer Woman "Strawberry Shortcake Cake"... MN style of course.  I was going for a "MN Nice" theme birthday cake.

She LOVED it!  She loves strawberries more than anyone I know.  And she thinks Minnesotans are nice thanks to me.

For Mary's birthday present I got her Dutch Blitz... which we played many (many) games throughout the weekend.  I won most of them, except for the one we tied.

 Before bed we reviewed the POA (plan of action) for the weekend.  We used to make POA's in college to motivate us to clean.  Now they are a way of life.  By the end of the weekend we had pretty much everything crossed off.

Saturday morning we fueled up on banana blackberry pancakes (my specialty). Yum!

And then we went garage sale-ing.  This was one of the highlights of the weekend.  We found matching sunglasses... they may be hideous but we sported them all weekend.  We will do anything to match.

While garage sale-ing we came across the cutest lemonade stand.   All of their proceeds were going to the zoo & flood relief.  Such generous and cute kids!

Then we took the bikes to the trail and biked to park point.  After enjoying the Cajun Fin from Northern Water Smokehaus (According to Mary, this was the best sandwich of her life) we layed on the beach for the rest of the afternoon.  It. was. LOVELY.

Did I mention the beach was lovely?  It was.  Very much so.

After the beach we went to the "Great Lakes Candy Kitchen" to cool off with some nutty ice cream bars.  And other treats of course.  Everything in this store is amazing.  If you haven't been there, you should run/bike/skate/glide/tap dance there right now!! (P.S. here is a preview of the hideous sunglasses... don't tell Mary I actually kind of like them)

Then it was off to Snowflake to Camp!  We pretty much had the place to ourselves and apparently I was the camp host/tour guide for the two other campers there.  Mary was most excited about having a camp fire and eating s'mores.

I was most excited for Luther Crest style Gypsy Gumbo.  It was just like I remembered.  Who knew you could pair it with a fine red wine and it would be devine?  It is.

Mary was very very scared of the raccoons (and wild turkeys).  She might have mistaken the wild turkeys for a pack of wolves... but that's another story for another day. 

 Not only a campfire in the evening but also in the morning with our coffee!  Campsite #7 exceeded our expectations.

Saturday morning was up the shore to Emily's for a Bloody on the deck.  Yum!

Emily's pretty patio on the Knife River

And who comes to Duluth without going to Betty's Pie?  Nobody.  And if you do, you don't count.

 Mary captioned this "Great lake, Great friend, Good pie."  She thinks she is so funny.  I could die for a piece of "Great Lakes Crunch".

And who comes to Duluth without swimming to the rock??  Nobody.

We accomplished big things Saturday morning.... and lived to tell about it.  Saturday was our day of  premium adventure.

Hiking Tischer Creek. I like to call it Duluth's hidden gem.

After all that adventure we stopped in for a Mojito.  As an avid Mojito drinker, I've found this drink is usually a hit or miss.  Unfortunately this was a miss.  Good thing JJ Astor made up for it later that night with a total HIT Mojito.

And who comes to Duluth without a wine and fine cheese picnic by the lake?  Nobody. 

Bison buddy and blue cheese on a cracker.  "DAN" devine. 

Can't beat this picnic view.  It just doesn't get much better than this. 

We ended the weekend by listening to Hobo Nephews on repeat and climbing the sppppoooookkkky Enger Tower in the dark.  It really wasn't that spooky, but I like to think it is.

Okay, I know I missed some things... like the Timber Twister, hiking Hartley, Hawks Ridge, homemade risotto, JJ Astor, countless games of Dutch Blitz and many many laughs but you get the idea.  It couldn't of been a more fun filled weekend.  Click HERE to view Mary's blog and keep refreshing until she posts something about Duluth.

Come back to Duluth Mary - I already miss you!