We knew we had chores to take care of. There comes a time in every cross country traveler's itinerary where things like laundry, shopping, and general upkeep trump sight seeing and hanging out, and this morning was shaping up as one of those times. We started the day tag teaming in the port style showering trailer. A metal box with a mens, a womens, and a coed shower/bathroom facility, we took turns showering in the confining space trying not to get our Clothes and shoes wet in the closet like room. After getting our bodies clean it was time to sort through our dirty clothing, towels and linens and set off to find a laundromat.

We find ourselves doing laundry as often as we can so it doesn't build up, but every three or four laundries turns out to be a major load with sheets and blankets, wet towels and sweatshirts, and this was one of those days. We got everything stowed away in stuff sacks and pillow cases, and then unhooked the RV and headed into downtown Duluth where Jerani had located a laundromat on the Kindle. It was early Monday morning just after the commute so the roads were pretty clear. We meandered our way through the downtown district and spied a number of businesses we wanted to check out later in the day, including a couple of antique shops. We drove through an area dominated by wonderful turn of the century homes and apartments, and finally pulled up outside a large and mostly empty laundromat. (A word to the wise; when doing laundry, especially in the summer and in tourist destinations, go early. The type of people that frequent laundromats don't tend to be early risers. Woe be it the person who shows up to clean their clothes at three in the afternoon. We drug our clothes out and as we made our way into the laundry we greeted by the stereotypical patrons who frequent these business. A sullen looking elderly man who I guessed was Turkish, smoking unfiltered cigarettes and eying us as we pushed past him and into the building. A huge twenty something African-American man, probably no more than six foot tall but every ounce of three hundred pounds sprawled across two of the plastic chairs reading a three year old magazine. A young mother worked equally hard loading three washing machines as she did corralling her three precocious toddlers, frazzled as only a young mother can seem. And last but not least, two people hefting stuff sacks and pillow cases bulging with  dirty clothes which they've just lugged over from a filthy RV parked out at the curb. That would be us. I think it's also important to point out here that this was probably the nicest Laundromat in Duluth, and had received the best reviews of any in the area on Trip Adviser. This is the reality of washing your clothes on the road, and you can see why Jerani for the most part has left this chore to me.
Right off bat we noticed that the machines didn't take quarters, something we had in spades, but took tokens they sold in a separate machine. Obviously the trick was to not over purchase tokens, because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be taken as legal tender outside said laundry. I did my best calculation and dropped what seemed to me as a million quarters into the token machine, and was rewarded with hokey coinage that would look right at home in some third world country; something like the "Republic of Laundravia". Well things didn't get off to a very auspicious start when the washing machine that Jerani loaded failed to accept the tokens. Well let me rephrase that, the machine greedily accepted the tokens, it just refused to deliver on it's end of the bargain. Tokens in, absolutely no water out. That translated into a three dollar and twenty five cent loss. We looked around and of course there is no human presence at these do-it-yourself laundromats, just a stack of fill in sheets urging the complaining party to mail said complaint to such and such address and we will reimburse you for your loss. Yeah, right.We then had to dig all the clothes out of the offending washer to transfer to a (cross your fingers) machine that hopefully was in working order. After finally getting the laundry going we walked back out to the RV, past the sullen Turkish chain smoker, and settled into preparing a nice breakfast of fried egg sandwiches. Mmmmm...so good! After breakfast I went back in and switched the clothes into the dryers without incident, and borrowed a fishing magazine to peruse while waiting for the clothing to dry. I then folded the clothes while listening to children shriek, large African American men speak to Taxi services on his cell phone, and a strange Turkish man who may or may not have been doing laundry sort through the six year old Family Circle magazines scattered across the little Formica tables. Ah it just doesn't get any better than this! Jerani took Max on a little walk down the block, and we finally rendezvoused back at the RV. We had planned on doing a little exploration on the outskirts of town and Jerani had seen on the computer that there was a nice park and garden just north of Duluth just above Lake Superior, and there was also some sort of a free Arts and Crafts Festival going on the grounds of a Historical Lake Superior Estate.
We headed out of town and about ten minutes later pulled up at curb next to Leif Erickson Park. We got Erley into his walking jacket and leashed both him and Max and headed out into the beautiful Rose Garden. The roses were all in bloom and we had a nice time picking out our favorites and breathing in their perfume. Erley loved hiding in between the clumps of foliage, and Max scanned the park for other animals.
Leif Erickson Park is quite nice, with a large brick pathway high above the shoreline of Lake Superior and gorgeous views of downtown Duluth. Lots of people strolled in the morning sunshine, and several children played in the large white gazebo that sits in the middle of a dark green expanse of lawn. An older couple came over to pet Erley and comment on his walking jacket, and a little later a couple of young girls and their mothers bent down to pet the animals. We visited another part of the gardens which were planted in all sorts of flowers and found an isolated bench to rest up on.
Erley lounged in the shadows between plants and watched the world go by, as Max pestered us to get up off our butts and continue to explore. It's hard to take children anywhere. After about ten minutes a couple of people found our secret garden and it was time to go.
He had the 38 room Jacobian style mansion built in 1905 and completed in 1908. The Estate is situated in a neighborhood of classic turn of the century fine homes, and has sweeping panoramas of Lake Superior. As we neared our destination traffic started slowing down and backing up and soon we were in a stop and go pattern with police up ahead waving most people on and away from what seemed to be the already burgeoning parking lots at the entrance to the estate.
There were large signs informing motorist that "in case of filled parking lots to please drive to the alternate parking facility at the local community college and then wait for the shuttles that will ferry you back to the festival". Well unfortunately this wasn't going to work for us. It was too hot out to leave Erley in a non-air conditioned RV without the ability to check on him. As the police waved more and more vehicles on we had decided to pass on the event even though we really wanted to go. It just wasn't going to be worth it to drive the RV another three miles to another lot and then wait both ways for shuttles. We were all ready to drive on past the entrance when low and behold the police officer with the orange coned flashlight waved us in. Huh? That was sort of unexpected, they wave all the Hyundai's and Honda's away and along comes a  22ft. RV and they lower the chain and wave us in. OK! We'll take. The volunteer parking attendants sent us through a completely packed parking area towards one empty space in the back. Perfect!
We opened all the screened windows and turned on the "Fantastic Fan" to get a nice flow of air going to cool our little kitty cat, and headed out towards the Arts and Crafts Festival and the Congdon Estate. Now don't get us wrong, we didn't come all the way out here to buy crystal jewelry and hand polished burl clocks. We collect "Arts and Crafts", but it's "Arts and Crafts Antiques" from the early nineteen hundreds; "Mission Style" pottery, metal ware, furniture, and paintings."
So we really didn't come here for the contemporary watercolors of Minnesota wildlife or hand carved walking sticks with leather wrapped handles bejeweled with multicolored beads and feathers. No, we came to the Festival to hang out, walk the Estates grounds, and hopefully eat some unhealthy fair style food. It's not that we won't look at what the artisans have created, it's just not our style. Yup, Snobs be us. We are WAY too sophisticated for an event such as this!
None the less we walked through the Estate gates and were immediately assaulted by the sounds of a very over the top and embarrassingly pedestrian Jazz band with a rather large woman in a cocktail dress belting out less than in tune big band renditions. You know those times when you're embarrassed by association? Well that's how it felt just being near to the group, so we shuffled through the crowd trying to put some distance between us and the offending singer.
It was a beautiful summer day, not too cold and not too hot, and the grounds were beautiful, with both flower and vegetable gardens, water features, carriage and Caretaker's cottages.
The mansion itself was gorgeous with multi-paned lead glass windows, multiple tall twisting brick chimneys, and beautiful oak trim all in the Beaux-style .
It is surrounded by classic English style gardens, and brick pathways leading to fountains spilling out into luscious aquamarine pools.
We thought that maybe we could tour the mansion as part of the free entrance fee, but the tour turned out to cost eighteen dollars (each), which just wasn't gonna happen. In fact the tour leaders in not so many words kind of made it seem like we shouldn't even look around the private grounds that surrounded the mansion. We of course completely disregarded these veiled suggestions, smiling and continuing to peer in every mansion window, and lounge on every mansion veranda we could find. I'm sorry, we had paid absolutely nothing to enter this event and we were determined to get our money's worth!
After strolling the grounds, we made a large loop through the Festivals tent style booths and looked at all of the "Arts and Crafts" the local artisans had produced. There were glass blowers and blacksmiths, and the usual crush of tee shirts, jewelry, and handmade photographic cards.
We didn't see anything we just couldn't live without, but we did stop and buy a corn-dog each at a very busy food kiosk. Munching on our lunch on a stick and trying not to get the inevitable neon yellow mustard stains on our clothing we made our way through the throngs of people and back to our little RV.
Erley was still quite happy but the interior of the vehicle was just starting to heat up. Perfect timing. We left the parking lot, once again feeling rather smug as we exited to see the police still hard at work waving motorist away from the parking lot, and took the time to tour the adjacent neighborhoods, which had their share of amazing properties and stately manors.
This must have been a VERY wealthy part of the city in the early 1900's, in fact is was a VERY wealthy part of the city right now! We love driving through these types of neighborhoods and looking at the grounds and the architecture. It's one of our favorite activities when we're back home. It's fun to find like the nicest part of town and then park and take a walk. Why walk in the icky parts of town, right?
Well we slowly made our way back across Duluth and drove through the high rise district and parallel parked our 22' RV (no small feat) in the middle of the business district and looked through a couple of antique shops that were right downtown. Afterwards on our way back to the RV we were amazed that no matter what the city, nor it's size, there are ALWAYS about nine or ten really suspect characters hanging around the downtown core. Duluth was no exception. We stepped over a couple of semi-comatose youth lolling in a doorway, and then sort of crossed the street so we wouldn't have to walk right through the middle of six or seven VERY LOUD street people. Why risk it is our motto. Don't be scared, but don't be naive either. Why put yourself into sketchy situations if you don't need to.
We drove back out to the Marina and relaxed for awhile before getting ready to walk down to the Lake Walk district for dinner.
An hour or so later while walking along the Saint Louis River towards the Aerial Bridge we saw a couple of men standing on the sandy beach and casting huge lures far out into the river and retrieving them at breakneck speed back towards shore. Knowing a little something about fishing I knew they were fishing for Muskie, the largest member of the toothy pike family. Jerani and I stopped to watch for a minute and a second later a huge eruption of water burst out from one of the men's triple treble hooked plug.
The man set the hook several times and then horsed in a giant Muskie; right there off a nondescript little beach next to an industrial dock right in the middle of a major metropolitan area. What do you know? I started looking at the surrounding water in a whole different light. I made a mental note to myself to do a little fishing before turning in for the evening.
Once downtown we set to work finding a place to eat, not an easy task given the number of establishments lining Lake Drive. There are couple of hugely popular brew pub style restaurants, sort of Duluth's version of Planet Hollywood. They were both packed, and yet the reviews on the internet were almost unanimously horrendous. All flash and no substance.
There was a Dave's BBQ joint, and the Chicago Pizza parlor (later we kicked ourselves for NOT getting another pizza), but we felt like relaxing a little with a little more of a fine dinning ambiance, something we didn't get to do very often on the road. Getting tired, and both of us starving made a knee jerk decision and settled on a pretty nice looking wood fired steakhouse and BBQ joint. We should have been tipped off when we were taken to our seats and passed through a nearly empty dinning room. We were excited to kick back with a couple of beers and relax, but no one came over to take our order. We were in a booth towards the back of the huge restaurant and we began to think that we had fallen through the cracks, when a frazzled looking waitress drifted around the corner. "Can I get you anything?" Uh yeah, like could we order a couple of beers and get some menus? We've been here almost ten minutes. "Oh sure, do you need some time?" Huh?! Time, no, I think ten minutes is plenty long to think about our beers. Two beers please, and menus? "Oh sure, I'll be right back..." I kid you not, another seven or eight minutes went by, and finally, just about twenty minutes after being seated we got our beers and menus. We sipped our beers and made our menu selections, both deciding on their signature baby-back pork ribs, and then sat there, and sat there some more. Now we had completely finished our beers and still no server came for our order. Finally, over thirty minutes after entering the restaurant, a girl came around the corner and noticed us sitting there with closed menus and empty drink glasses. "Can I take your order?" Well DUH!!!! Yeah, that would be nice. It's ALWAYS nice to get something to eat when going out to dinner. You could tell that this girl was used to B.S.ing her way out of situations like this, and she gave us her most winning smile and said "What can I get you!" We both said we would like another beer, and that we were going to get the Signature Baby-Back Ribs. "Oh I'm so sorry", she said with a little pouty face, "but we are all out of the Baby-Backs". Wow, that's great, there's practically no one in the restaurant and you are out of your signature item. Neither of us had a back-up plan so we then had to hurriedly scan the menu for something else. Jerani decided to punish the establishment by ordering a much less expensive item, opting for a chickenburger, and I finally decided on the Saint Louis Ribs, not my favorite, but at least it would still be BBQ. She left to place our orders and get us a couple of new beers, but appeared again moments later. "Oh I'm really really sorry, but the Chef just informed me that we are out of Saint Louis Ribs too." Really! REALLY! I didn't even have a menu at this point, so I made a snap decision and said "I'll get the Prime Rib", the menu item they were pushing all along. I didn't really want it, but I was just DONE by that time. Then I added, "Do you think maybe you could comp us a meal, or at least one of our meals, we have after-all been here for forty minutes, and have only two beers and have been turned down on two menu items to show for it?" She said she'd have to check, and returned with our drinks and said the best she could do was comp us on these two beers. Whatever...the mood was pretty much toast by that time and we couldn't seem to muster the effort to argue. We sat there drinking our so called free beers which we had more than paid for in time and frustration, and watched another couple that had been seated just minutes after us go through almost the exact scenario, and end up getting comped two free drinks in the end. How can you run a business like this? We were finally served very mediocre plates of food just a little over an hour after arriving. This was closer to banquet food than fine dinning, something you'd expect to get at a buffet. We ate because we were really hungry by then, not for the enjoyment. Our one night out on the road, and it made us remember why we don't go out. It wasn't special, it wasn't memorable, it was just uncomfortable with shlock passed off as good food. And here's the kicker, when the bill finally arrived, the two beers we had been promised showed up at full price. Like we knew that wasn't going to happen. We pointed this out to the smiling server who went back and had the cost removed, and then we paid for our meals (minus a tip, something we NEVER do, but none the less felt obligated to omit) and left. That was GREAT honey, let's make sure to do this again REAL SOON!
We walked back to the RV, took the animals for an early evening stroll while casting a few times off the breakwater hoping for a Muskie but without results. When we got back to the RV there seemed to be a lot of people out drinking and carousing in front of their sites. The Blues Festival was just winding down across the river and so a bunch of the merrymakers who had been to the show were filtering in with friends and something akin to a block party had broken out. We were not in the mood to mingle with strangers, and we were tuckered after our long day of sight seeing and the frustration of our special night out, so we actually turned in early, put ear plugs in to dampen the revelers noise and fell off to sleep.