With a few days off at the end of September, it was time to head to Northern Minnesota in search of fall colors. Getting on the road for our three hour road trip, my wife and I got going before sunrise to drop our dog off for the day with a family member allowing us to spend most of the day on the North Shore. While driving, the clouds above us sent out a flash of lighting with thunder quickly rumbling. We both looked around for the storm as there weren’t a lot of clouds above when rain began to land on our windshield. It must just be a small could burst that produced a crack of thunder also just above us. As daylight began to reach across the horizon, we could see areas of spotty showers interspersed with clear skies on this early fall morning. It was a fairly warm morning with sunny skies in the forecast for most of the day making for some bonus shorts weather. Soon the sky began to light up with amazing pinks, reds, and purples making it more difficult to concentrate on driving without staring off into the colorful rising sun.
Eventually the sun breached the horizon sending its warm rays across the sky. As I looked in the opposite direction, I noticed a bright rainbow arching across the sky from the small rain showers. What more could we ask for to start this beautiful fall day? A non-threatening thunderstorm followed by amazing sunrise colors only to be capped off by a gorgeous rainbow. The rain continued to move east and sun moved higher in the sky making way for a nice day to do a little hiking in hopes of finding some beautiful fall colors which are often making their way by now in the northern part of the state.
Reaching Duluth, there was the grandest of the Great Lakes – Lake Superior reaching out across the landscape. A quick stop to use the bathroom and look out at the scenery in front of us and we were back in the car continuing north. Gooseberry Falls State Park was coming up and we decided to make a brief visit since it had been awhile from our last time here. There was definitely less water crashing over the cliffs as dry weather from the summer kept the river lower than usual, but it was still a beautiful park on the shores of Lake Superior.
Now satisfied with seeing some North Shore waterfalls, we climbed back into the car and made a short drive to Split Rock State Park. We had been anticipating colorful foliage to start appearing for much of our travels north and really didn’t find much. The landscape appeared to be pretty green and vibrant as if it was in the middle of summer. A small shrub or tree here and there produced something other than the deep green leaves but that was it. We looked along the shores of this Great Lake hiking several miles and saw very little as far as colorful trees were concerned. Fortunately it was still a beautiful day with great scenery along our way.
With really no colors along the shore, we hiked up on top of some cliffs to see if there were any changing leaves further inland. Sometimes the large lake tends to moderate temperatures keeping these leaves green longer while the inland trees experience different conditions and change a bit earlier. With clear views for miles and miles inland, green prevailed everywhere we looked. A little defeated in our goal of finding some colorful scenery indicating that fall is making its way, we enjoyed our time together and the opportunity to do some hiking on quieter trails. The morning was nearing the end indicating it may be time to start making lunch plans. We had a few miles to hike to our car which would take a little time and then some additional time to drive to a place to grab some delicious food.
On our way back to the car we talked about the disappointing fall colors from this year and some of the spectacular views from the past two years around this same time. Who would have guessed the colorful portion of our journey was right away at sunrise? Still a great day to enjoy with my wife. Here’s a photo from a year ago in the same area.
