It occurs to me that it’s been 40 years this week since I visited Wisconsin for the first time — and Minnesota for that matter, though I only passed through that state. I was on a bus full of other San Antonio high school kids on the way to the 1978 Mu Alpha Theta national meeting in Stevens Point, Wis.

So our recent trip up that way was a 40th anniversary tour for me. More or less. More less than more, since I didn’t go near Duluth in ’78, but never mind.

Northeast from Duluth, Minnesota 61 hugs the coast of Lake Superior, offering a number of sites to see. More than we had energy for, unfortunately, since a drive up 61 all the way to the Canadian border — all the way to Thunder Bay, though it’s Ontario 61 up that way — would make for an excellent few days, not an afternoon.

Still, on the afternoon of July 29, we made our way to the town of Two Harbors and Gooseberry Falls State Park. At Two Harbors, we spent time at the rocky shore.
3M was founded in Two Harbors. Unsurprisingly, the company has no presence there any more, though the corporate “birthplace” is a small museum that we didn’t visit.

Rather, we spent a few minutes at the Two Harbors Light Station. Or Light House, depending on the source.
Up the road from Two Harbors is Gooseberry Falls State Park, reportedly the most-visited state park in Minnesota, and I can see why. The place is drop-dead gorgeous even before you get to the falls.
As promised, the park sports plenty of falls as the Gooseberry River cascades toward Lake Superior. Here are the Upper Falls.
The Middle Falls.
The Lower Falls.
I understand that the flow of the falls depends entirely on runoff, since the relatively small Gooseberry has no headwaters. So I guess it’s been a rainy summer in this part of Minnesota.

Who developed much of the park infrastructure? Here’s a clue.
The lads of the CCC, of course.

Near the Upper Falls is an unusual, and sad, plaque. It’s both a warning and a memorial.
I looked up Richard Paul Luetmer, who has missed out on being alive these last 40 years. He went diving in the river and hit a submerged log. RIP, Richard, but I have an editor’s nit to pick with the plaque editor: In Memoriam, not In Memorium.