Trip to Duluth

We all had a nice trip to Duluth last weekend. Sandy and I stayed at "Sue's house" as Annika calls it. Sue Schneider's parents owned several houses on 16th street and this one is the one they have left. I think some day they will move there, but for now they let people stay there. It's really convenient for us to stay there because the boys can have their own room that is dark at night and that they can nap in during the day, Annika gets her own room, and Sandy and I can spend time downstairs when the kids are asleep. It is located very close to Chester Bowl, too, so it's easy to go for walks there. This was the first time that I did not go on a ride-along with Mike, as he was out of town. Downtown Duluth and Canal Park seems to have more of an innocent tourist atmosphere when you did not spend the previous evening cruising first street looking for prostitutes and hauling drunks to the detoxification center.

Some of the things we did in Duluth were visit Sandy's Mom and Dad, go to the "Fish Museum" (expensive but very interesting and nice displays), walked around Canal Park, and went on a picnic at Brighton Beach. We also saw her brother Ron and his family when we met them at Pizza Hut. The primary reason that we went to Duluth this particular weekend, however, was because my friend Jeff Hilgert was having a going away party for his son and friends, because they are leaving town. He won a Bush Fellowship, and the Bush Foundation website says this about him:

Jeff Hilgert, Duluth, is the development coordinator of the Damiano Center, an emergency center for unemployed and working poor people in Duluth. Hilgert wants to become a leading labor advocate with a human rights organization. He will pursue a doctorate degree in labor relations at Cornell University.

In the evenings, Sandy and I would order in some food from places we used to frequent--Grandma's and VIP Pizza--and we watched a movie called "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou." We left Sunday at noon and I played with the boys in the backseat on the way home.